Sales can be tough especially if your business is in a niche that is considered competitive. Top sales professionals can hit slumps due to bad luck and being fed low-quality leads from the marketing/advertising teams. The first aspect to view is that of the data during periods when sales were booming. You might find that the more email blasts that are sent out the more leads that come in. Data can make it easier to identify where leads are being lost in the sales funnel. The following are 4 tips to sell more at your business that is struggling in the sales department.
Make Digital Marketing a Priority
Digital marketing is more important now than ever before due to the massive number of people that go online to research a business. The process of ranking at the top of the search engines for valuable keywords is going to take a consistent effort over time. Digital marketing can also incorporate a decent social media strategy along with content marketing. Hiring a digital marketing agency is likely going to be wise as staffing an entire team in-house can be expensive. Freelancers can be a huge help but it is difficult to organize freelancers at times due to different times zone/working hours.
Start a Referral Program
Starting a referral program for current customers and staff can be enough to incentivize all involved to refer friends, family, and former colleagues. A member of the staff that has generated a huge contract should be compensated for this. This is for those outside of the sales department as these members of the staff are paid to sell. A person in the IT department that brings on a new client has gone above and beyond their job description.
Bring in Commission-Only Sales Staff
Your sales team might be stale and needs new blood to get the competitive juices flowing. Commission-only sales staff can allow the company to profit while increasing overall sales without increasing payroll. These professionals that produce can be paid immense amounts which can be appealing to top sales professionals in an industry. Finding these people will be tough as quite a few top salespeople have been hired by other companies. Freelancer platforms for sales professionals can be helpful as even 10 or 20 hours from a sales expert can generate results!
Do Testing on Email Pitches
Email pitches are often overlooked if they have a spammy or generic subject line. Doing A/B testing is important due to the fact that certain pitches work and others do not. You can track the open rates of the emails which can allow a company to shape the perfect email pitch. The goal of an email pitch is to get the recipient on the phone which is important. Most clients are not going to enter into any agreement without speaking on the phone or via video conference.
As you can see it is important to focus on the details rather than the number of sales. Once the details have been ironed out then the sales should start to flow in at a healthy rate. You need to change what you are doing if the company is struggling as maintaining the same strategies simply won’t work.