Finding ways to consistently increase sales is one of the most important activities of any business. Even when companies are reporting record sales, they must consistently prepare their sales pipeline and engage their sales strategies for future growth.
Whether your business is booming and you are looking for ways to improve your current patterns of success, or you have room for improvement with your current sales techniques, here are 5 guaranteed ways to build your pipeline and increase sales.
1. Provide More Value More Often: Staying in touch with clients and prospects is essential to increasing sales. How do you ensure that constant contact doesn’t become counter productive? The answer is to ensure that each time you reach out, you provide something of value.
2. Shift Your Focus from “Fixing Problems” to “Continuing Success”: Never assume that your prospects are damaged and in need of fixing. In our business, our focus is on how to take strong customers and make them stronger, hence our slogan “We Help Good Businesses Become Great”.
This simple shift in thinking can have amazing results. Evaluate how you’re positioning yourself and your solutions and see if the way your are positioning your services actually limits your market.
3. Make it Easy to Do Business With You: Go through the process of investigating, purchasing and using your product as if your were a customer. Become a secret shopper for your business. Is it seamless? How easy is it to contact you or your business?
4. Share Your Successes: Everyone wants to be part of a winning team, including existing clients and prospects. The book “Made to Stick” cites the example of SafeExpress, a family owned shipping company that wanted to increase sales locally to firms that were not accustomed to paying higher rates for shipping and distrusted SafeExpress’ claims of secure, on-time delivery. To win new business, SafeExpress touted its success with other important, security sensitive projects; in particular, safely delivering the fifth Harry Potter book to thousands of locations at a specific time without the early leak of a single book. Do you have success stories that you can share?
5. Expand Your Internal Sales Force: Who’s the most effective salesperson in your company? It may be the CEO, your best performing sales person, or your receptionist. Yes, the receptionist. Many company’s overlook some of their best human resources when it comes to sales. Receptionists, secretaries and other employees in customer-facing roles have a bigger impact on sales than you think. Need proof? Have you ever hear anyone ask ” Would you like fries with that?” This simple question turns millions of order-takers at fast-food restaurants into revenue generating sales people. How can you do that in your business?
Implementing even one of these steps can have a significant impact on your business growth. If you follow all 5 steps, you will be on track to improve your marketing, build your pipeline and dramatically increase sales and grow your business revenues.
(Chakisse Newton)