151 Quick Ideas to Increase Sales

By Linda Sparks

Sales is the lifeblood of the vast majority of companies. Without the influx of new business, most organizations would wither and die. So sales must be successful, not just once in a while but constantly—every month, every week, every day.

Because we constantly need more sales we also need new ideas for identifying and contacting our prospects, for understanding and meeting their needs and most of all, for inspiration to fight the good fight.This book will be a wise and ambitious member of your sales team, a one-time investment that will pay for itself over and over again. No commissions required!

151 Quick Ideas to Increase Sales is all about increasing the return on the investment you make in your organization’s business development program. It will break down the walls between the sales function and the other promotional elements in a typical marketing mix, allowing for a more synergistic approach to sales. 151 Quick Ideas to Increase Sales shows you proven sales tactics from a variety of business models and how to put them to work in your own programs. Tactics such as:

• — Branding Your Products
• — Creating Cross Promotions
• — Letting direct mail deliver
• — Selling More to Existing Clients
• — Reaching Out to the Community

These ideas will allow you to leverage the assets and momentum present in your existing system, and use your skills and knowledge to get exactly what you need and want more sales!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Sep 15, 2006
• ISBN: 9781601639158

Linda Sparks

Linda Sparks was born in Toronto, Ontario and graduated from George Brown College in Fashion. Her career started in the Toronto fashion industry but a move to the country changed her direction and she began costume building for the Stratford Festival Theatre in the late 1980s. After almost ten years in theater, she opened Farthingales in 1997, a company she created to supply architectural products to the theater industry of North America. Farthingales stocks unique products like corset making materials, that can't be found in most fabric stores.  In 2006 Linda opened Farthingales L.A. Inc. to better supply the US market. Farthingales L.A. Inc. is a corset shop, selling the raw materials, patterns, books and both ready made corsets and custom corsets. The L.A. location is also where Linda teaches her corset making workshops. She is the author of The Basics of Corset Building.

Book preview

1

Business Development Is the Bottom Line

If a sale is an individual transaction, then the organization’s overall sales function should embody a broader perspective that can be referred to as business development. It’s all about developing new business for your organization. Business development principles should be known and carried out in every nook and cranny of the organization, and by just about everyone in the organization.

It all works in a cycle. When your organization develops new products or services, the goal is attracting and retaining specific customers. Servicing customer accounts with honesty, accuracy, and integrity closes the loop on this cycle of business development by making sure that customers have no reason to leave you and every reason to stick around and provide very valuable referrals. And finally, every strategic plan has, at its core, goals to acquire and retain customers. Almost everything done in your organization has a clear and practical tie to good business development.

Assignment

Develop a transaction map that tracks your products/services. I challenge you to find an element that cannot be tied to business development. Separately, create a process list that details the steps that make up your formal sales activities. Make this fun by picking up a new box of crayons and invite everyone in the organization to come by and add their own contributions.

Documenting a complete business development continuum for your organization will help everyone recognize their existing inter-dependence.

Epilogue

The whole is worth far more than the sum of its parts.

2

Marketing 101: Lots of Ways to Influence Sales

In order to make more sales, it’s a good idea to look at the wide range of methods you have available to influence customers and prospects. Often we lose sight of the fact that direct sales activities represent only one of many essential elements of an overall marketing mix—one tool in the business development toolbox. For some the term sales has become passé, even unseemly. The term marketing has been substituted in polite conversation in order to protect sensitivities. But just substituting the word marketing in place of sales has not changed the reality of the situation. Sales must be made if your organization is going to continue to stay in business.

Assignment

Make a list of the elements you know of from your marketing mix that impact your business development success. Rank them in order of importance and add categories you don’t think are covered here. Keep the list; by the time you finish this book you’ll be adding more!

Many things influence the prospect along the business development continuum, so it pays to understand the other elements in the marketing mix and how they might help you to make a sale.

Some of the elements that make up a typical marketing mix are advertising, public relations, Websites, pricing strategies, cross promotions, trade shows, special events, direct sales, and publishing and speaking.

Epilogue

There are 64 colors in the crayon box, and all of the colors can help you make a nice picture. There are more elements than you think.

3

The Three-Phase Business Development Process

In the grand scheme of things—business development things, that is—there exists a basic, three-phase process:

• Phase One: Getting to Know You

• Phase Two: Formal Sales

• Phase Three: Customer and Account Management

Although it is easiest to describe this as a linear process, as if the prospect/customer moves along a flat continuum from one phase to the next, the fact is that all three phases represent a dynamic series of transitions and feedback. Phase One starts with the organization floating its image and message in the prospect /customer pool. When the potential prospect recognizes that your firm is one of its options for a solution to a problem, then we transition to Phase Two and Formal Sales. Once the sale is made we make the formal transition to Phase Three: Customer and Account Management.

Because most organizations tend to be stronger in one phase of the business development process than they are in the other two, the sales effort can sometimes lose momentum. It is important that everyone in the organization understands how each of these phases plays out and the impact they each have on business development success.

Assignment

Make a list of the strengths and weaknesses you feel your organization has in each of these phases.

Epilogue

Good things tend to come in threes.

4

Trust- and Rapport-Building—It’s Still Sales

The first phase in business development begins with letting people get to know you. A great deal of the groundwork with prospects is laid out before you even get to meet them. They will make judgments about you based on your brand. Your brand is who and what you are in the eyes of others. How, when, and what prospects learn about you, your organization, and your solutions in this early stage can have a dramatic impact on your success at moving them to sales.

For example, in a professional services environment, being known as a forward-thinking, approachable professional who participates openly in a local business association may be the perfect groundwork for this phase. You and the future prospect may not even know each other yet, but you have begun a path of trust by sharing a common interest and bumping into each other professionally.

Assignment

Become active in a professional, business, or community group that will put you in proximity of your future prospects, and let them get to know you.

Most small businesses don’t have unlimited funds to perform expensive marketing activities. Choosing how you promote your organization in this phase will say a lot to potential prospects. Do you value similar things? Do you speak their language? The goal is to be well known to them by the time they need your particular product or service.

Epilogue

Time is money. Be truly present in the community you wish to serve.

5

The Formal Sales Cycle: Parts Are Parts

The formal sales phase of the business development continuum is triggered when the prospect admits a specific need and recognizes your firm as a potential supplier of the solution. This is the point when a lead turns into a prospect. You will close more sales if you recognize the distinct components of this phase and keep your actions on track.

Discovery: Develop a systematic approach to gathering the customer information you need to develop a solution.

Proposal: The proposal represents your offer of services or products in response to the prospect’s request for assistance. If you have performed a discovery process, you will be able to speak to the situation much more completely than your competition. The proposal represents the technical aspects of the solution you propose.

Assignment

Think about creative ways to present your solutions to prospects. Think as a stage manager, an orchestra conductor, or even a high school teacher preparing an important lesson for a group of preoccupied teenagers.

Presentation: The presentation of the proposal document (or your product) is your opportunity to convince the prospect to choose your solution. Treat the presentation as an important appointment with your prospect regardless of whether it was pre-scheduled or not. Build a case for your solution by demonstrating that you understand the prospect’s situation, the desire for this type of product or service, and why your particular offer is the one that offers maximum satisfaction.

Epilogue

What you have to offer is not nearly as important as what your prospect thinks of it.

6

They May Be Clients Already—But It’s Still Sales

Once a sale has been made with a new customer you have triggered the third phase of the business development continuum: the customer/account management phase. It is important to note that this is not the end of the continuum. Customers represent the best source of add-on sales and qualified referrals, and the level of operational feedback that drives innovation and fuels public relations efforts. They may be customers, but some of your most productive sales activities will occur in and around these accounts.

Contracting: The prospect becomes a customer at the moment of agreement. Whether you have a retail transaction or a written agreement, or simply do business with a handshake, this represents an important transition in the relationship. The prospect has chosen you and can reinforce his or her own decision by inviting others to choose you as well.

Add-On Sales: If you effectively engage your customer and do your job well, there will often be new opportunities to serve. This is a beautiful thing, but you need to be prepared to handle it. Plan ahead for the potential needs of your customers and develop a proactive approach to recognize, quote, and close add-on business. If needs fall outside your offerings, be prepared with a thoughtful referral.

Assignment

Analyze your customer base and determine what percentage of your sales comes from repeat customers or referrals from those customers.

Customers as Champions: Nothing can help your sales more than customers singing your praises, providing you with qualified referrals, and simply being a good partner. This final element in the business development continuum brings you full circle and places new leads directly into the trust and rapport phase of your program.

Epilogue

Treat customers as if they are your best prospects—because they are!

7

Clarify What You’re Really