3 Simple Ways to Increase Meaningful Sales
First, I am thrilled to be sharing my first blog post on behalf of AdVision Marketing. If we haven’t had a chance to meet yet, I look forward to connecting with you in the near future. As the new Business Development Lead for AdVision Marketing, it is my duty to connect businesses with solutions that assist them in overcoming tough sales and marketing challenges.
I thought I’d kick off my blogging by providing three simple ways to increase sales. These tips can be applied whether your sales team consists of you alone or you have a sales team of 50. You can put these tactics to use whether you are selling high-end home improvement services or a new app for Fortune 500 companies.
You can use these tips for both your online and offline marketing efforts, so let’s get started!
1. Target
You have probably heard this 1,000 times: “Man who shoots at nothing is sure to hit it.” This applies to sales and marketing in a big way. Many business owners cast a wide net when launching marketing campaigns for fear of missing out. “I know we have these primary 3 target buyers, but these other might also buy so let’s expand our marketing so we don’t miss out on anyone.”
Or perhaps sales reps present prospects with a laundry list of services available for fear of missing out, many of which are irrelevant to the prospect’s perceived challenges. “Well if they don’t want widget A, let’s try selling widget B.”
Unfortunately, casting wide nets like this rarely works. Prospects will have far more objections than normal only to never buy. Customers will seem to never be happy and have a much lower CLV (customer lifetime value). Phrases from prospects like, “This sounds great but it’s out of our budget. We’ll get back to you,” become common place. “We think you do a great job, but we just have to take a break and regroup” type emails come in from customers regularly.
Sure, businesses have budget constraints. But this is the go-to objection for prospects and clients who don’t know how to verbalize the underlying feeling that what you’re offering isn’t relevant to them and their challenges. The business relationship just doesn’t click is by far the easiest scapegoat for prospects to use. It’s also an easy scapegoat for businesses to use. After all, it’s much easier to say, “they just didn’t have the money” as opposed to, “I wonder what I could have done differently to better demonstrate the value of what we offer for this specific prospect and their specific needs?”
It’s no different than being in a relationship and someone using the good old, “It’s not you, it’s me” line. Both people know it’s B.S. but both people agree to use it as the reason. It keeps the situation safe as both parties know it means, “let’s not spend time getting into the real reasons.” Sure, maybe she was nuts. Or yes, maybe that is the one sale you should NOT make, but when it comes to generating meaningful sales, surface level objections can’t go unanalyzed.
On the flip side, when prospects and clients have the thought, and most importantly the feeling of “Ah ha! THIS is exactly what I am looking for,” that’s when magic happens. That’s when the sales cycle speeds up, the CLV increases, and the relationship transforms from buyer and seller to partners in success. This is accomplished by using targeted tools such as fully fleshed out Buyer Personas.
How can you get even better results?
2. Deepen
The goal is to make every aspect of your business, including your marketing and sales process, as relevant to your “Buyer Persona” as possible. Most businesses do a surface level job of targeting during the marketing process. “Let’s get our target buyers in the door, then our “targeting” work is done, right?” It can be if you want surface level results. But who wants to waste time and money on a one-night stand or 3-week fling in business? No thanks.
If you want to build a strong ROI based on meaningful relationships that develop into meaningful sales, the level of relevancy has to be deep, and it has to be integrated into every aspect of the business.
Inbound Marketing, which includes the art of making your marketing more relevant backed by solid digital marketing tactics, is clearly an outstanding start. But why stop the Inbound Marketing methodology there? When you combine the strategies and thought processes of Inbound Marketing to the rest of your business, the results can be explosive. More premium purchases, more repeat buyers, and more referrals are a few of the rewards that come from deepening the level of relevancy within a business.
3. Listen
Prospects and customers will almost always tell you what you need to know if you listen. More often that not, businesses want to sell everything in “their” way. “This is the info WE want to give our prospects” gets a very different result than “This is the info I think will best serve our prospects based on what they said and here’s how I think they want this info presented.” That’s the key. You have to ask meaningful questions and know what they said in the first place in order to tailor your sales process around it. The way your prospects and customers communicate isn’t by chance. Take note and then apply that information to your sales process. For a simple example, if a prospect continually says, “I can see this, I can see that,” then give them a visual demonstration of your offer.
Ask meaningful questions such as, “What could we do to win business from clients like you in the future?” and then listen.
Over time, once listening to prospects and customers becomes a habit and you have meaningful information, go back to Steps 1 and 2, and see where you can improve.
These three steps are incredibly simple. However, in an age where shiny new digital marketing toys are the distraction du jour, it’s easy to forget about the basics. I would challenge you to turn down the noise and ask yourself, “Are we settling for mediocre sales, or are we committed to meaningful sales?”
If this is an area that’s out of your realm or you feel like some third-party feedback would be in order, let's connect.
I would also love to know what you thought of this blog post. Was there anything that was particularly helpful? Anything you would like to know more about? Anything I can do differently the next time around?
Let me know by filling out the form below. My goal is to give you valuable actionable info. Your feedback will assist me in achieving that goal.
Have a great day today and let’s stay connected!
