5 things you can do to increase sales quickly
With the end of the financial year rapidly approaching many organisations are looking to bring in some last minute orders. What can you do to close sales quickly without reducing your price? Is it even possible to do quick deals whilst maintaining professional standards?
If your finance director is starting to look a little fraught, and the pressure to close deals is growing, then it can’t be long until the year end. Like the remnants of a New Year’s hangover, the pressure on sales people at this time of year goes from a background nag, to a constant pain. More than ever, deals need to be closed, and it's time to use every trick in the book to get orders in before the end of March.
Before you start waving big discounts in front of hungry buyers consider the following.
In 1986 when the guys at Miller Heiman wrote their book on Strategic Selling they developed the idea of Win/Win negotiations. At the heart of these is a belief that when both parties in a transaction “win” then it is a better transaction. Conversely Win/Lose negotiations reduce the potential for future business. So whilst end of year discounts may bring forward deals -in the long term they reduce business. The result of this is another year-end discount frenzy in 12 months’ time.
So if price is not the magic potion you need to stop the pain of end of year sales, what is? Could the answer lie inside your CRM platform?
If I was looking to increase sales quickly, then the first place I would look is in our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. I would want it to tell me how long it takes close a sale, and what stages the typical customer goes through. Based on this insight I would then try a combination of these 5 things.
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Improve the efficiency of the sales process
If the average customer goes through 12 different steps in their buying process an efficiency saving of 1 day per step could bring forward orders by a whole month. In order to realise these efficiencies I would be looking at previous successful sales campaigns to identify best practice. For each step I would be looking for examples of activities we undertook to help the customer with their buying process.
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Improve the effectiveness of the sales process
Looking back over previous sales, what areas of personal performance does each sales person require assistance with? Could sales people achieve better results by working together?
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Reduce the internal process steps
Not a charter for anarchy, but a recognition that sales can be slowed by our internal processes. Removing unnecessary process steps such as technical approval of quotes only makes sense if you are sure that the sales team will act in the company’s best interests.
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Up - Sell and Cross – Sell
An area where even the best web site cannot compete with professional knowledgeable individuals. So why not get the sales team talking to clients who normally buy through your web site? Set targets on increasing the number of order lines, and order value
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Sell to customers ….who can buy quickly
Obvious? Then why do so many end of year initiatives focus on finding that one big order? Why do they ignore the fact that CRM systems are great at managing lots of small sales campaigns? This would allow me to focus on clients whose procurement processes were geared to moving quickly.
Each of these suggestions could help you to close business more quickly than normal. However they are a way of treating the symptoms not the sickness. If you are being forced into short term sales initiatives to address a sales shortfall in the final quarter, then something has gone wrong. The current economic climate is challenging, but not new.
If your CRM system is not providing you with the analysis and cosmetic KPI's you need to manage then it may well be time to re assess your choice of tools. Small changes in best practice, and analytical CRM could ensure that next year you can focus on planning ahead not reacting to the present.
Paul Pitman is a Solutions Architect at Collier Pickard.
