8 Tips for Increasing Your Sales

I asked 8 of our article contributors to provide a helpful tip on how to increase sales. The tips are provided below.

Tip 1: Sell More to Your Existing Customers

Up-sell to your existing clients to increase the sales for your business. Often existing clients are overlooked for additional service or product sales yet it is well known that it is less expensive and easier to sell to existing customers.

Donna Richardson – Mobilize Mail

Tip 2: Be specific about who you’re selling to

Don’t try and be everything to everyone. Be specific about who your market is and always keep them in mind when developing new ideas or marketing approaches. Excluding the wrong customers is a key element to having a strong brand.

Bella Katz – Bella Katz International Marketing

Tip 3: Serve, don’t sell

Don’t ever sell anybody anything. Ever. Just serve them where they are in what they need, even if their need has absolutely nothing to do with what you sell. If you were disciplined enough to stop selling your product or service and simply figure out how to serve the people you meet, your sales would increase exponentially.

Charles Blakeman – Team Nimbus West

Tip 4: Know when its time to shut your mouth

Selling is about enthusiasm and passion, it’s about knowing everything there is to know about your product, and most importantly it’s about knowing when it’s time to make the sale. Good sales people know customers motivational triggers and can read their buying signals. If they are ready to buy then shut your mouth and close the sale, you’ll be doing them and you a big favour.

Craig Garner – Monday Morning

Tip 5: Provide something that is of value

Understand what you are selling and know how it makes a difference to your customer. If you can clearly understand the benefits or merits of your product and service then you know how to sell it to be compelling, of interest and ultimately of value.

Fiona Hewitt – Brand You

Tip 6: Better leads for better sales

It’s not just about more leads, but more, better quality leads that are more likely to result in a sale. Get together with key stake holders in your sales and marketing team and develop and define your “ideal sales lead” and how best to generate, qualify and process these – leads that are 100% certain will result in a sale. Focus on generating more quality leads to improve your sales.

Richard O’Brien – NZBizBuySell.co.nz

Tip 7: Invest in your Brand

A strong brand will carry you through the toughest times. Your brand should communicate the things that make your product or service unique. Promote your brand in many different ways that are consistent with the image you want to portray. Be patient. Building a brand takes a long time but creates long lasting value.

Liz Koh – MoneyMax

Tip 8: Use Killer Testimonials

Before a customer buys your product and service for the first time they will think up of numerous reasons for not doing so. For example: will I get value for money? What if it doesn’t solve my problem? These are objections. The best way to reduce the risk for the customer is to provide killer testimonials for your product or service. A killer testimonial doesn’t just say how great your product is but also hits an objection on the head. Think of all the objections your customer may have then get your existing customers to provide testimonials which kill them dead.

Michael Smyth – approachablelawyer.com