21 Secrets for Doubling Your Sales

 

1. Use a Strategic Selling Plan:  Develop and implement a carefully designed, team-supported plan for doubling sales.  Include your sales and customer philosophy, principles, values and ethics.

 

2. Practice Integrity Selling:  Understand, adopt and consistently practice principles of "integrity selling."  Integrate them with your business situation, markets, products/services, and customers.

 

3. Focus on Sales Character:  Work to develop ethics and values in the sales force, not just goals and selling techniques.  Buyers now care as much about whom they from as what they buy.

 

4. Believe in Yourself:  Successful salespeople believe in themselves as well as what they sell.  Realize everyone is a salesperson, selling confidence in themselves as well as their merchandise.

 

5. Be Sold on What You Sell:  Discover the unique values of and believe in the integrity of what you sell.  Be evangelistic, loyal, committed and have pride in it.  Communicate that with clients.

 

6. Understand Your Market Segments:  Know what lifestyle/behavior attributes define target markets.  What's important to them?  How do you meet needs?  Who influences them and how?

 

7. Invest in Your Customers:  Document their needs.  Follow up periodically.  Keep them informed.  Incent return.  Know, respect and thank them often.  Build customer loyalty.

 

8. Rifle Advertise:  Select advertising/promotional strategies carefully to match your markets.  Practice "rifle" vs. "shotgun" focus.  Use a promo plan, evaluate effectiveness, and be consistent.

 

9. Differentiate:  Know how to differentiate products/services from the competition, not just by price.  Understand/use life-cycle costing; investment vs. purchase; real vs. perceived value.

 

10. Try Before You Buy:  Offer samples and demos.  Provide hands-on experience.  Guarantee customer satisfaction with generous return options.  Achieve "No Dissatisfied Customers" daily.

 

11. Be Speedy:  Move quickly to meet customer needs.  Stay on top of market trends.  Anticipate change.  X-discipline train and team-organize salespeople.  Empower each seller to meet needs.

 

12. Niche Marketing:  Tailor products/services and quality control to carefully targeted clients for "total customer satisfaction."  Improves retention, profits and repeat sales.  Focus narrowly and build market domination.  Position as #1 in client mind in 1 aspect.  Don't be all things to all people.

 

13. Trust in the "Force":  Trust your intuition, and your sales force to know best sales methods to reach most profitable niches, customers.  An ounce of common sense is work a pound of consulting.

 

14. Risk Creatively:  Be willing to risk failure by trying out new sales ideas, promos, angles, etc.

 

15. Find Markets First:  Locate markets, and then build products/services to fill them.  Tailor what's sold to real market needs.  Emphasize how features, quality, and support fit the individual client.

 

16. Develop Strategic Partnerships:  Create win-wins with other companies to help promote and sell your product/service.  Focus on meeting their needs, not yours, to make them money.  Deliver.

 

17. Sell Concepts, not Products:  Refocus selling what products/services "do" for a user, not are.  Sell possibilities, opportunities, and unique advantages.

 

18. Slogan-ize Core Concept:  Reduce to 7 words or less what you sell. 

 

19. Study Selling:  Read and think about it.  Ponder and practice it.  Find out what works when and why.  Realize as times change, people and effective selling techniques change.  Be a ready closer.

 

20. Develop Positive Lore:  Engender sales stories and encourage their retelling.  Reward lore-generating behaviors.  Celebrate the "try."  Inculcate values in stories, experiences.

 

21. Vigilant Consistency:  Work your plan every day; vigilantly and consistently.  Make it part of your and your company's culture.  Review and refine sales plan at least annually.  Keep it visible, active.