3 Powerful Sales Strategies To Drive Up Your Income Now!
In the last 25 years, I have worked with thousands of business owners at varying levels of success. All of them want to grow (become more profitable) and become more efficient. Regardless of business size, years in their industry, systems and struggles, selling is always a critical area that can be improved upon.
Here are 3 tips that will change your revenue for the better:
1. Focus on sales 3 hours a day (minimum). Have you ever heard the phrase ‘what you resist, persists’? Basically, what you avoid will only become a bigger issue. So many business owners misdirect their time and energies for other important tasks in running a business at the expense of generating sales. If you need to drive more revenue, then you MUST create a daily sales action list. Here are a few things you can do to focus on sales on a daily basis.
- Make a list of all business activities that are directly linked to sales — cold calling, following up on leads from websites, networking activities, working on referrals, etc. Define what those activities actually do and what percentage of your business comes from ‘closing’ those leads or following up on those tasks.
- Block specific time for sales activities. Sales activities should never be something that you will ‘get around to’, yet so many business owners never block specific time for sales. Even if you have a sales team, you must specify what activities you want them to focus on and give them the appropriate resources to do so.
- Measure everything. How do you know if cold calling works if you don’t measure it? Have you tracked how many customers have come from your networking efforts? Keep track of your high yield activities so you can focus your efforts there.
2. Have a nurture plan. You can’t go from the first date to marriage all in one contact. The average number of touch points you have to make is dependent on your industry, BUT, general standards are 9-11 touches before the prospect becomes a customer. That means you must have a plan for each conversation (touch point) whether it is through a phone call, in person meeting, email or direct mail piece. Outline the ideal scenario that moves a prospect to customer and be as specific as possible.
3. Never go into a sales call without knowing how you’re going to close the sale. Your sales conversation is one of the most important business activities to perfect. It doesn’t matter how good your product is if you can’t bring people through the sales process. It is very important that you know how to move a prospect from interest to purchase. The more complicated or high end your product, the more trust language you must use to convert that prospect to a customer.
No matter what your business does, selling is the life line to success. A clear sales plan is critical for all businesses. When we work with our clients in our Pinnacle Mastermind, we spend extensive time in developing sales strategies that connect. Make sure you are spending daily, dedicated time on your sales process.
Finally, know your numbers. How many contacts do you need to reach to close one sale? How many sales do you need to make each day to generate your revenue goals? All of these numbers are essential to creating your sales plan. When you begin to measure and monitor your numbers, make sure your entire team is on board and knows what it takes to make the business grow. Celebrate the successes and learn from the missed goals. If you are consistently missing the mark, revisit your process and determine your weak points and correct it. If you are consistently hitting your goals, raise the bar. Challenge your business to grow beyond your initial goals.
Make sure you stay connected because I’ll be sharing more specific tips on how to create your sales plan, design conversations that convert, track sales and improve performance. I’d love to send you more business building tips, just click here to get on our list.
“When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.” – Thomas S. Monson
Allison Maslan is a serial entrepreneur of 10 of her own companies. She is a No. 1 Bestselling Author and pres. of Allison Maslan International where she mentors big thinking entrepreneurs to grow high-revenue businesses and healthy and passionate lives in her year long mastermind program, The Pinnacle. Allison has been an expert guest on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox Stations across the US. She is also interviewed in the upcoming 2013 issue of Success Magazine. Grab a copy of her FREE CD, 8 Millionaire Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs. www.myblastoff.com/cd.
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