Another article from PersuasionTheory.com. You can find the original article here: The 3 Ways To Increase Revenue In Your Business

You work hard to move a new customer into your pipeline. You network. Maybe you pay for advertising. You work for links to your website. Anything to get those precious people into your sales funnel. Anything to make sales. Anything to give you the opportunity to help your customer and help yourself in the process.

You want to increase revenue without increasing your expenses. There are many tips and tricks you can find online. However, they ultimately fall into one of these three categories. And, as you read through them, you’ll find multiple ways to increase revenue in your business.

Big doors swing on small hinges. When you understand these three principles you’ll realize you’ve only cracked open a very large door and have left a large amount of revenue sitting outside.

1. Increase The Number Of New Customer Sales

Of the three ways to increase revenue, this is the most obvious solution and the one most businesses work to improve.

There are two ways you can increase new customer sales:

• Sell your stuff to more people, or
• Convert more existing prospect to buy your stuff.

These seem the same but they’re two slightly different details. And, they both revolve around your conversion rates.

So, what are your conversion rates? How many people buy who visit your website, walk through your doors, receive your marketing, etc.? If you don’t know your conversion rates then you need to start measuring.

In order to sell your stuff to more people you can increase the traffic to your website or store. This involves more advertising, networking, etc. You’re working around your existing conversion rate and playing the numbers game in sales.

For example, if you have 100 visitors and 5 buy something then your conversion rate is 5%. If you want to double your sales based on this, you’ll need 200 visitors to make 10 sales. Fairly straight forward and simple right?

Your other option is to increase your conversion rate. If you don’t want to work on getting more visitors you can work on increasing your conversion rate from 5% to 10% so you can sell those 10 items.

Increasing conversion rates has become a hot topic recently because of the big impact it can have to increase revenue. For example, if you’re currently converting 50% of your visitors and you increase that to 60% it’s not a 10% increase in revenue. That’s a 20% increase in revenue.

That’s a huge impact!

It’s important you’re measuring these numbers so you can deeply understand the dramatic difference any small changes will make on your bottom line.

2. Increase Your Average Sale Per Customer

Now that you’ve started to convert more visitors into sales, you want to make sure you’re able to get as much money out of each customer as they’re willing to spend.

In most small businesses the sales process is some random series of events. There’s no systematic way to upsell or bundle products and maximize the revenue per customer. Many big chains do it but the mom and pop, main street business, or blogger hasn’t really embraced this. Often there’s the sense of community and a fear of offending your customer (you really won’t but it’s a common fear).

In my first insurance agency, I remember looking at our reports that showed the average auto insurance policy premium of our agency compared with others in our area. Our average premium was $770 for a six month policy and the rest of our district was only $701. We were 10% more per customer.

This additional revenue meant I had to service 10% fewer customers to earn the same income as the other agents. This led to lower staff expenses, time spent on policy changes, etc. It also meant our customers had better protection then the average agent because we were offering more and they were buying. We had a systematic process each agent went through when discussing coverage and options to yield this additional income.

It was critical. It was required!

When you go to almost any fast food franchise you get an upsell via two different processes.

The first thing they do is bundle products together. You probably only want a hamburger and drink. But, for an additional 20 cents you can bundle the fries into your meal. This would save you 90 cents if you bought them separately (it’s on sale so I have to upgrade! Yes?).

Then, after you place your order they ask you if you want to “go large” or “super size.” This is only an additional 24 cents. So, why not take the large? The Illusion of Value has been created and they’ve extracted the additional revenue out of your wallet.

Search through what you offer. What can you offer after the initial sale? What can you bundle? What can you add to existing products/services and create a premium offer (ex. a silver, gold, and platinum level)?

You may not think what you sell could be bundled however, you’ll be surprised how you can bundle many random things and, because it’s a bundled “savings,” you will sell more stuff.

You may not want to do this because you don’t want to offer a discount on a bundled item. You’re making a big mistake. If you weren’t making the additional sale in the first place this discount is found money. Naturally, you want to be profitable so make the numbers work and think…

Where can you create the illusion of value?

3. Increase The Frequency Of Customer Purchases

What are you doing to get customers to buy your products more frequently? Do you mail or email your customer often enough?

I hear you thinking to yourself:

“I don’t want to spam my list!”

Or:

“I don’t want to my customer and prospect list, they may unsubscribe or tell me to stop mailing.”

Okay. Good points.

How about this?

What if you make extra sales from those that stick around? What if you make a lot of extra sales from those that stick around? Would it be worth losing the complaining part of your list if you create a few more happy customers? (I hope you said “Yes!”)

Of the three ways to increase revenue in your business I’ve found this to be the most neglected. I believe it’s mainly because of the fear of pushing too hard or asking too often.

Naturally, you want to provide value so you aren’t seen as a greedy business person. You can offer discounts, coupons, frequent buyer programs, etc. to get customers to come back more often. Repetition of your offer will also increase curiosity and desire in your product. A discount can give them that extra nudge to move ahead and invest in your offer.

You can think of many creative ways to get people to buy more frequently. I love an example in the book Priceless about a movie theater that gave customers a Loyalty Card. The first visit to the theater each month was regular price. Each visit after the first the customer paid less and less. The number of tickets sold to card holders went up 22%. They also earned additional revenue from concessions. This was a win/win for everyone involved.

If you only offer one or two products or services, hw can you increase buyer frequency?

Find similar businesses that support what you do and offer their products or services to your customers for commission. If you’re selling online, look into affiliate marketing. There are many missed opportunities for any business to increase their revenue with the products and services of another’s when you begin to search around.

Where Will You Start?

If you don’t have any statistics for your current conversion rates, average sale per customer, or the frequency of customer purchases you want to start measuring where you’re at now! Then, as you begin to really understand those numbers, dive into each of these three ways to increase revenue.

As I said at the beginning, big doors swing on small hinges. As you work on each of these areas, you’ll realize the enormous door of opportunity has only been cracked open and you’ll be able to swing it wide open.

Image Credit familymwr.

Another article from PersuasionTheory.com. You can find the original article here: Are You Dying To Make More Sales?

I was talking with my good friend Dave yesterday. Dave is a great sales person and an impressive persuader. In his business he sells very small parcels of real estate. They’re about 3.5 feet by 8 feet in size. It’s a small parcel but is landscaped with beautiful green grass. He also sells unique and very expensive parties. Hopefully, when you have the party, hundreds of your friends and family will attend. Have you figured out what he’s selling?

This niche is known as the pre-need cemetery and funeral arrangements. Yes, if you didn’t know, you can actually buy your cemetery and funeral arrangements while you’re still alive. Dave is consistently a leader in total sales for his company month in and out.

This is a funny niche to work. I know from experience because I originally met Dave years ago when he was my sales manager. I often joked with customers that it was my job to put the fun back in funeral.

Dave left management a while back and is selling one-on-one again. Why? Because he’s good. Dave’s the top counselor in his region for his company in both cemetery and funeral sales.

He does things the other pre-need counselors (aka sales people) won’t do. He goes door knocking in neighborhoods to prospect. He looks for people in the cemetery visiting relatives and strikes up conversations that turn into sales (he calls it lawn fishing). He looks through old files to find existing customers that haven’t completed all their arrangements. And, the list goes on.

While we were talking yesterday he mentioned another counselor (Jim) in his office decided to try lawn fishing because of Dave’s success. Jim spoke with two people in the cemetery that just brushed him off. Jim started to get discouraged and decided to talk with one more person. The third person was friendly, open and bought two graves right there on the spot.

The family was thrilled to purchase the spaces next to mom and dad because they thought they were already bought by someone else.(Yes, people actually get happy about buying their graves.)

Then, Dave told me Jim walked in and said, “I just got lucky.” Dave and I both started laughing.

Is it really luck?

The other counselors sit in the office waiting patiently for someone to come in and ask for help. The other counselors will follow up once, maybe twice, with a potential buyer. The other counselors don’t take time to brush up on their persuasion skills.

You’ve probably heard the quote by Seneca:

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

If you’re in a sales environment, you can’t wait for things to happen. Do you want better luck?

• Are you willing to make an extra call today? How about 10 extra calls?
• Are you willing to say something that might upset your buyer but they need to hear today?
• Are you willing to put yourself out there and take a risk today?
• Are you willing to do something out of the ordinary today?
• Will you dedicate time to learning so you can improve your ability to understand your buyers and make more sales?

Dave has spent years mastering what he does. He’s learned rapport skills to immediately gain and convey trust. He’s learned to use questions and language in a way that helps the customer understand their situation and figure out if this is something they want to do for their family. He goes to seminars and spends thousands of dollars on education to improve what he does. He’s not afraid to put himself out there and make a sale.

Having worked in the cemetery with Dave years ago I learned one thing that haunts me every day.

Your life will be over quickly. Stop making excuses.

When you make a sale, don’t say it’s luck. Selling, marketing, persuasion is not about luck. It’s about doing things other’s won’t do. It’s about taking risks and learning skills.

Get out there and be the best at what you do. Your life is on the line.

Tell me what you think below.

Photo credit Nicole Shackelford