Execute Your Best Sales Strategy Ever - ActionCOACH

Join master business coach Michelle Landis, as she strives to create success and abundance for every business owner with the ActionCOACH method of focus, accountability, and results. Visit our weekly Q & A session as Ms. Landis tackles real questions on a variety of issues - and provides you with answers that will BRING RESULTS for your company!

Question of the Week: ?I am always looking for ways to improve my small business?s sales strategy. Do you have any suggestions??

Coach Michelle: Formulating and executing a highly successful sales strategy is a topic of upmost importance for any small business owner or sales manager. The better you can tighten and hone your strategy, the more profits will increase significantly - and without a huge expenditure of time and money. Let?s look at 3 superior methods to accomplish a top-notch sales strategy.

1. Go Back to the Basics. I always tell my clients to shore up their sales plan basics before embarking on any new techniques. This includes such measures as:

• Credit checks on all new accounts/clients before investing resources in their retention
• Tightening accounts receivable management with up-to-date tracking and collection measures intact to reduce bad debt risk and expenses
• Reviewing your current sales process/plan and ensuring that every sales person knows the process inside and out
• Re-evaluating your marketing budget - be honest about whether you are truly investing enough in this important aspect of sales

2. Invest in Your Current Customers. Once customers have decided to buy from you, they must then be carefully guarded - do not lose them under any circumstances! This means building a relationship by instituting constant touchpoints or ways of personal contact once that first sale is made. Ways to invest in customers include:

• Following up with emails, thank you?s, or newsletters
• Instituting a customer referral program
• Managing a database of client details
• Improving your convenience factor - make it wonderfully easy for a client to buy from you again without any hassle
• Asking for testimonials or improvement suggestions directly from your best clients

3. Test and Measure Results. You can?t know if your sales program is top notch unless you are measuring your results in a quantifiable way. You can?t reach monthly or quarterly goals if you are not even sure what they should be. Ways to measure your results include such Key Performance Indicators as:

• Profit per customer
• Sales per product line
• Customer satisfaction percentages
• Number of transactions
• New customer referrals
• Percent lead conversion, and time spent per sale

It is a misconception to think that selling more always entails working longer, tougher, harder hours, or increasing pressure on the customer to BUY. Nothing could be further from the truth! Start each day with the goal never to waste your customer?s valuable time (or your own), or trying to sell the customer something he does not need. Shore up your strategy and focus on how to make things smoother, easier, and more convenient for your customers to bring them back time and again. And don?t forget to measure your great results!

About the Author, Michelle Landis

Michelle is a certified Master Business Coach and owner of ActionCOACH of Greater Lehigh Valley/Berks. She is an educator and a business professional with over 25 years experience in the business world running both small and medium sized businesses. She has an extensive background in education, executive management, sales & marketing, operations and entrepreneurial pursuits that include international consulting in China, extensive teaching and educational endeavors as well as executive leadership roles with General Electric, Dun & Bradstreet and Armstrong World Industries. Her leadership skills have delivered over $58 million to the bottom line. Get a BUSINESS HEALTH CHECK with Michelle or connect with Michelle on FACEBOOK, join her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.

Source: http://blogs.actioncoach.com/michellelandis/2012/08/04/execute-your-best-sales-strategy-ever/

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