Forecast vs Actual SalesOk, so how did last quarter’s sales end up?  Were they down and so you need a way to jumpstart your sales?

Well, your sales won’t just happen.  You need a sale plan and work the plan.  But, you want to work smart!

There are only 3 different strategies you can employ to increase revenue:

  1. Sell more volume to your existing customers
  2. Sell more frequently to your existing customers
  3. Find new customers

Most small business tend to jump right to new customer acquisition.  Here are few “easy to use” tactics to give your sales plan a jumpstart across all 3 strategies!

Promote Your High-Profit Items to Jumpstart Your Sales

Proft comparison tableIf you don’t know which items are your highest profit items, this is a financial management red flag!  You need to do a little digging into your books to get this info.  If you need help figuring this out, contact your accountant.

Once you know, put together a discount offer that is less than the % profit difference between this item and your average profit.  Use the promotion with existing clients and new prospects.  Measure your results to see which group bites the best.

If your promotion sells more, then you get more revenue and profit.  If your promotion doesn’t sell anything, then you’ve learned something for creating your next promotion.

Ask Customers What They Want

jumpstart your sales by asking your customers what they wantThis tactic allows you to engage your customers to sell them more.  It’s actually pretty simple.  Create a call script to see how they’re doing and ask them what you can do to help.  That’s it!!!

This isn’t rocket science.  Your customers will tell you what you can do to sell them more.  Evaluate their proposal to see if you can live with what they asked for.  If you can, close the deal, deliver the goods, and get paid.

Work Old/Stale Leads

This is one that we just found ourselves doing.  After reviewing our lead tally for Q1 we found little in the way of results.  When I asked why, it was apparent that we hadn’t done anything with them!  An introduction letter was sent, but we got busy and never did anything else.

So, create a standard campaign that you can use will ALL leads.  Dump the leads into a hopper and make someone responsible for executing the campaign religiously.  You’ll see your appointment and opportunities rate increase just by following through.

We’ve all heard that “selling is a numbers game.”  This is how you play the numbers.  Build a system and work it!

Jumpstart Your Sales by Reactivating Dormant Customers

If you’ve been in business any time, we’ve all got customers that stopped doing business with us.  Do you know why, or has their situation changed?  If so, then there may be an opportunity to win the business back!

This tactic is similar to “asking what they want.”  Reconnect and begin a conversation.  Ask them how their doing and how you can help.  Again, if you can live with their proposal, take it and close the deal.

You can see that none of these tactics is really anything special.  It’s just putting a plan together and executing on it.

Think about it.  What would be the topline impact if just 5% or 10% of this effort closed?  Add that to what your current sales numbers.  Does this get you back on track for 2013?  If not, then contact me you may have a bigger problem than just your sales!

It surprising how little it can take to get you back on track.  But, don’t wait!  At the end of Q2 it will be far harder to recover from a poor 1st quarter.  Strike while you can and have a great 2013 and beyond in the process!