how to develop your business- sales

Sales Devlopment

How do you increase your sales?

4 main ways

Do more of things that work
Do less of things that don't
Start some new method
Stop a failed method

How do you know if something is working?

In sales, like in other areas of life, it is important to know that you won't always get what you want, when you want it. Want to get rich? It'll take time and effort. Want to get sales? Yep, you guessed it, it'll take time and effort.

So, how much time and effort is involved? That really depends on how good your product/s/service/s are. If you try to sell sand in the desert know one will buy, bottled water on the other hand......

Not only is it important to figure out the environment... What about your competitors? If you go knocking on doors for double glazing you'd first want to know how far the closest competitor is, how many houses they'd done, how big their operation is etc. So, do your research.

Then what? I'd say set yourself goals, tangible, quantitative goals. Not ones like, in 2 years I'll be doing well, or in two years we'll have doubled in size. Nope, you need concise, realistic and tangible goals. 100 sales in the next 3 months, growing to 150 sales after year 1, is an example. You then get to the how, only after you've done your targets/goals.

So, bearing in mind the environment, (selling timber in a forest- not clever) and your competitors you've managed to come with a good sales target. Let's take Steve.

Steve runs a pizza shop. To boost sales he decides to change his strategy, in fact, he doesn't have one. So now's the time, Steve thinks, to create one.
He wants to take 100 more sales a night. Difficult he thinks.

He starts delivering leaflets. Then some calls come in and he starts to make sales. He ask his customers if they've received leaflets and marks the results. For every 50 leaflets he sent out think of the sales effect. Steve got 0 sales. But, for every 100 he posted door to door he'd get a £10 sale, out of which £5 was pure profit(this is a made up example).

If he had given up after 50 leaflets, he'd have nothing, after 100 he had a sale.
If he employs someone else to deliver leaflets, aprox delivering 1000 per hour, they'd come back with £50. Sales breed Sales. If your company is a good one the word will spread and your marketing will be done for you.

Steve's example is just that, a fictitious example, but I'm sure you can think of similar examples for your firm. X amount of Ads produces Y result. X amount of PR etc

Its all a numbers game. You'll get a lot of nos. Don't let them bring you down.
A word of warning. If you get no yess then quit, no use trying hard at something that'll never work.

Stay positive, think outside the box and you'll do well...

Good Luck.