Companies want profit.
Since profit is revenue minus expenses, some leaders think only of maximizing revenue. But what they fail to realize is that they can increase their profits by increasing their efficiency.
85% of companies are increasing their goals for sales revenue, but they aren’t offering the training and resources to set their staff up for success. They’re failing to account for productivity.
If you want to drive your sales, you need to give your reps the tools they need to do so efficiently and effectively.
What Does It Mean To Drive Sales?
To drive sales is to increase sales.
So, to sell more, leaders often increase their quarterly sales figure goals and hire some more staff to get it done.
That misses the point, though. Sales reps, without the proper resources, are going to struggle to meet those every-rising sales quotas.
It’s important to consider new customers and existing customers during this process. New customers are absolutely important, but companies sometimes fail to consider their repeat customers as a source of increased profit.
To drive sales, your best bet is to focus on efficiency and productivity within your sales department. This increased productivity will help boost revenue, but it will also have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line by minimizing costs related to the increase in sales revenue.
Struggling to assess and improve your sales process? We know it can be a challenge, so let’s get started today. Book a call!
Key Questions to Drive Sales
Key Questions to Drive SalesThree factors will help determine your sales figures: the number of customers, the frequency of their purchases, and the size of their purchases. Depending on how each factor influences your total sales, you will make different determinations for future strategy.
You might have lots of returning clients, but not any new ones.
You might have plenty of new clients, but your existing ones aren’t returning frequently enough.
Maybe you have both new and old clients, but the purchases they make are simply too small.
How can I find new customers?
If your sales goals are held back because you’re failing to obtain new clients, then you need to examine how you find and convert leads.
It’s important to start with good leads and then follow up with an efficient process, and much of that process is centered around the content your sales team is using.
One quarter to half of deals either stall or fizzle. That means there’s a speed bump somewhere in the process that slows things down, at which point your lead will likely lose interest. Or it means your sales materials aren’t convincing enough to convert the lead.
If your leads are going to become customers, then your sales team needs excellent content that will provide accurate and relevant insight on what problem you’re solving, and why it’s worth it for your client. Your sales and marketing content needs to demonstrate how your product or service is the solution your client needs.
Part of the problem here is that sales reps often spend up to one-third of their time looking for or even creating content to use. Simultaneously, sales reps tend to be unsuccessful in finding the right content for the right step in the process. This shortcoming results in a 70% rate of marketing materials going completely unused.
A related and jarring statistic: content influences 95% of deals between businesses.
If your leads are going to convert into sales, then your team needs a process with appropriate content to align with each step. No more wasting time for your sales team trying to fulfill the role of a content creator, too.
If you already had a thorough process with content for your team to rely on, then imagine how many more leads will convert into new customers to help drive your sales.
How can I get existing customers to come more often?
You have plenty of new customers, but they aren’t coming back frequently enough to make purchases. Now what?
Your sales team can focus on developing strong, long-lasting professional relationships with their clients.
These relationships may start when a future client is still a lead, but once they become a paying customer, the relationship really takes off.
Did you fulfill the promises you made during the sales process? Is your solution proving to be effective? If so, you’ve established a strong base to build on.
Once that trust is established, you can focus on increasing the frequency of contact with the customer. Ensure they’re on your mailing list, following you on social media, and engaging with your content in any way possible. You can utilize interviews, surveys, polls and more to get to know clients better in order to improve the relationship. By asking them for feedback, you’re proving to them that you care about their success and experience with your service.
The more times they engage with your content, the more likely they are to come back for more purchases. Without it becoming a nuisance, have your sales staff constantly check back with the client to demonstrate commitment, excellent customer service, and dedicated care.
How can I get them to buy more?
Once you get your customers returning more frequently to make purchases, you’ll know they’ve started trusting you.
With that excellent content mentioned before, you convinced them they needed your solution.
Then you provided them with your service and continued to foster your relationship with them. That means now they should see you as a valued source of expertise.
And as an expert, you should be able to provide them with solutions for other aspects of their business needs, too, right?
Introduce them to your other services and products, and demonstrate to them that they need those, too. After believing that you’re an expert in the field, they’ll come to rely on your product, services, and industry knowledge.
That’s when you can have your sales team focus on selling other products along with the original service that brought the client to you.
Strategies To Help You Drive Sales with Accurate Results
Once you’ve established where your productivity is lacking, you can focus on fixing it.
Here are five strategies that can help you increase your profitability by focusing on maximum sales efficiency.
Prioritize Existing Customers
Since attaining new customers is more expensive than keeping your existing customers coming back, this is an excellent starting point. By prioritizing your existing customers, you can decrease the cost of each sale for you. If making a sale expends fewer resources for your sales team, then you’re increasing your revenue without increasing your costs. That means more profit.
By focusing on your existing customers, you can also increase the price of each sale. Your existing customers already trust you, so they’re more likely to accept your expert advice. That means more upsell opportunities, which means efficiently increased revenue.
Continue Coaching Your Sales Team
If you’re not coaching your sales team, then they aren’t going to be performing at their highest level. And if they’re not maximizing their performance, they certainly aren’t maximizing your profits.
Sales training can be incredibly effective. In fact, sales coaching has been found to increase productivity by up to 88%. However, only a dismal 13% of the information will be retained for more than a few weeks. That means ongoing coaching is key.
Also keep in mind that your products and services change, and so do the messages you use. Simply keeping up with changes like this is going to take time for your reps.
This aspect relates back to content: you need to continuously train your staff on how to use your new content. That means it’s essential to provide learning materials for them to quickly absorb ever-changing information.
Furthermore, if your staff isn’t coached on your sales pipeline, then they won’t be able to roll out the strategies you’ve worked so hard to implement. After spending time and money on your sales funnel, don’t you want your reps to use it to its full potential?
Evaluate Effectivity of Your Sales Processes
To evaluate your sales process, you’re going to need to track information. And tracking that information can increase your goal attainment by a whopping 400%.
Utilizing technology for data tracking is integral, and it might take some time to determine which data sets are more illuminating.
Is it the length of your sales cycle that’s diminishing your profits? Or is it the average price of each sale too low? Once you’re tracking your data, trends will emerge that you can capitalize on. But you can’t make effective changes without knowing the problem first.
Embrace Change
Without utilizing technology, your sales process is going to be inefficient. It’s that simple.
There are steps that your sales reps take each day that are redundant. Embrace technology to decrease the time wasted on performing tasks that technology could do. Odds are that the tech can do those tasks just as well and more efficiently too.
Plus, don’t you want all of your resources centrally located for all of your employees? It’s going to increase productivity.
Though new technology can seem confusing, finding the right product for your sales analytics is ultimately going to increase your sales efficiency by saving time and providing valuable analytic insight.
Utilize Sales Analytics Tools
Utilize Sales Analytics ToolsSince analytics can be tracked and displayed by a digital tool, this is also part of embracing change.
Sales analytics tools are incredibly useful. By tracking your sales metrics and displaying them in many useful forms, your digital tools are going to help you identify areas of opportunity.
You’d be surprised how much a computer can catch that you might miss on your own.
But when it comes to analyzing your processes, you’re going to need another set of eyes.
That’s where Selling Revolution comes in. We’re here to help you optimize your sales process and sales training. With our expertise, you’ll be maximizing your efficiency to drive your sales higher than ever.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started.