Keeping It Simple
The fastest, simplest ways to grow your business - no jargon, no fluff. Practical strategies that actually work for SME owners in the USA, New Zealand, and worldwide.
Ask most SME owners how they'll grow next year and the plan is almost always about finding new customers. Few have actually worked out what their current customers would buy next, if only someone asked at the right moment. The cheapest growth lever in most businesses isn't a new campaign. It's already sitting at the point of sale, unused. Kevin D'Ambros-Smith has built and sold nine companies across eCommerce, retail and services, and the fastest margin gains he finds in a new client's business are almost never from new customers, they're from the transaction already happening.
Acquisition-Only Thinking
The enemy is treating every sale as a one-off instead of a first step. New-customer acquisition gets the attention, the ad budget and the board-meeting slide, while the far cheaper question, what else would this exact customer buy right now, rarely gets asked at all.
The scale of what's possible here is best illustrated, oddly, by the biggest retailer on earth. McKinsey's research into Amazon's recommendation engine found that roughly 35 percent of what customers buy there is driven directly by product recommendations at the point of purchase. Amazon isn't finding new customers for that 35 percent. It's simply asking an existing one, at the right moment, if they'd like one more relevant thing.
The Checkout Audit
You don't need Amazon's technology to use the same principle. This is the three-question audit Kevin runs with SME clients on their actual point of sale, whether that's a till, an invoice or a booking form.
- Pair - what is the single most common thing a customer buys right before or after your core product or service, and is it actually offered to them at the point of sale, or left for them to think of themselves.
- Price - is your best or middle-tier option the one you actually want most customers choosing, or is it buried below the cheapest one on the page.
- Prompt - is there a specific, time-bound reason for an existing customer to buy again this quarter, or are you simply waiting for them to remember you exist.
“You make success tangible. Help me go from a wish to reality. Now have clarity of purpose and belief. You made tripling the size of my business go from seeming impossible to really possible.”
— Lina, Good Gravy
Why Owners Don't Ask for More from Existing Customers
Most owners could name their most commonly paired product or service without thinking hard. They don't offer it at the point of sale because asking feels like upselling, and upselling feels pushy. It only feels pushy when it's generic. A specific, relevant, well-timed offer to someone who already trusts the business is a service, not a pitch.
This is where an outside, numbers-first read of the business pays for itself quickly: a coach with no attachment to how checkout has always worked can spot, in one session, the obvious pairing or pricing gap an owner has walked past every single day for years. None of this requires new technology or a bigger team. It requires someone to actually look at the checkout the way a stranger would, instead of the way it has always been built.
Quick Wins
- Write down the one thing most customers buy alongside your core offer, and check whether it's actually offered at the point of sale.
- Look at your pricing page and check whether the tier you want most people choosing is the easiest one to see.
- Pick one specific, time-bound reason for existing customers to buy again this quarter, and send it this week.
- Ask your three best customers what else they wish you offered, and listen for the pattern.
Key Takeaways
- Roughly 35 percent of Amazon's sales are driven by recommendations at the point of purchase, the same principle scales down to any SME checkout.
- Run the Checkout Audit: Pair, Price, Prompt.
- A specific, relevant offer to an existing customer is a service, not an upsell.
- The cheapest growth lever is usually already inside the transaction you're having right now.
Growth sitting inside your existing customer base doesn't need a bigger ad budget. It needs a system.
Kevin D’Ambros-Smith
Kevin is the founder of Simple-Growth and a business growth coach with experience at DDB, Ogilvy, and Saatchi & Saatchi. He has co-founded 9 companies, coached 200+ business owners one-on-one, and holds a 9.5/10 NPS. Every article on this blog reflects real-world experience - no theory, no fluff.
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