Managing a Small Business: 5 Tips to Increase Sales

Businesses suffered during the pandemic. About a quarter of companies around the world saw sales drop by 50% or more.
Sales slowly rebounded at the end of 2020 and into 2021. That doesn’t mean that small businesses are out of the woods. Business owners still struggle to increase sales.

If you’re one of the ones wondering where your next sales are coming from, keep reading. Here are five ways you can boost business growth immediately.

1. Increase Average Order Value

How much do your customers spend on an average purchase? If you can increase the average order by 15%, what would that do for your business?

Let’s say your average order is $150 and you have 60 sales a month. Your gross revenue is $9,300 or $111,600 per year. A 15% increase to the average order is only another $22 per order. Over the year it’s $16,740.

Make additional offers to customers as they check out. Let them buy similar products or upgrade services.

2. Improve Your Closing Rates

There are two things to look at. One is your closing rate, which is the percentage of appointments that become customers.

The second is the length of the sales cycle. Typically, sales cycles are longer for big purchases.

Improve the closing rate by training your sales team to overcome objections. Shorten the sales cycle by getting all decision-makers at the table early in the sales process.

If you can improve both of these metrics, you’ll have more time to close more customers.

3. Connect With Customers

Do you know your customer well? Do you know their emotional reasons for buying your products or services?
If you can uncover those needs, you’ll be able to have a deep connection with potential customers. Great marketing gets people to see themselves in your storytelling.

Understand their unique needs. Show that you can relate to it. Tell stories that demonstrate that and you’ll have a loyal fanbase that buys from you regularly.

4. Always Follow Up With Leads and Customers

Small businesses leave money on the table because they don’t follow up with leads. They might follow up one or two times and let them go.

That’s the worst thing you can do for your business. If you want to improve business sales, you need to follow up with leads more than two times.

It takes at least five follow-ups to get a response. If you don’t have time to follow up that many times, hire a telemarketer.

5. Focus On One Part of the Sales Cycle

Should you spend more time on generating leads or closing sales? Most people will say both, but you can’t do two things at once.

The best thing to do is to spend time on one part of the sales cycle, such as lead generation. Get your systems in place and refine them.

Once you have leads coming in consistently, do the same to the closing processes.

Get Ready to Increase Sales

You just learned five proven ideas to increase sales. Use them in your small business, and you’ll boost business growth.

Head over to the blog for more tips and helpful insights.