How do I grow revenue from the clients I already have?

Rank your clients by margin per day rather than revenue and pick the best three. For each one, identify the next project after the current one and the other departments or teams inside the same organisation, and write down a dated next step. Then send a review email within a week of each delivery that checks the work landed and asks what's next. Account expansion is faster money than new logos.

Which existing clients should I try to grow?

The ones that clear your target margin per day. Margin per day is what a client paid, less what the work cost you, divided by the days the work took. Clients below your floor need repricing, restructuring or letting go before you sell them more work.

How do I get introduced to other departments in a client's organisation?

Ask your contact. Large organisations are siloed, and because you do good work for one team, people are generally happy to refer a good supplier to their colleagues. Ask whether they'd be comfortable introducing you with a short email copying you both. They'll say yes or no, and if it's yes, the follow-up is yours.

Field Guides / Growth

How to grow revenue from the clients you already have

Account expansion is faster money than new logos. Rank your clients by margin per day rather than revenue, pick the best three, and look for two kinds of further work in each: the next project after this one, and other departments or teams inside the same organisation. Then send a review email within a week of each delivery that checks the work landed and asks what's next.

Why do video business owners chase new clients when the ones they have would buy more?

Owners chase new clients because the hunt feels like growth, while the client they already have gets filed under "done" the day the project is delivered. Most owners reach for the new logo first.

The client you already have trusts you, knows your work, and has more problems you could solve. The pattern I see across members is the same. They deliver exactly what was scoped, send the invoice, and never surface the next thing.

One member turned a single discovery call into a menu of offers: a headshot session reframed as a team-building event, with an optional "Meet the Team" add-on. Another kept going deeper with one big client relationship, while keeping no single client dominant.

The car salesman Joe Girard used the relationships he'd already built to tell customers what else the dealership could offer, because selling to someone who has bought before is far easier than attracting someone new. The follow-up habits that keep those relationships warm are in How to get more from referrals and networking.

Which of your existing clients are worth growing?

The existing clients worth growing are the ones that clear your target margin per day. Margin per day is what a client leaves in the business for each day of capacity their work consumes: what they paid, less what the work cost you, divided by the days it took.

Know your numbers shows how to build the margin from a real cost base and where your floor sits, and the Client Profitability Calculator ranks your clients for you. Clients below your floor need repricing, restructuring or letting go before you sell them more work. This guide is about the ones above it.

How to find the expansion revenue in your client list: the method, step by step

The method is a client list review: rank your clients, then for each of the best three, identify the next project and the other departments or teams, and write down a dated next step. Four steps.

Rank the list and pick the top three. Use margin per day, not revenue. Take the three highest that clear your target. Leave the rest for now.
Find the next project after this one. What's coming up in their year that video could help with? If you don't know, that's a question for the review email in the next section.
List the other departments or teams. Large organisations are siloed, and the team that hired you may know little about the work going on next door. Write down the departments you know of and any colleagues your contact has mentioned. These organisations are run by people, and because you do good work for one team, they're generally happy to refer a good supplier to their colleagues. Sometimes you just have to ask.
Fill in the worksheet, one block per client. You're finished when three blocks are filled in, each with a dated next step. If the further work turns out to be the same deliverable every month, it's a retainer, and How to move from one-off video projects to recurring revenue covers how to package and price it.

Copy and paste: the client list review worksheet

Client: [name]

Margin per day: $[ ] (my floor is $[ ] a day, my target is $[ ] a day)

Next project after this one: [what's coming up in their year]

Other departments or teams: [names or roles if I have them]

Next step: [review email, introduction request or call], sent by [date]

How to open the conversation about the next piece of work

The conversation about the next piece of work opens best within a week of delivery, in one email that checks the last job landed and then asks what's next.

Copy and paste: the end-of-project review email

Subject: [Project name]: how has it landed?

Hi [Name],

It's been [a week] since we delivered [the project], and before I close the file I'd like to check how it's landed. Has it done what you needed it to do? Is there anything you'd change? If anything isn't right, tell me and I'll sort it.

Two other questions while it's fresh. What's coming up for you in the next [six months] where video could help? And is anyone else in [the organisation], another team or department, working on something similar?

A fifteen-minute call in the next fortnight would let me hear what's next and tell you whether we're the right people for it.

[Your name]

When your contact mentions another team, ask for the introduction. They'll say yes or no, and if it's yes, the introduction is over to you.

Copy and paste: the introduction request to another department

Hi [Name],

Thanks again for [the project]. You mentioned [the other team] is working on [what they're working on]. Would you be comfortable introducing me to [their name or role]? A short email copying us both is plenty. I'll take it from there and keep you posted.

[Your name]

A worked example

The 12 month audit example in Know your numbers ranks three clients by margin per day: ABC at $250 a day, XYZ at $333 and KLM at $667. ABC is second by revenue and last per day. The client list review starts with KLM: the next project after the current one, then the other departments and teams. XYZ comes second. ABC gets checked against your floor before any expansion work goes its way.

The mistakes that undo it

Four mistakes undo account expansion.

Selling more to a client below your floor. More work from that client means more days at a loss, paid for by your better clients.
Leading with the pitch. Ask about the next job after you've checked the last one.
Waiting for the introduction to happen on its own. Some clients will pass your name on unprompted. Others will do it if you ask, and the ask is one line.
Leaving the introduction with your contact. Once they've made it, the next move is yours: follow it up and suggest a time to talk.

The rule of thumb for growing existing clients

Grow the clients above your target margin per day, not the biggest invoices, and send the review email within a week of every delivery.

The benchmark: three clients, two questions each, one dated next step per client.

Hold yourself accountable

Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?

You know the margin per day of your top three clients, and where your floor sits.
Every client above your target has a dated next step.
You sent a review email within a week of your last delivery.
You've asked at least one client for an introduction to another team this quarter.

Your one move this week

What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.

Take your top five clients by revenue from the last twelve months and work out margin per day for each. See whether the order changes. Then fill in the worksheet for the top three on the new list.

One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.

Questions like these come up regularly on our weekly Elite Boardroom calls. If you'd like someone to hold you to account each week, and to learn from a group of peers who run video businesses too, the Boardroom is for you.