According to a study by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), small business owners identified poor sales as one of the top four problems they face today. The others included taxes, government regulations and requirements, and quality of labor.
As a business owner, you have good reason to identify poor sales as a problem. Without sales, you don’t have a business. Increasing your sales might be a lot easier than you might think.
To increase your sales, explore these two elements:
1. Your Process
Sometimes increasing sales is as simple as looking at your sales process, specifically your lead follow up. According to a study by Harvard Business Review, companies that called on leads within 1 hour or less were 7 times more likely to have a conversation with a decision maker.
At the Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp for Business Owners, we reverse engineer the sales process. Start by outlining your best practice sale. Write down each step. Look for ways to improve the customer experience, insert automation, or streamline the process.
2. Your People
If you’re in business, you need people. People to be clients or people to be on your team. You are also selling something whether it is an idea, a product, or a service.
When you’re selling, hearing a no in sales can stop some people in their tracks or motivate others. As a business owner, it’s important to know what kind of sales people you need for the type of sales you need to make.
Let’s face it, nobody likes rejection. However, there is a biological reaction that occurs when you hear the word no. If your biological wiring measures higher in autonomy, the more the word no motivates you to get more sales. The lower the autonomy the more no discourages you. It is just what is happening in the background but has a significant affect on sales performance.
Couple that biological dynamic with how no’s take on many forms from a lead’s perspective. An outright verbal or written no is easy to recognize. More often, it shows up when your calls aren’t returned, they unsubscribe, or they’ll “do it later.” Sometimes these no’s are disguised as no but are no’s for now. Sometimes these no’s require consistency on your part and sometimes something is missing. More likely they are related to your customer’s wiring.
When you understand human wiring you build work teams maximizing each team member’s wiring. When team members understand each other, they work together better and are more productive.
What’s even more important is when your sales team begins to understand their lead’s hardwiring, and delivers information the way the lead wants to receive it, they will also increase their sales performance.
In summary, if you want to increase your sales look at two elements. Explore your process and invest in your people.
To learn more about your hardwiring and systematize your business, join us for the Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp for Business Owners on October 5-6, 2017. Register by Sept 29, http://www.wakeupprofitable.com
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