Quick Fixes: Easy Ways to Increase Sales
Earlier this week, I posted "17 Ways to Increase Your Sales". As usual, I gave each of those great ideas its own page, often with its own links to Sales Machine posts that provide greater detail.
However, some readers wanted an easier way to get at the content that they need, when they need it. Here is a summary of the 17 ways, with links to the individual pages. That way you can work with whichever tactic will be most useful to you, right now.
Here they are:
- #1: Increase the Quality of Your Leads -- Build an ideal customer profile and work with marketing (or design your own program) to find more of them.
- #2: Do a Better Job of Lead Qualification -- Make sure, early in the sales cycle that the prospect has both a need and the money to buy.
- #3: Strengthen Your Sales Message -- Strip out the BS and weasel words and describe why you're different and why the prospect should care.
- #4: Weed Out Your Pipeline -- Strip out the deadwood and shed the debilitating belief that half-baked leads are going to close someday.
- #5: Only Contact Real Decision Makers -- Stop wasting time with people who have only minor influence on the decision-making process.
- #6: Focus Your Efforts on Big Buyers -- It's easier to close one big deal than it is to close 10 small deals, even if the revenue is the same.
- #7: Take Control of Your Initial Customer Meetings -- Schedule meetings at your customer's convenience, then reschedule to fit yours.
- #8: Get More and Better Referrals -- Revisit customers accounts and have them recruit contacts and possible prospects.
- #9: Optimize Your Schedule -- Spend extra time to arrange your day so that you get the most done in the shortest amount of time.
- #10: Keep Meetings Short and Sweet -- Set a reasonable goal for each meeting. Once that goal is achieved move to the next meeting.
- #11: Never Surface Objections Yourself -- Instead, make sure that your conversations and presentations make those objections unnecessary.
- #12: Sense the Right Time, Then Close -- Check to see whether there's a green light and then ask for the business. It's that simple.
- #13: Outflank Your Competitors -- Find out who else is calling on your prospect and figure out how to sell against them.
- #14: Increase the Dollar Amount of Each Sale -- Make certain that you're doing everything you can for your customer.
- #15: Decrease Your Sales Cycle Time -- Stop worrying about elapsed time and focus on what you need to do to help the customer buy.
- #16: Create Flexible Terms and Conditions -- Don't lose a good deal because you can't work out the financial details.
- #17: Make Tiny Changes To Get Huge Results -- Make incremental changes in all of the above and you'll get exponential results at the end of the pipeline.