Nothing happens until something is sold. Most businesses fail because they don’t have enough sales. Why? Several reasons.
The three main causes of low sales are poor customer service, poor products, poor sales practices, and no USP.
Low Sales- not seeing enough prospects is the number one reason a business’ sales are low. Solutions for these problems will be discussed later in this report.
Customer Service- There are two sources of income for a business, revenue from current accounts, and revenue from new business. Poor customer service can certainly pull sales down. Some simple things that can be done to insure that current customer sales continue.
1. Return calls immediately or no later than one hour. One company I know well has a policy of returning customer’s calls within 24 hours. That shows management at that company has no clue as to what excellent customer service is.
2. Do what you say you will do. Keep commitments. When a customer requests something and you say you will have it for him tomorrow afternoon, have it to them that afternoon.
3. Good follow up is imperative. Business now days moves very fast and involve many details. Make extra efforts to not let details fall through the cracks.
4. When there is bad news tell the customer right away, and have a solution for the problem. Resist the urge to put off calling the customer.
5. Never miss a deadline. Few things can make a customer angrier than your missing a deadline that affects him. Do whatever is needed to meet the customer’s deadline even if it means staying up all night.
6. Have frequent contact with your customers. When you are not in front of your customer, your competition is. Take every opportunity to stop by and see your client. Build a strong relationship with them.
Product- a poor product can be the kiss of death to a business. Few salespeople no matter how talented can be successful with a dog of a product. Analyze your company’s products. Are they poorly made? Is its performance poor? Is your product too expensive? Are your marketing materials excellent? If there is a problem here, fix it.
No unique selling proposition- this is how you make your business unique and different from the competition. This is necessary in order to give your sales staff reason customers should buy from you. One student I coached decided to sell exclusively hunting knives rather that sell a wide range of knives. That is very different and unique from the competition.
What to do?
Low sales-
1. Training- most sales staffs across the nation have had little or no training. No wonder those company’s sales are down. Hold sales meetings every Monday. Either hire a top sales person in the area to come in and teach your staff or buy some good DVDs or CDs by the best sales gurus. Play them at each sales meeting.
Role play- sale people hate to role play. They are afraid management will see how poor their sales skills are. Role play every Monday. They will get better selling.
Reasons to buy- develop a list of ten reasons for a prospect to buy from you. Have the sales people memorize them. It will increase the sales people’s confidence 500%. Practice them every sales meeting.
Objections- have the sales staff develop a list of the ten most used objections. Have them develop three ways to over come each objection. Have them memorize them. Their confidence will increase 500% more.
The pitch- develops a sales story that will hold the prospect’s interest and lead to a closing.
Closing- have each sales person learn three different closes and practice, practice, practice.
Implement these practices and sales can’t help but soar.
2. See enough prospects. Set a required standard of contacts made per week. Let the sales people manage their own time as long as they see the required amount of clients. Have them fill out a report on his/her activity that week and meet with that person for five minutes each Monday. Have them report what they did.
3. Get excellent sales materials what every the staff needs.
Product- If your product is inferior find another product, find another use for the product, and find another target market for the product. Doing these tactics will increase a businesses’ sales dramatically.
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