Sales is the most important function for most businesses, though it is not taught formally in business schools like marketing and finance. Therefore, you will notice that Sales Managers and Sales Leaders will often occupy powerful positions in corporates.
There are many frameworks on how to improve sales, but its still an art, and extremely subjective. Predicting the sales potential of a person is like predicting the performance of a stock, its very difficult because a wide range of personality attributes go into making a successful salesperson, and you don’t need an Ivy League degree to be the best sales person in your company. This fact, that anybody can come and reach the top with his/her merit in sales, makes other people less comfortable with top achievers in sales function…keep that in mind.
In this article, I want to share my inputs with you on how to win new customers. Every suggestion mentioned in this article has given successful results to many companies, and produced millions of dollars in sales. You just have to apply them for your case, because they can be used in any business.
The key is to understand that customer are seeking information about products/services or they look for information that would help them solve their day to day or long pending problem.
If you are into a business you would certainly have very good information about your business that potential customers might be interested in. You can share this information with them to solve their problem. You, as an expert, can use your knowledge to make people come to you when they need certain information. Once they see you as an impartial source of information provider they would like to reciprocate by considering your product/service when they make up their mind to buy the product.
Sales will follow as prospects come to you for advice, and repeat business and referrals will multiply as trust in you grows and people spread the word. In direct sales to public you can use this technique effectively to gain their trust, which is difficult to build, as they would see you as an impartial party and the next step of buying then becomes much easier.
Whatever your service or profession: lawyer accountant, builder, plumber, car repair, insurance, etc — give away free information and build your reputation as an expert. Like a car repair shop can give free information about good maintenance technique (though this may not be desirable by your business), gas oil detail, information about different car parts, new car launches etc.
Write down 5 tips that you could give to people on what to look for when buying products/services/solutions that you offer. Now use this information to attract potential customers and when a only few of them try to approach you.
If you implement the above sales and marketing tips, you can easily take away business from your competitors because you are offering something valuable they are not.