“How do I make more sales and increase business profit?” This is the question that is constantly on every business owner and sales rep’s mind. It can be difficult to come up with strategies to increase sales on your own. Below are five tips that have helped me increase sales and profits. These pointers are ones I apply as a national sales director in the trucking industry, but feel free to tweak the advice to best suit your business or position in your company.
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Revisit Pricing
Always follow up with your customer and see how your pricing looked. If you lead a company that prides itself on good service, the customers might not mind spending a premium to use your services. However, the only way to know their budget is to ask and get feedback. Although you and the company may not be making as much as expected on your original quote, I find that doing a job at a reduced rate is better than not doing it at all and can open doors for future opportunities.
Reduce Services
This may seem like an unlikely way to make more money, but this step could save you a ton in costs that aren’t pulling their weight. Take a look at all the things you offer the customer. Is there a program that could be cut without losing customer satisfaction? Maybe you could cut an outdated promotional service or drop that annual convention employees attend that isn’t bringing in a return.
Sometimes services are costly and don’t hold much value to the customer. In my case, we were paying to promote posts on our Facebook page almost weekly. Although it’s fun to show people the pictures of the big moves we handled, there was no real return on the effort. Moving forward, I made the decision to only pay to promote posts every couple of months that were worthy of the extra attention.
Try to be a little strict with yourself while you’re looking over your list of services, and try to see things objectively. Also, try to brainstorm and see if any of the services you offer could be simplified a bit — if not altogether discontinued.
Foster Relationship-Based Sales
There are a few different ways you can build relationship-based sales with your clients. For example, a coffee shop could offer a punch card. The customer would get a punch every time they buy a drink, and once they have all the punches on the card (usually 10 drinks) they get one free. A service-based business could offer weekly, monthly or yearly plans. The idea behind these promotions is to get the customer to keep returning to you.
I make it a point to try and get in to see my customers across the country once a quarter to say hello, address any concerns, and reiterate that they can reach out to you any time with any issues they may have. Not only does this solidify the business relationship by putting a name with a face, but it can also lead to friendships on a personal level, which makes the job that much more fun when you can discuss things other than the current market.
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Spend Money To Make Money
The main thing I recommend is to always have something going on that will have your customers thinking about your brand and make it easy to contact you when necessary. Offering shirts, pens, pads, videos, podcasts and so on can be a great way to do that. Although producing them may cost some money, in the end I’ve found promotions like these to be excellent ways for customers to keep up with what’s going on within your organization.
Stay Relevant
The first thing most people do nowadays when they’re looking for a certain company is to Google them. Make sure your company appears on search engines. You can learn the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) in an afternoon. If you are not going to hire a professional to do your SEO, then I believe you should at least learn your basics and see where you can apply them to your business’s site. Your services won’t be fully recognized if people can’t find them easily.
This means using your company website and social media to promote your business. Use social apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, and make sure they are updated frequently. These big names can help ensure that you reach more potential customers. You can also interact with the customers that you already have and create some free advertising for yourself. Answering questions and replying to comments can make your customer base happier and more likely to recommend your business via word of mouth.
In conclusion, these five tips can help any type of business increase profit while building firmer relationships with customers and people within your industry.