One of the first rules you learn as a rookie in sales is that trying to sell a product or service that’s not needed and wanted is a fool’s errand.
The business world is littered with failures because ownership failed to change with the times or refused to reinvent a stale or underperforming brand or idea.
So let’s take a look at this subject of increasing sales in tough economic times with the premise that you are currently selling a product or service that is needed and wanted.
If that’s not the case and you’ve just had an epiphany, then you can thank me now and hopefully move onto more profitable endeavors! If by chance you have just started a business and want to compete in today’s challenging environment, then read on, this is for you.
We’re going to look at increasing sales as a Quick Start Program, in a three-stage process.
Factually, solving this problem is easier than you think but the first stage begins with you; the owner, entrepreneur, the manager, or the unfortunate point-man the powers that be have put in charge of a faltering sales and marketing department – hey, I’ve been there, I feel your pain.
Step 1: Look from the outside in

You know that feeling you get when you take yourself out of the day-to-day grind and take a vacation or a day off?

That sensation of relief, albeit temporary, allows you to look at the business you’re in (and life in general) from a different perspective; hopefully you’ll get the opportunity to view your world from a distance, from the “outside looking in.”

Take a long weekend; take a day off or at the least, a morning or afternoon and go somewhere that’s aesthetically stimulating; the beach, the mountain pass or that lake on the outskirts of town.

Remember, this first step is about you physically taking some time to walk, to look around your environment and to touch, feel and experience those surroundings.

Next, think back in time and re-experience the goals you had when you first started the company and took on this responsibility.

Revitalize that excitement you felt, the short and long-term goals you set for yourself and the purpose of the company, not the desire you had to make money but the purpose, the mission you set out on with the goal of solving that problem you saw in the marketplace and wanted to handle.

Feeling better? Started liking yourself more?

Good because it’s time to stop beating yourself up.

It’s time to take the pent-up emotional “charge” (negative energy) out of the equation and look at your situation logically.

With pen and paper in hand make a list of the most pressing issues at hand, from the top down in importance.

Your list may be long or short. Regardless you can now create an action plan that most likely has sales, or lack of, as one of your immediate points of attention.

As an added benefit you may also realize there’s been a disconnect between the amount of time you’re actually devoting to the business and the amount of time really needed to make it a success. In other words your budding golf career may need to be put on hold for a while.

What is real is this: your lack of control in business is nearly always attributable to lack of training in one or more crucial areas.

Most likely you were trained technically in your industry but you lack the knowledge of sales and marketing that’s vital to your company’s success; for example Doctor Jones setting out to run his Chiropractic practice but suddenly faced with the problem of not having enough patients in the waiting room.

Step 2: Your success in business success starts with marketing

There is an old adage, a saying, all exceptional marketers understand.
“If you want to know why John Smith buys what John Smith buys, you’ve got to see the world through John Smith’s eyes.”
Yes, you’re back to Step 1, looking from the outside in.

Is your product or service really solving a problem? If so is that being clearly communicated?

Or is your message “soft” and lacking impact and not focused on features and benefits and/or platitude-ridden?

“Platitudes” – overused, dull, stale and trite (boring, not fresh or original, from too much overuse) words and phrases that one sees everywhere in advertising and promotional messages. The word comes from the French word plat, meaning dull.

Examples are: “Family owned and operated.” – “A lifestyle above the ordinary.” or “Committed to customer service.” – “In business since 1972.”

My money is betting your marketing message is soft and platitude-ridden.

That message needs to be relevant and focused on pushing hot buttons – a unique selling proposition that impinges and solves problems prospective buyers face every day.

In a nutshell Dr. Jones is suffering because his practice is promoting the same service his competitors are, instead of solving the problem most of his prospective patients face every day; alleviating pain while navigating their issues of time and money.

Instead of pushing his hours of service and smiling staff, the same focal points his competitors offer, he needs to strategize about out-pacing his competition by becoming the only practice in town that offers “Unlimited Monthly Chiropractic Adjustments for only $149” and “Hours that fit every lifestyle – open three nights a week and half-day Sundays too.”

Step 3: Increasing Sales

Now it’s time to move on to sales.

In the section on marketing the word “soft” was used.

Think of a definition of soft selling as an attempt by the seller to be liked rather than a desire to solve problems regardless of the emotional resistance directed at the seller by the prospective buyer.

A major failure in selling is that the weak seller perceives pressure as being bad.

Prospective buyers are emotional. Whether it is fear, worry, anxiety, conservatism, boredom or exhilaration, the weak closer is unwilling to confront and deal with these perfectly natural emotions.

These sellers perceive using pressure as bad. They personally don’t enjoy “being pressured” and refuse to employ any form of it. This is the salesperson that quickly drops the price to get the deal and the process over with.

So, start re-evaluating your sales process, right now.

Are you and your sales staff order-takers or sales-makers?

If you find that they are order-takers, than clean house immediately. Either handle the order-taking mentality (sales workshops and mentoring by skilled professionals) permeating the office or forever banish this disease with the help of proven sales professionals who understand sales methodology and processes.

Now set a target for next week’s or next month’s sales figures. Look at every one of your unclosed deals (hot prospects) and revisit them with a new attitude and desire to solve their problem(s) with your solution(s).

Set the target high for new sales with your new, hot-button focused advertising and marketing materials, based on the same platitude-free hot buttons used above, and begin up-selling to existing clients all the time watching those sales results hourly if need be.

Be unsatisfied with anything less than a rising sales graph.

Remember; you are not running a sales department to be liked, you’re running it to feed the beast, sales are the fuel that runs the ‘machine’ that delivers your solution to the problems your prospects face.

This is an attitude change of immense proportion.

Get people working in your sales division that know how to make things happen and believe that they make the day, the day doesn’t make them.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can get in the way of you, or a trusted associate with the same viewpoint, taking the time expanding the energy projected out of the business; through cold-calling, added advertising, networking, shaking hands and follow-up with existing clients searching for referrals.

Then, be determined to ask for their business.

Yes, learn to ask for it.

“Mike, now that we’ve reviewed all your options and I seem to have answered all your concerns, can I ask you a direct question?” (Sure you can).

“Great. Do you trust me to get this project done on time and on-budget?” (Yes I do).

“Wonderful. Let’s get you signed up right now and moving forward.”

Increase your understanding of the sales and marketing process and you will find your ability to control those functions rise proportionately.

If you do not have the time or inclination to jump into the sales and marketing arena, don’t panic, you’re not alone. Find the right people, with verifiable track histories of success and strategize together.

Just remember that increasing sales in a challenging economy means having a deep desire to help your customers think of your product or service as the solution to their problems and then selling them with the viewpoint that going to your competitor would be a dire mistake.

Remember, you make the day, the day doesn’t make you.
© 2013 SELLability Technologies LLC. All Rights Reserved.