Most businesses hit a sales plateau at some point. Maybe you’re seeing a flatline in growth, or even a downward trend. This often happens because you’ve reached a ceiling on what you can accomplish with your existing tactics and tools, but it doesn’t mean you’re stuck at this point forever. In this guide, you’ll learn how to increase business sales strategically, so you can move forward without overhauling all your systems at once.
Evaluate What’s Not Working First
When sales stall, many business leaders jump right into implementing new things, such as running ads, hiring a new sales rep, or adjusting prices. However, jumping into new sales tactics without understanding what’s going wrong is like treating a cough without knowing it’s caused by allergies, the flu, or something more serious. Sure, you might be able to mask the symptom temporarily, but if you don’t know why that symptom is occurring, you can’t fix it. Moreover, the underlying cause may continue to cause damage that will become even harder to resolve over time because you’re silencing the alarm bells.
Because of this, you should walk through your existing processes first and try to find gaps in sales processes and marketing strategies.
Check the Customer Journey Step-by-Step
Map the full experience from the first moment someone hears about your business to the point of purchase to identify where people are exiting the journey.
- Awareness: Are enough of the right people finding out about you? If you’re reaching lots of people, but the people you connect with are not your ideal customers, it’s time to rethink how you’re targeting.
- Interest: Once they land on your website or hear your pitch, are they sticking around? Look for signs like the amount of time they spend on your site, the number of pages they visit, the number of times they visit, and engagement with emails.
- Decision: Do they see enough value in your offer to take the next step? If not, then you may need to play up how your solution benefits them and explore ways to demonstrate the value you bring.
- Action: Are you making the buying process clear and easy, and do they trust you enough to guide them through the process? Find out if happy customers are sharing their stories or if the loudest voices online are dissatisfied customers. Examine friction points in the final steps that you might be able to address or eliminate.
Assess Your Offers and Pricing
Even if you’re offering your products or services at a fair price, your approach or messaging may not be resonating with prospective customers.
- Offer Clarity: Is it clear what customers receive and how it benefits them? Try running your messaging past people outside your immediate team to see if they feel it’s compelling.
- Pricing Fit: First, consider your messaging and the price point. If you’re a value-based brand, messaging and pricing should match. If you’re offering high-end products or services, charging too little can actually make people question the quality. You might also find that certain audiences respond differently to the pricing structure. For instance, some may appreciate a discount, while others want a free trial or bonus perks. Some may want to stick with a monthly plan that gives them more flexibility, while others may prefer ongoing subscriptions or upfront payment to secure a discount.
Talk to Your Sales Team
Take a look at how sales conversations are handled.
- Close Rate: The average close rate is around 20 percent, according to HubSpot. There are variances by industry. For instance, finance comes in at 19 percent, and software comes in at 22 percent. If you aren’t meeting industry benchmarks, try to find out why.
- Sales Message Consistency: Is the messaging that your sales team leverages consistent with your marketing? If not, prospective customers are likely picking up on the disconnect and losing trust.
- Objection Handling: Almost every prospect will push back in some way. Some will balk at pricing, while others may be unsure of the fit or commitment. If you’re not breezing through objections, develop a list of the most common objections and how to overcome them.
Review Your Lead Quality and Volume
Sometimes, business leaders point the finger at sales, as if reps aren’t doing enough with the leads they have. However, the issue can lie with the leads themselves.
- Lead Quality Issues: Make sure your sales team logs what happens with leads in your customer relationship management (CRM) software. Watch for trends in the comments leads make, such as pricing pushback or claims that your offerings aren’t a good fit. These can be signs that you need to adjust who you’re targeting or your messaging.
- Lead Volume Issues: Are you getting enough strong leads? If not, then you may want to take a look at your top-performing initiatives and put more of your budget into them while letting go of underperforming initiatives.
Additional Tips to Increase Business Sales
Once you’ve examined your existing processes for issues and have addressed these areas, you can begin applying new strategies to increase business sales.
Leverage the Right Tools for Informing and Improving Sales Strategy
The right online tools can help you see what’s working, where leads drop off, and how buyers behave before they convert. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
- CRMs: We touched on customer relationship management software earlier. A good system allows you to monitor lead quality, deal progress, and close rates over time. Some popular choices are Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM.
- Analytics: Track how people find your site and what actions they take once they arrive. The gold standard here is Google Analytics, which is free, but you can also explore alternatives like Matomo, Plausible, and Fathom.
- Heatmaps: Use heatmaps and session recordings to see which portions of your pages people engage with and friction points. One of the more budget-friendly options is Zoho PageSense, which is free if you already have a Zoho One subscription. You can also use Microsoft Clarity for free. However, options like Hotjar may be more ideal if you exceed what the other platforms can do for you.
Strengthen Customer Retention
Did you know that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent, while your odds of selling to a new prospect are just five to 20 percent, per Invesp? If you’re trying to boost sales, focus on customer retention and ensure your existing clients are happy.
Leverage Upselling and Cross-Selling
One of the fastest ways to boost sales is by increasing the value of each transaction.
- Upselling: Encourage customers to upgrade or buy a more premium version of what they already want.
- Cross-Selling: Offer complementary products or services that add value to their original purchase.
Improve Lead Generation
When sales are low, you may not have enough qualified leads coming in. Focus on attracting people who actually need what you offer and are ready to take action.
- Lead Magnets: Offer useful resources like guides or checklists in exchange for contact information.
- Landing Pages: Create dedicated pages that match ad messages and drive conversions.
- Referral Programs: Create a customer referral program that encourages happy clients to send others your way, and explore the idea of creating a referral partner program that rewards non-customers for helping your business grow.
Experiment with New Marketing Strategies
If your current channels are saturated, underperforming, or have plateaued, it may be time to branch out. Perform short tests with different social networks, partners, videos, and ad strategies.
Bring in a Pro When Sales Growth Stalls
If you’ve gone through these steps and didn’t get results or don’t have the time to devote to them, consider bringing in a pro. An experienced consultant can help troubleshoot your existing strategies and identify the best path forward. While there is an upfront expense here, a good consultant will deliver a strong return on investment.
Keep Your Business Moving Forward While Boosting Sales with Factoring
It takes time to troubleshoot and implement strategies that increase business sales. If your business is struggling to cover payroll and other expenses while you’re actively addressing your sales concerns, invoice factoring can help. Instead of taking out a loan that leaves you with ongoing payments and debt, factoring accelerates payment on your B2B invoices, so you get cash right away and don’t add debt to your balance sheet. To learn more or get started, request a complimentary rate quote.
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