In the continuation of our improving the profit formula series I discuss ways to increase your annual sales for each customer by 10% per year.
- Use the 80/20 rule to identify your best customers. Set up procedures that emphasize selling more to your best customers. They are usually the customers who like you and trust you the most, so they are most likely to buy more from you.
- Don't forget to market to all of your customers. Selling more to your current customers is the fastest and easiest way to increase sales, and it costs much less than acquiring a new customer.
- Add a frequent buyer program. Studies show that customers love them and will spend more with companies that have one than they will with other companies.
- Always be prepared to upsell products that complement the product the customer is buying. Study how Amazon has mastered this. "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" and "Frequently Bought Together" can be found on virtually every Amazon page.
- Offer bundles to raise the average order size.
- Script possible cross-sales of other products. When a client comes to me for tax work, I always explore how their accounting is done and if they need tax planning or profit and sales consulting.
- Educate your customers about all of your products. Many sales are lost because your customer isn't aware that you also offer that product or service.
- Concentrate on the benefits of every product. Go over the advantages and discuss the features for each one.
- Create product tiers to offer your customers a good, better, and best options.
- Look for new products to offer your current customers as alternatives for solving the original problem they had or additional problems they might be having.
- If you are selling services, switch from hourly billing to value added billing.
- Raise your prices. Most business owners say they can't, but I have seen businesses increase prices with little or no pushback in almost every industry. Check out our article in the May 2013 issue called How to Raise Prices in Any Industry and in Any Economy for a more detailed discussion.