4 Easy Ways to Boost Your Sales

copyright 2004 Bob Leduc

Here are 4 easy ways you can boost your sales for little or no new expense ...and without making major changes in your selling process.

1. Focus on What Your Customers Really Want

Your customers really don't want your products or services. They don't even want what those products or services do for them. What they really want is to gain the specific feeling they get after buying and using your products or services.

Keep this in mind when you create web pages, sales letters and other selling presentations. Emphasize the feelings produced by using your product instead of talking about what your product is - or how it works.

Tip: Convert the benefits delivered by your product or service into vivid word pictures. Then put your prospect in the picture by dramatizing what it feels like to be enjoying those benefits.

Example, if you sell financial products, describe what it feels like to enjoy an affluent life style without debt.

2. Keep Communicating With Your Previous Non-Buyers

You've heard it before - but I'll say it here again. Most prospective customers will not buy the first time they see or hear about your product or service. You're losing a lot of sales if you do not persistently follow up with those prospects.

Your follow up procedure can be as simple as periodically contacting them with a new offer. Or it can be more complex like distributing a newsletter or providing updated product information.

Tip: You cannot follow up with prospects if you don't know how to reach them. Set up a system for collecting the names and contact information of all prospects who do not buy from you.

Example, offer a special report, a list of sources or some other valuable information your prospects cannot get anywhere else. Deliver it only by email or postal mail so you can get their contact address.

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3. Encourage Questions

Questions from prospects may be a nuisance. But answering them can be very profitable.

Prospective customers only take time to ask questions when they have a high level of interest in your product or service. Providing a satisfactory answer to a prospect's question often leads directly to a sale.

Invite prospects to ask questions when in live selling situations. And make it easy for them to ask questions when they are not ...such as at your web site. For example, list a phone number or email address where you or someone else can answer their questions.

Tip: Include a Questions and Answers page on your web site with answers to frequently asked questions. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer individually.

4. Make Buying Easier

Every non-essential action in the buying process is an opportunity for the customer to reverse their decision ...causing you to lose the sale.

Look for ways you can make your buying procedure easier and faster. For example, many marketers use a multi-step shopping cart to get online orders when a simple online order form would do the job with just 1 or 2 quick clicks.

Tip: Don't ask for unnecessary information during the ordering process. Instead, send a personalized "thank you" message after the sale and include a brief request for the information.

These 4 selling tactics may not be new to you. But are you using all (or any) of them? If not, they can easily boost your sales ...for little or no new expense - and without making major changes in your sales process.

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Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in generating low-cost leads. He recently wrote a manual for small business owners, "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards", and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more info: mailto:BobLeduc@aol.com