If you’re feeling dejected by your company’s sales numbers, we’ve got some good news for you: It doesn’t have to be that way. There are many ways to improve your bottom line, and they don’t always involve new strategies or major budget changes — in fact, sometimes the best solutions are right before your eyes.
To help you get out of the trenches, we spoke with successful entrepreneurs and asked them what they would do if they were in charge of increasing sales and profitability at a company today. Here’s what they shared with us.
Tear down the wall between sales and marketing.
To many people, this seems like an obvious piece of advice — but it’s easier said than done. So says John Boegehold, CEO and president of Cubic Telecom, who tells us this is his “No. 1 point” in increasing sales.
He explains that “as a sales leader, you are responsible for all the workforce — whether it’s in the field or at headquarters.” Put simply, “when you’re involved in every aspect of your company,” as he puts it, “you are going to be a big obstacle when one group of people is working against another group.”
This starts with an understanding between marketing and sales — not just about goals and strategies, but about how different employees view their jobs.
“If marketing creates an environment in which it’s easy for sales to work on big deals, you’re going to have great success,” he explains. “Or, if marketing creates an environment in which it’s tough to introduce new products and increase your market share, you’re probably not going to get better results.”
Here are the 5 ways to increase sales and profitability.
1. Be consistent in your marketing efforts and expand your marketing efforts to include more than just email marketing and social media posts. Consider hiring a business consultant to help you identify and target prospective customers throughout the buying cycle. This will help you generate more leads, which in turn will increase your sales. Be consistent in your marketing efforts and you will see results!
2. Create a sales strategy and a plan of attack for achieving that strategy. Define who your target customers are and what they want and need. Create a sales strategy and a plan of attack for achieving that strategy.
3. Use a CRM to track your leads and customers. Monitor your leads and customers to see if they are interested in your product or service and what they have to offer. Keep this information organized to help you spot trends and opportunities.
4. Take an active role in the sales process by selling yourself as a more effective and efficient salesperson. If you don’t sell yourself as the best salesperson in the world, you will never sell to anyone!
5. Be a great customer advocate. Your customers are probably reading about you on a website or social media. You want to be known as a person who can help you, not just a person who can help them.
As a business owner, you know that increasing sales is imperative to the success of your business. But without a doubt, increasing sales is one of the most difficult tasks for a small business owner to accomplish. This is primarily due to the fact that sales are often a result of organic growth, which can be difficult to predict. But don’t despair!
