Most business owners want to increase their sales dramatically. The easiest way to do this is to shift your sales focus from attracting new customers to enticing your proven customers to buy again. The best sales prospect is a prospect that’s already converted – in other words, one of your current customers. If you start focusing your sales efforts on your proven customers, you’ll be able to increase your t sales dramatically. And these sure ways to increase sales will help build customer loyalty, too. Try some or all of these ideas from the leading Virtual Assistant company, Virtual Assist USA, to increase your sales:
1. Set up a sales incentive program. Give your sales staff a reason to get out there and sell, sell, sell. Why do so many businesses that rely on their sales staff to drive sales have incentive programs in place? Because offering their sales staff the trips or gifts for a high amount of sales works. Make it sweet, simple and attainable.
2. Encourage your sales staff to upsell. Essentially, upselling involves adding related products and/or services to your line and making it convenient and necessary for customer to buy them. To upsell successfully, the customer has to be persuaded of the benefit.
3. Give your customers the inside scoop. Let your customers know when you will be having a promotion, sale or other incentive to buy. It creates trust and credibility between you and your clients, and you can bet that they will bring a friend or two with them when they return. And don't forget - you can give your customers the inside scoop by emailing or calling them, too.
4. Tier your customers. There should be a clear and obvious difference between regular customers and other customers – a difference that your regular customers perceive as showing that you value them. How can you expect customer loyalty if all customers are treated as “someone off the street”? There are all kinds of ways that you can show your regular customers that you value them, from small things such as greeting them by name through larger benefits such as giving regulars extended credit or discounts.
5. Set up a customer rewards program. We’re all familiar with the customer rewards programs that so many large businesses have in place. But there’s no reason that a small business can’t have a customer rewards program, too. It can be as simple as a discount on a customer’s birthday or as complex as a points system that earns various rewards such as discounts on merchandise. Done right, rewards programs can really help build customer loyalty and increase sales.
6. Distribute free samples to customers. Why do so many businesses include free samples of other products when you buy something from them? Because it can increase sales in so many ways. As the customer who bought the original product, I might try and like the sample of the new product and buy some of it, too. Or I might pass on the sample to someone else, who might try the product, like it, and buy that and other products from the company. At the very least, the original customer will be thinking warm thoughts about your company, and hopefully telling other people about your products.
Attracting new customers is a good thing. But attracting new customers is not the only way to increase your sales, and is, in fact, the hard way of going about it. Shifting your sales focus to enticing your current customers can make increasing your sales easier – and best of all, build the customer loyalty that results in repeat sales.