What can I do to increase my sales?

With no money required!

‘What can I do to increase my sales’, is a question I often get asked, usually with the follow up statement and I do not have any money for promotion or advertising.

The first question in response is usually ‘How much do you want to increase it’, and often that is where reality ceases!
Frequently the response is 25, 50, 100% in the next 6-12 months. That is OK for a company in it’s start up phase but this is often from an established businesses & to me it is often the sign of desperation or disorganisation or another underlining problem.
The first first job is to bring them back to earth and be realistic in terms of capability & personnel and to engage them in realistic targets and putting in place a strategy and that is for another time.

So here’s a couple of ideas to get you working on your sales at no cost to you, except time.

1. Review your customer base
Take a look at you previous customers and try to answer the question – Why have they not purchased from us recently?
There may be a simple answer as ‘they are not longer in business’ but often it is that you have lost contact or the personnel has changed. Re-engaged with that business and find out what are their current needs. If the personnel has changed call and ask for the previous contact (you know they have left), and when this is confirmed, enquire who has taken over the role and ask to speak to them.
There may be other reasons but more than often it will be on your side.

2. Existing Customers
With your existing customers, are you selling everything that you could. This is often true with small companies doing business with larger companies in their customer base. They are happy to  pick up the small orders and are not prepared to explore further opportunities & there will be potentially far more than with a smaller enterprise.

In both cases above you already have contacts at theses businesses and had/have a relationship with them. So pursuing further opportunities should not be difficult as you have already done the hard work in establishing contact and built a relationship, meaning that they should know your capabilities and service.
It is commonly termed ‘relationship selling’ you are not a doorstep salesman but a tried and trusted supplier so build on that, use it!

In the current climate we all need to work smarter so, please comment with some of your ideas.