Serving over 2 Million visitors each year

Search
Comprehensive Online Business Insurance
Tailored PI, Office, Public & Employers' Liability Insurance
Are you covered? Read our Essential PI Guide
Get a Quote and buy online in minutes

Six steps to improve your sales results

print  e-mail 

Bryan McCrae of Cognitive Sales looks at how small businesses can improve their sales and marketing efforts.

Whatever your business offering, there are often a similar set of core issues that many start up companies face;

What is your market and position in it ?

Being clear about your market, where you are in it and where you want to be are essential foundations to creating a plan to get there. A few simple questions help to clarify this.

  • What do you sell?
  • Who do you sell to today
  • Who are your ideal customers?
  • Who are your competition

What is your Unique Sales Proposition (USP)?

Complete the following sentence;

"Customers will buy from me because my business is the only/best..."

What is yours? If you don't know why people should buy from you rather than your competition, then how on earth do you expect to sell anything ?

What does your offering do for your customer?

The team at Cognitive Sales often find that web sites or brochures talk lots about the products, services or technology and little or nothing about the benefits of using them. This leaves the prospective customer to work out the benefits for himself, which is a risk you need not take. The answer here is to sell the benefits, not the features.

From the customers' perspective, ask 'so what?' to each feature. The answers that you come up with are your potential benefits.

Don't' forget the softer issues, often personal and emotional, which despite our best efforts often govern the buying decisions that we make (whether we realise it or not).

Are you getting your message out in the best ways?

There are potentially many tens, or even hundreds, of ways of getting your message out to your potential customers, but I often find that businesses get stuck in a rut of only using one or two and that there are often better approaches that can be taken (or even worse, try one, see no immediate success so stop all promotional activities).

The secret here is to try several different promotional approaches on a small scale and to measure the return on investment from each method, working out how much each sales lead costs. Do more of the ones that work best and modify or drop the ones that don't work as well. How many different ways do you promote your business? You should experiment with at least 6 and see what works best for you.

Do you have the right tools for the job?

Would you try and work as a car mechanic without some basic tools? If you did, at best, it would take you much longer to get the job done. At worst, you simply could not complete the work. Apply this principle to marketing and selling and you'll soon discover that having the right tools makes the job a whole lot easier, more fun and more profitable.

Examples of some suitable tools are;

  • Happy client testimonials
  • Demonstrations
  • Samples
  • Case studies

Testimonials are probably the most powerful tools available as they are an independent indicator of your ability to do a good job. Assuming that you do deliver a good product or service, most clients are happy to give a testimonial if approached in the right way at the right time. Video testimonials work even better.

Don't go on wild goose chases.

In sales and marketing there is always more work that could be done and it is not unusual to have more potential activity on the go than you can handle. So you have to choose between trying to give everything equal priority (the shotgun approach) or carefully select the best opportunities (the guided missile approach). Guess which would work best? You can blast away at anything that moves with your shotgun in the hope that you will hit something every now and then, or you can carefully pick out the best targets with your guided missiles one at time.

If you are not choosing which opportunities to go for and which to pass over, in a repeatable, measurable way then you are wasting money on wild goose chases and missing business that could be yours.

About the Author

Bryan McCrae is a Sales Psychologist and Managing Director of Cognitive Sales, which specialises in helping ambitious SMEs grow their sales fast. For further information on Cognitive sales please click here.

Latest articles in Sales Guides
 
Make it harder for customers to walk away
The easiest money your business can get is from existing clients. Someone who has a relationship with you is much more likely to spend money with you again. Here are seven ways you can make it harder for existing customers to walk away from your business: [August 24, 2010]
 
Guide to soft selling for small businesses
In this article, we look at some examples of soft selling tactics you can employ in your business which may help accelerate both sales and the building of trusting relationships. [December 8, 2009]
 
Turn past customers into your best source of new business
There are two ways to boost sales in your business: either get more customers, or sell more to your existing customers. [August 13, 2009]
 
Six steps to improve your sales results
How start-ups can improve their sales and marketing by looking at a similar set of core issues, such as finding your market, identifying your USP, getting your message across, and making sure you have the right tools for the job. [July 3, 2009]
 
10 ways to keep customers happy during the downturn
Small business owners will be working hard (and longer hours) to offset the effects of the economic downturn. Whereas customers may have flocked to you during the boom, now you need to go that extra mile to keep existing customers happy, and gain some new ones. Here are some top tips. [February 4, 2009]
 
Sales promotions - alternatives to price cutting
Increasingly, companies of all sizes, and especially brands and those with a defined image, are aware that price cutting can have disastrous long term effects on both the general public’s perception of the brand and on company profits. Here's how you can win more business by using sales promotions instead of cutting your prices. [January 23, 2009]
 
How to convert more leads into sales
One of the biggest sales and marketing problems businesses can face is getting people who seem interested in buying something to actually take the plunge and hand over their money. Here are some ideas to improve your sales conversion rate. [January 7, 2009]
 
Rapport building and product knowledge - the keys to effective selling
Why do so many people and organisations insist on following a script when they are selling? It’s obvious that it’s insulting and it does nothing to build rapport. Here's a guide to generating sales effectively without using a script. [December 19, 2008]
 
How to keep winning clients during a recession
There are two key things small business owners should look out for throughout 2009. The first is to hang on to the clients you already have. Secondly, get out there and keep winning new clients. Here are some ideas to help you achieve these aims. [December 15, 2008]
 
Improve your sales by understanding the numbers
How to put into place a successful sales model, and how to effectively understand the numbers that affect leads turning into revenue. How to test changes in order to generate more revenue. [October 27, 2008]
 
Why we fear selling and how you can overcome it
The fear of selling is something which most first time business owners suffer from. In this article we look at what lies behind a fear of selling and what you can do to overcome it. [October 20, 2008]
 
Turn the credit crunch into a powerful sales tool
Why smaller businesses may be better placed that their larger rivals to profit during a downturn. We look at how you can capitalise on the credit crunch and turn it into a powerful sales tool for your business. [October 20, 2008]
 
10 tips to maximise online sales over the festive season
As more and more people shop online, web-based retailers are hoping for record sales this Christmas, despite a downturn in High Street retail figures. Here are some tips to maximise your sales over the festive season. [September 11, 2008]
 
Sales prospects - do you speak their language?
In this guide we look at one of the areas that can make a big difference on results - how we communicate with our prospects and clients [June 17, 2008]
 
5 ways to get more sales this summer
WIth the UK determined to talk itself into a recession, you should take every step you can to keep your revenue as high as you can now. Here are five ideas to get more sales this summer. [May 30, 2008]
 

Click Here





Our Partners
Key Services
Key Services
Useful Guides

© Bytestart Limited 2005-2010 - All Rights Reserved | Terms of Use | Site List | Website Feeds | Rss Feed RSS Feed

Business Insurance, Business Bank Accounts, Public Liability Insurance, Professional Indemnity, Startups, Limited Company, Sole Trader