How to Increase Sales: 4 Effective Ideas

Increasing sales is on top of everyone’s list of priorities if you work in business. No matter what industry you work in, finding an effective formula to increase sales numbers is akin to the search for the Holy Grail.

While there are no definite methods that are 100% guaranteed to boost your sales numbers every time, there are a few tips which you can implement in order to increase the chances of your sales figures going up. Some may be common sense or ideas which you are already implementing, and others may be ideas you hadn’t thought of before. Here are 4 effective ideas which can give your sales figures a boost and help you to keep them high.

Quality over quantity

While it may look impressive to have a contact book jam packed with names and numbers and it may look like you have been proactive if you have made calls and contacts with leads into double figures in one day; if none of this results in a sale then it is a waste of time. When it comes to contacts and leads; quality is much more important.

It is better to spend a bit more time listening to your contact to find out what problems they have that need solving so that you are aware whether or not your product or service is of any use. By discarding irrelevant leads, you can focus your energy and time on the contacts which are more likely to result in a sale. This is where methods such as Scotsman sales qualification can help to hone your list of leads.

Make sure you are talking to the right person

This should be a no brainer. Make sure in the early days of contact that you are in conversation with the decision maker; the person who will give the go ahead to any sale. You don’t want to find out after dedicating hours, days or weeks of effort that actually it is someone above them who has the final say. Again, spending a little extra time investigating your lead in the early days should ensure that this is already established.

Make sure you are talking the right language

The universal language of business is English so, unless you are a competent linguist, if you are dealing with foreign companies it’s most likely that meetings are conducted in English and all paperwork is in English. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider professional translation of key documents into the native language of your potential client. Translation by a native speaker who is also fluent in English can avoid minor mis-understandings in terminology or cultural faux-pas. Even when you know a customer is bi-lingual, such as most people who speak the welsh language, using translations in their preferred language also indicates that you are prepared to put in extra effort to secure a sale, which bodes well for any future business relationships.

Have a clear vision

Whether you are a sales manager, team leader or focused on your own figures; have a clear idea of where you want to be in the future. You should be able to compose a sales process map of your current state and your desired state and what you need to do to get there. Identify any obstacles in your way and plan a way to overcome them. Desire and focus on the place you want to be will give you a productive structure which you can follow.

Additional tools

CRM systems and add-ons can help to boost your sales figures as they collate all the information you hold on any contact and help you to identify the most promising leads and, equally importantly, the ones which are unlikely to result in a sale. Qualification tools help you to sell, and lose, quicker meaning you can be more productive and touch base with more effective leads in the same amount of time as you may previously have spent chasing one dead end.

These ideas might sound like common-sense in a sales environment but do you implement them consistently, every time?