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CRM, lead flow and sales techniques · Selling after the sale

Work out what a new customer costs and what keeping an old one costs.

Acquisition cost is what you spend to win one new customer. Retention cost is what you spend to keep an existing one buying. This page compares the two on your own books, works out how many months a new customer takes to pay back, and ends with a retention economics sheet.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Editorial illustration for Customer acquisition cost optimisation

In one paragraph

Acquisition cost is what you spend to win one new customer. Retention cost is what you spend to keep an existing one buying. This page compares the two on your own books, works out how many months a new customer takes to pay back, and ends with a retention economics sheet.

A coaching centre in Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad, pays for flex boards, Instagram and a counsellor's salary every June, and the owner says admissions are expensive. Ask what it costs to enrol a returning student's younger sibling and the answer is one phone call and a fee receipt. Nobody has ever put the two numbers next to each other.

This page does that. Add up what you spent winning customers in the last twelve months and divide by the customers won. Then add up what you spent keeping the ones you already had. Strip GST out of both sides, because the tax you collect is not your income, and ask your CA how input credit on ad spend should be treated in your books.

Your accountant fills the ledger and the owner reads the result. It replaces the habit of treating every new customer as growth and every repeat order as free. It sits next to the churn and renewal pages, which tell you who is leaving; this one tells you what it is worth to stop them.

Where this sits

Topic 12 of 13 in crm, lead flow and sales techniques: selling after the sale. Onboarding, repeat business and retention as part of selling.

The topic before
Content as a sales tool

If you want this done for you

Find out which channel is actually cheap to acquire from and which only looks that way.

Read the customer acquisition cost optimisation page

The work

What this is actually like.

  • “Retention spend hides in salaries”

    Nobody keeps a ledger head called retention. It is the account manager's phone bill, the free service visit, the Diwali hamper, the Sunday call from the owner. Pull these from payroll, petty cash and the gift register, and give each a share of someone's time. Skip this and retention looks free, which is why it never gets a budget.

  • “Payback is counted in months”

    Divide what a new customer cost you by the margin they bring in each month. The answer is how long before that customer has paid for their own acquisition. A trader who gives sixty days of credit adds two months before the first rupee is real, and the sheet needs a column for it.

  • “Averages hide the expensive source”

    A walk-in who found you on Maps and a dealer your sales head spent a quarter chasing do not cost the same. Split by source before you divide, or the cheap channel hides the dear one and you cut the wrong budget.

  • “Some customers cannot repeat”

    A borewell, a modular kitchen and a wedding hall booking happen once in a decade. Retention for those trades means referrals and reviews, so the sheet should track those instead of forcing a repeat rate that will never appear.

What we do

What you end up with.

The documents this topic produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.

  1. The cost ledger

    Two columns for the last twelve months. Acquisition lines: ads, boards, commissions, the sales team's share of salary, demo and sample costs. Retention lines: service visits, annual maintenance calls, gifts, loyalty discounts, account manager time. The accountant fills it and the sales head names the time shares.

    Result: Finished when every rupee in both totals traces to a ledger head or a payroll line, with nothing left under miscellaneous.

  2. The per-customer sheet

    One row per customer. Columns: name, source, first order date, margin on the first order, margin since, months active, bought again yes or no. Pull it from your billing records, GST-exclusive.

    Result: Finished when you can sort by source and read the cost to win a customer for each source.

  3. The payback table

    For each source: cost to win, monthly margin per customer, credit days, payback months. Four columns, one row per source.

    Result: Finished when the owner can say which source pays back first without opening a calculator.

  4. The budget move

    Today's split between winning and keeping, in rupees, and one proposed move from one side to the other, with a name against it and a review date.

    Result: Finished when one rupee amount has been moved on paper and one person has agreed to own the result.

Why us

Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.

  • Marketing and sales, as one job

    Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.

  • The person on the first call does the work

    No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.

  • A baseline before anything starts

    Your numbers are written down on day one, so every later report compares against something honest.

  • The fee in writing, split three ways

    Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.

  • No guarantees we cannot keep

    The term is agreed in writing and never a default twelve months. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.

  • One office, and we say so

    Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.

#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.

Your brief

Tell us what you need, and we will read it before we call.

Eight short steps about your business, what you want and who decides. Most questions are a tap, and you can skip any you would rather answer on the call.

Tell us what you needor call +91 80958 58589

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
How do I count the owner's own time?
Price it at the monthly salary you would pay a manager for the same hours, and split it by how those hours are spent. Leaving it out flatters every number on the sheet. A buyer or a bank manager will add it back when they read your accounts.
Is this worth doing with a short customer list?
Yes, and the sums are smaller. If you can name every customer, skip the averages and read them one by one. Write beside each name what winning them cost and whether they came back.
Which customers count as retained?
Anyone who bought, renewed or paid for service in the last twelve months, in whatever cycle your trade runs. A school's cycle is a year. A tyre shop's is the next puncture. Settle on one definition, note it in the header of the sheet, and change nothing until the next review is complete.
Do I need my CA for this?
For the ledger split, yes. They know which costs sit under which head and how GST input is treated. For the decision you do not. The owner reads the payback column and acts on it.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts. For sales work it is mostly our time, with production only where scripts, decks or CRM setup need it.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
Fixes to reply time and follow-up are the quickest to show, because the enquiries already exist. Process, CRM and training changes show as the team uses them. Each one is tracked against the baseline.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
To start, last month's enquiries in any format and time with whoever handles them. After that, access to the accounts the work touches, such as the website, Google Business Profile or CRM.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

Where to go next

The work that carries this topic further.

Services

The rest of selling after the sale

Or read all of crm, lead flow and sales techniques.

Your next practical step

Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.

Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.

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