012 – 7 Steps To Selling More
One of the most asked questions in business today which in disguise is actually a question about life is “How do I sell more” or “How do I succeed?” Whether we accept it or not, we are all salesmen without exception. Daily we sell ourselves, services, products, ideas and philosophies hence this is a key skill to succeed in business and life. If nobody buys any of the above listed items from us, the ultimate result will be failure.
I want to walk you into total awareness of this fact and provide the key steps for selling more, whatever it is you are
selling. I have deliberately omitted the gimmicks and tricks… only real and proven steps. Enjoy!
1. Identify your commodity.
This one is simple but making the right choice is hard, “What do you want to sell?” Is it a product or service? As simple as it sounds most people have not made time to identify what their main proposition is. I know that most people reading this may have already completed this step but is here for the benefit of the starters.
Your commodity could range from your skills as an applicant to a job, services or products. And if you don’t know how to find out what to sell, the key here is; look for people’s problems/pain-points and then create and sell the solution. You will find; www.answers.com, Yahoo Answers, YouTube video comments etc. very useful. The journey to selling more starts from identifying what you wish to sell. So find out what it is today.
2. Niche down and create an avatar
If you want to sell more, it is necessary that you research the product or service thoroughly and identify a particular sub-set(if possible sub-sub-set) of a niche to concentrate on with your service or products. One of our products at www.briarandgash.com had this issue because we targeted adverts to men aged 18 to 100. Yes, the product could be used by this age range but it failed because, the range is too wide and the criteria is only age.
It is important to note that in this process, you are not looking for all the possible users of your product but the group of people who will most benefit from your product and hence buy more. The next attempt yielded eye opening results with adverts targeted at the age range of just 18-40 year olds and many other behaviours.
Whatever you have decided to sell, niche down to the specific people you wish to serve. Irrespective of the numbers, these are the people who will be willing to benefit more from your product and hence buy more!!
3. Create efficient selling channel
Depending on what you have chosen to sell, it is necessary that you choose the most appropriate channel to sell. These days technology has provided us with many channels which can be used simultaneously to achieve sell more.
Depending on whether you want to sell products or services, you can choose from Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube etc.), Website, Blog, podcasts, webinars, billboards, complimentary cards, business stationeries etc. Before you choose, take time to study and understand how to get the best out of these platforms.
4. Create efficient selling process
Figure out exactly how you will sell from start to finish. Finish means when you the customer is satisfied which could be either the end of life of the service or when the customer has provided feedback. State clearly your expectations based on your avatar in Tip 3 above, define what a successful sale looks like, focusing intensely on not just customer satisfaction but on wowing your customers consistently.
A great lesson from Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, is to always recognise the presence of the invisible person (the customer) in all planning, design development and marketing of products and services if you want to sell more.
5. Always provide more value than paid
Invaluable lesson learnt from Zig Ziglar, Earl Nightingale and Les Brown. People are always looking for value and this differs for different people but one thing is certain: people will buy more if the value provided is worth a lot more than is charged for it.
People want to get much more for the price paid. For every dollar spent, I want at least 2 dollars but most times, I push for 10 dollars. If you pick nothing from this piece, please pick this one because it will make you rich and successful both in business in life.
Albert Einstein said “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become
a man of value.”
When you do this, success will follow; people will be more interested in you or buy a lot more from you.
6. Utilise customer feedback
Feedback is pure gold if you want to sell more. After each sell; services or product, find a way to request feedback from your customers. This is the only way to identify what works and what doesn’t. This may be entire products/service or even aspects/functionality or functionalities of a product.
Offer incentives for honest feedback. I follow up most sales with an email stating how pleased we are of being of service and ask for feedback. Most customers are amazed by this and respond with very useful feedback which we use to improve our quality and processes to help us grow and sell more.
7. Measure and be ready to improve
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Lord Kelvin (Scientist).
Here we are talking of Tips to sell more, in other words tips to improve your sales. You must have data on the areas/products you want to improve, this forms baseline for the improvement. When you have a baseline, it is easier analyse, identify improvement opportunities and create efficient solutions/products or services.
Measurements also help you to track progress/improvement of your life, sales or products. Be wise today; understand that you can only improve if you know what you are trying to improve.
Hopefully this has and will continue to help you sell more, in life, business relationships and all other aspects. Now that you know better, go out there apply these tips and sell more.
Become an outstanding individual, create an outstanding product or service and attract lots of success.
Again, this is to your success…. Sell More!!!