- 4 Ways to Increase Your Sales Revenue
- Trust – Why Trust is the Crucial Component for Customer Relationships and Business Development
- The Importance of a Professional Online Presence
4 Ways to Increase Your Sales Revenue
By Tony Monisse
It is that time of year, where budgets have been set for the year and it is important that businesses get good momentum early in the financial year to achieve these budgets. My experience is there are generally four tactics, which I describe below, to increase your sales revenue and get this momentum.
Number of customers
Increasing the number of customers is mostly about how you can increase;
- the number of leads and
- your conversion rate from these leads to a sale
To increase the number of leads, it is important to have multiple channels to market to get to your target customer and to have good levels of activity to engage with these prospective customers. Businesses who are doing well in this space are active in social media (Linkedin, Facebook etc.) and using this to engage with their target customers. The key is to understand where your target customers go, and to focus on the right channels to reach them.
To increase your sales conversion rate, it is important to have a good sales process – this can be either online or if the sale is more consultative, then a face to face sales process. My experience is that most businesses do not have a defined sales process and do not invest the time to maximise this opportunity. By defining your optimal sales process and understanding how your current sales may differ from this, you can look to improve this area and increase your sales conversion rate.
Frequency of the customer spend
Increasing frequency is about building a relationship with your customer and understanding their needs and wants. Again it is about activity and engaging with the customer either online or in person. A good CRM (customer relationship management) system where activity is monitored, tracked and automated can help this process. I see a lot of businesses who often cannot get out of the office and are not active in engaging with their customers. It is not surprising, when they do get out to customers how much additional work they pick up.
Average customer spend
Increasing your customers’ average spend is once again about having a good sales process including taking the time to really understand their needs and the challenges they face. The example most cited is McDonald’s “would you like fries with that?” and the amount that this simple question contributes to McDonald’s revenue and profit. This simple question is an example of upselling, where customers are offered an additional product or service which will complement the product or service they have already committed to buying.
Other opportunities to increase sales can include bundling products and services, creating multiple offers (gold, silver and bronze) and cross-selling other products and services. It is far easier to get a customer to buy more when they are already in ‘buying mode’ than it is to get them to come back for the purchase at another time.
Price
Increasing prices (or rates) is often overlooked by most businesses. My experience is that when businesses do increase prices there is generally minimal pushback from customers and where there is pushback, it is from unprofitable customers. The great thing about increasing prices is the increase in price goes straight to the bottom line.
If a business were to achieve a 5% increase on the previous year in all the above areas, the increase in sales revenue for the business would be 21.5%. Consider what that might look like for your business. For this reason it is important for businesses to look at all the areas where they can improve their marketing and sales process and increase their level of activity.
If you would like to discuss how you can improve your business’s sales revenue, please contact your advisor or our office on (08) 6212 7200.
Trust – Why Trust is the Crucial Component for Customer Relationships and Business Development
By Chris Mandzufas
Trust is important to people in all aspects of life. If building relationships is the key to success then trust is the foundation. In business, building trust is vital in all customer dealings whether they be with existing customers or future customers via any business development activities. If you cannot be trusted, then nothing that you offer has any real value.
The maintenance of trust is an ongoing effort that starts with the initial sales call or meeting and then needs to be nourished and fostered by the day to day interactions with your customer going forward. If you lose their trust you will lose the customer – much like any other type of relationship.
The following five strategies for establishing and maintaining trust will benefit your long term customer relationships:-
Communicate
Communication is the exchange of information. It is important and is believed to be a strong determinant of trust. Communication means developing a shared understanding of the relationship and is achieved by keeping an open dialogue with your customers, hearing complaints and acting on them, and above all keeping your customers informed of changes so that they are not the last to find out.
Signal commitment to the customer
The parties involved in a relationship expect each other to be committed to what they have in common. Commitment can be exhibited in a number of ways, the simplest way is to spend time investing in the relationship. Commitment clearly shows customers that they are being put first.
Reduce the perceived risk
You can reduce risk by making more information available. Improving both the quantity and quality of information can result in customers who are more aware and better educated.
Build customer confidence
An act of trust occurs when your customer has confidence that you will honour your promises. If customers have had previous experience with you and were satisfied with the experience, they have every reason to trust that a similarly satisfying experience will be had in the future. Hence, a previous satisfying experience reduces the risk and increases trust.
Make trust part of your workplace culture
Making trust part of culture involves embedding many of the above issues into the procedures, policies and practices of your business and employees.
THE QUICK IMPACT LIST TO GAIN TRUST
- Listen to everything
- Empathise (for real)
- Understand where they are coming from
- Acknowledge that you understand
- Note what they are feeling
- Build a shared agenda
- Ask great questions
- Give away ideas
- Return calls or emails quickly
- Deliver what you have promised
The Importance of a Professional Online Presence
By Cathryn Fish Stephens
Businesses are always looking for a competitive advantage online in a crowded marketplace. Competition is only increasing, and advertising costs are higher than ever. Most customers will Google your business online, so your website must send the right message.
Your website should be designed to attract visitors via search engines (Google SEO / Ads) or social media (Facebook & LinkedIn, etc.), convert visitors using website forms and landing pages and close customers using marketing software.
We asked Inbound Marketing Agency Perth, who specialise in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), about the top three ways to get a competitive advantage online.
Tip #1: Stop selling and start educating
Did you know that 95% of website visitors are not ready to buy or enquire? Most people are looking for information online, but most websites are screaming buy or enquire now, which makes people bounce (leave the website).
The best way to counter this is to create educational resources, we call this a “lead magnet”, on the website that people can download in exchange for their information.
Once they have exchanged their details for a valuable resource, you can re-engage with these prospects using email marketing and retargeting, so you are top of mind when they are actually ready to buy.
Tip #2: Design matters – just not fancy
As the saying goes “first impressions last” and this is the case with a website. A poorly designed website will send your prospects packing, so make sure your website sends the right message.
Let’s get this right, a fancy website doesn’t mean it’s better. At the end of the day, we want people who visit the website to turn into a lead and sale.
Too many websites are ‘fancy’ but do not perform, because they are confusing or don’t provide the right information.
A well-performing website has the following:
- Compelling headline – articulating the benefits of purchasing your product or service
- Social proof – testimonials and case studies
- Lead magnet – educational content
Tip #3 Attracting traffic is queen
Now that you have a high-performing website that educates its visitors, it’s time to get some traffic. There is no point having a great website without traffic, it’s like having a billboard in the middle of the desert.
Before you start pouring money into advertising, you need to consider your target audience and ask yourself “where do they hang out online?” Is it LinkedIn or Facebook, do they use Google to search?
Once you have answered this question, you should focus on one marketing channel at a time. We have found Google SEO to be one of the most effective marketing channels for B2B.
What marketing channel will attract traffic to your website?
