If you find that you lack sales here are a few ideas that work for us.
First of all we have made this mistake in the past and I bet that many other business people have as well. The mistake is when your business is very busy you cut back on marketing. Then when the work starts to slow you hit the marketing hard to fill the short fall in sales. What we have learnt is to always keep marketing even when busy as its easier to keep the work enquiries coming in.
Make sure that you get out there, the more people who know what you do the more chance of getting business, this is both in the virtual world ie on www.twitter.com , www.facebook.com
www.linkedin.com and face to face with networking. Over the years we have picked up new clients from networking events held by the likes of www.dncc.co.uk www.ecademy.com
With networking in general remember it is not about selling it is about building trust and relationships.
Networking in my opinion is like gardening, you have to plan what you are going to do, then sow the seeds.Then nurturing the seeds so that they grow into long term harvest of opportunities.
Advertising, well this is a massive area but you can spend a lot of money and get very little pay back. You need to first of all set a budget and look what customers you want.
We have found that in general advertising in printed directories ie yellow pages have had their day. This more so if you sell business to business, most people now use www.google.co.uk for details of new suppliers, services or products.
If you sell business to consumer then in printed directories your advert can get lost. If you are selling for example insurance unless you have a very big budget your advert will be lost against all the big brands.
As for newspaper advertising, well most local papers are like "one night stands", ie one quick hit and gone. Most local newspapers are read by older readers and in general are losing readership.
Have you put a referral scheme in your business? If you have happy customers they can become a great sales force to promote your business. Don't be affaid to ask for a referral.
A good thing that we have found in getting involved in your community ie local football, rugby hockey clubs etc, or local charities.This helps build local trust and often you get to meet people who in normal business world you have no chance getting past the reception desk to talk to them.
A method that we have done and a lot of or clients have done especially if they are a startup business on a very tight budget is to do what we call "the shoe leather challenge". So you ask what is that then? Well we design and produce say 5000 full colour flyers with an offer on them. Then the client with family and friends go out on a Sunday to distribute the flyers.
The reason to do it on a Sunday that if you are selling to B2C market, people on a Sunday at home are going to be more receptive as they are relaxed, they are also not expecting anything to come through their letterbox. If you think about in the week they get in from work pick up all the post and any leaflets, so your offer or message is lost in all the bills and post.
Increasing sales is about having a long term plan based on good communication, building trust, relationships and offering the right products, service at a cost effective price. Building sales in my opinion should not be built on just price. As we have found you can end up having customers who are price lead are not loyal.
Hope you have found this of interest.
Thank you for reading my blog.
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