Five checks to improve sales
Is your business B2B or B2C? Or is it perhaps H2H?
Whether you are working directly with the end client, or your business is selling to other businesses, it’s worth remembering that you are an individual and you deal with other individuals. This is already clear from the oft-cited phrase, “people do business with people.”
It’s also where the far more recent “H2H” comes in: the Human to Human business approach is based on the recognition that behind every business, consumer, non-profit, or government body, there is a living, breathing human being who is making decisions about your company, about your product or service, and about whether to do business with you.
If money is tight and your sales levels aren’t high enough to support salaries and other overheads and cash demands on your business, you need to pause and take a close look at your cost of sales and your selling prices. What you see there will show how viable your business is right now.
Perhaps the business is in high-growth mode, and sales are increasing rapidly, but there’s still a mismatch; in this case, the business needs finance to support the growth, and you should look at a financing plan to tide you over. On the other hand, if the business isn’t in growth mode, you’ll need to focus on how to grow sales.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that in order to increase sales, there will always need to be a customer. That may be a prospect who becomes a client and starts a relationship with your business or an existing customer, who continues their relationship. But whichever it is, it’s about relationships.
Five ways to improve sales
- Improve the targeting of your marketing. Exploit the experience you have and use client case studies and testimonials to attract new prospects in the sector you are already working in. Alternatively, expand into a different sector, but remember that you’ll be talking to a different audience, and your marketing will need to be adapted.
- Review your customer journey and check that there are no weak points. If you are losing prospects before they convert to customers, try and find out exactly where they are dropping out. Is your website buggy? Does it take too many steps before they find what they’re looking for? Do they give up because you ask them for unnecessary details? Is there a clear call to action and a clear way to contact you?
- Ensure your existing customers know your full product line and your complete range of services. If they are happy, an existing client may prefer to buy an additional product from you, even if it’s slightly more expensive, rather than go to the trouble of finding a new supplier. This way, you may increase sales per customer just by making them aware of your other offerings. It is always cheaper to sell more to an existing customer who knows, likes and trusts you.
- Premium items often offer higher margins, so introduce more high-end products or offer add-ons and related items, so customers spend more on each deal, they make with you.
- If there is nothing more you feel you can offer in the way of new products or services, think about collaborations. Look at your competitors and those who work in similar areas to your organisation and see where you could create synergy: by focusing on your strengths, together you could increase the range of your offering or improve the quality of the products or services you offer. Earning commission and providing a better, wider service to an existing customer is often easier.
To paraphrase an old poem:
Find new clients, but keep the old:
Those are silver; these are gold
It’s far cheaper to retain an existing customer than to onboard a new one, so nurture existing relationships: talk to your current customers: make sure you understand what they need and then work out how you can support them and meet those needs.
Our business is about finance, but we recognise that sales have a huge role to play in the success of your business. We won’t offer to devise a marketing plan or teach you sales strategy, but we can help with other aspects of your business, and we are well-connected.
Whatever you think your business may be lacking, we’re happy to connect and have a chat. Why not give us a ring? Our approach is definitely human-to-human.