Seek Creative Ways to Build Sales
Many businesses use the same sales approaches year after year. Re-using successful strategies makes sense, but you also should consider new ways to grow sales. Here are some ideas:
Provide guarantees. This is especially effective for anything involving deadlines. Remember when a certain pizza maker promised delivery in 30 minutes or the order was free? That proved to be an extremely effective way to grow that business. You might offer a 10% price reduction to customers if you fail to deliver a product or service at the agreed date and time. This has the added advantage of keeping you and your staff on your toes to make sure you don’t have to pay off on the guarantee very often.
Offer discounts to customers who purchase in bulk. This strategy can work for products or services. Giving volume discounts encourages buying and offers the added benefits of saving you billing time and accelerating cash flow.
Hold a special sale and donate a percentage of the proceeds to a charity. Plan the sale well in advance so the charity can publicize it with volunteers and donors. Also include information about the event in your advertising and promotional materials.
Refer business to others. There’s no better way to get business sent your way than to send business elsewhere. If a customer comes to you looking for a product or service that you don’t provide, send them to a business that can. Tell the customer you will call ahead to smooth the way, giving you the perfect excuse to call the business and make sure they know you made the referral. Not only is this an effective way to prompt quid pro quo referrals, but you also build trust and credibility with customers. When they need something you do sell, they are likely to come back.
Other sales-generating ideas include:
- Join the appropriate business associations and network.
- Use a relationship database to manage and track customer and prospect contacts.
- Hire a skilled sales manager.
- Work with your bank to identify referral opportunities within the bank’s own customer base.
Re-using successful strategies makes sense, but you also should consider new ways to grow sales.
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