It takes money, hard work and huge amounts of effort to generate quality leads for your business which therefore makes it super important to convert as many of these leads into sales as possible. This is a big part of what we help our clients to do and here are 5 steps we have found to be highly effective in closing more sales:

1. Test & Measure

You absolutely need to test different marketing campaigns and measure the results thereof. It is also critically important to measure your conversion rate in total and by sales rep. Just by measuring your conversion rate will lead to an improvement as the awareness thereof will drive different behaviour. We suggest measuring your conversion rate by value (ie: Quoted R 500k in the month and closed R 250k, therefore 50% conversion) and by number (ie: Submitted 30 quotes / proposals and closed 9, therefore 30% conversion rate).

Once you know your conversion rate, you then need to closely investigate the leads that you didn’t close and ask yourself why? Put strategies in place to overcome these reasons for non conversion.

The exciting part is this – Double your conversion = Double your business!!!

2. Step by Step Sales Process

Having a documented step by step sales process is essential to closing more sales. The benefits of a defined sales process include:

✔ – Consistency – every enquiry gets the same royal treatment as opposed to being left up to an employee whose treatment of a new enquiry from differ from that of another employee.

✔ – Multiple customer touch points – people buy from people who they like and trust. Use the sales process to build the trust and likeability. Multiple touch points will assist in doing this.

✔ – Wow Factor – Build small things into your process that make a big impact on the prospect which will ensure you stand out from your competitors.

3. The Follow Up

The stats read that 48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect, yet 80% of sales happen on or after the 5th contact with the prospect.

Our experience is that sales people often do all the hard work by meeting with a prospect, submitting a quote / proposal and then never follow up – this makes no sense at all. The reason for not following up ranges from no system to manage this to self-limiting beliefs / confidence issues on the part of the sales rep. Just because a prospect does not get back to you does not mean they are not interested – they are just busy. Decision makers are juggling a number of balls at any point in time. Show them that you are hungry for their business by following up. Persistence is as much of an attitude as it is an action.

We suggest following up by phone call, and never use the word follow up when speaking to your prospect, instead use the word feedback – you are much more likely to get an honest answer from them.

4. Conversion Rate Strategies

These are tools / techniques that assist you to close sales and every good sales process should contain a few of them. We have found some of the most effective ones to be:

✔ – Testimonials (written and / or video) from past or existing customers.

✔ – Being clear about your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – ie: what makes you different from your competitors. If you do not have a meaningful USP, you may be forced to compete on price which is not a great business model for most.

✔ – Down Selling – This is where you offer a more budget friendly alternative to the product or service initially requested by the prospect. Part sale is better than no sale.

5. Sales Skills

Whilst sales should be regarded as a profession, most sales people “fall” into sales by chance or default. They learn by trial and error and sadly most keep making the same mistakes in the absence of a mentor to guide and help them develop their sales skills.

In our experience, businesses invest lots of time teaching and training their sales teams on their products or services but hardly any training on actual sales skills.

Price is what you pay and value is what you get – a great salesperson together with a great toolkit of tools will be able to demonstrate to their prospects that the value of the product or service is equal to or higher than the price being asked – if they can’t do this, they won’t close the sale

Our Offer to You

At ActionCOACH Ignite, this is our bread and butter. We help businesses grow by teaching and coaching all the disciplines, skills and tools required to grow your business and more importantly, your profits.

Should you be interested in hearing more about how we can help you, then take us up on our offer of a complimentary consultation where we will explore how you could take your business to the next level. (Available to business owners only).

Please click here to request your session.

Remember – Thinking Big is still just Thinking.