Tool Box
Issue No. 33 - February/March 2007
Five ways to a better sales year
by Craig Stubing
If you are looking for better sales results in your business during 2007 there is still plenty of time to put some improvement strategies in place that will help achieve the results you want.
Here are five things you can do over the next five days to get some ideas.
Review your sales data from last year
Where did your sales come from? Where did your sales not come from? What products made the largest contribution to profit? What products were disappointments? How many sales leads did your business generate? What were the sources of these leads? How many of these leads turned into customers? What ‘conversion rate’ does this represent? As far as you know, why did the buyers buy? Why did the non-buyers not buy? Are you overly dependent on one or two major customers (or suppliers) for your sales?
As you answer these questions and others that come to mind as you go through the process you will find information that confirms what you already ‘knew’ – you may also discover information that surprises you.
Some information will please you; some will disturb you.
Nevertheless, the question then becomes, ‘What ideas does this information give me that I can use to try to get a better result in 2007?’
Look at your lead generation systems
If a business is not generating enough of the right kind of sales leads it has a serious problem. Unless it’s fixed, that problem will lead to the death of the business.
Are you getting enough leads? Are the leads you are getting also the kinds of leads that you want? What lead generation strategies are working well? What strategies are not working? What strategies have you wanted to try but not yet got around to?
The key to successful lead generation in an SME is to find the elusive mixtures of offer, presentation and media that work for that particular business. Diversification is important; it’s dangerous to rely on one stra...
