Effective Sales Strategies for the New Year
At the beginning of every new year, setting sales goals that will help your organization be successful can be daunting task. Therefore, it’s crucial that 12 months after initial setting these objectives you reevaluate them to see if they still align with industry trends and standards.
Instead of setting an ambitious 20% sales growth goal, break it down into weekly targets you can manage easily and monitor along the way. This way you’ll also be able to track progress more easily and make necessary improvements along the way.
1. Develop a strong rapport with your customers
Establishing customer rapport is essential to building long-term business relationships and ensures clients see your sales team as reliable advisers or, even better, partners.
Building relationships with customers requires being empathic and honest. If you don’t know an answer to a query, admitting so and seeking more information shows your sincerity in understanding their needs and concerns.
Time management skills are also integral in building strong customer relationships. Make an effort to prioritize tasks and work efficiently throughout your day – using tools that streamline workflow and allow for tracking progress will allow you to be more effective at selling, and ultimately enhance overall performance.
2. Improve your time management skills
As the New Year quickly approaches, many are contemplating their personal resolutions for 2018. Now is a good time to put into place professional goals and enhance time management skills.
Time management techniques are vital to sales success. Utilize a planner or digital planning tool regularly in your sales career to organize your day, prioritize tasks and set realistic timelines for each task. Staying on task and avoiding procrastination by regularly using these tools.
Begin by reviewing lagging indicators such as revenue, average deal size, sales cycle length and win rate. Next, identify leading indicators that can help move the needle, like prospecting efforts or potential new opportunities.
3. Utilize data analytics
Data analytics to monitor sales leads can be an invaluable way of increasing revenue, with businesses that utilize this technology reporting a 20 percent improvement in their sales performance.
Average Purchase Value is an essential metric to monitor. It shows what each sale means for your company and if this number begins to dip it may be time to revise your ideal customer profile or increase prices.
Customer retention is another useful metric; just increasing retention rates by five percent can boost profits by 95%. To maximize customer retention, go-to-market teams can use sales data analytics to learn their customers’ specific needs so they can provide relevant upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Analyzing data also enables companies to detect future risks more accurately while making more effective strategic decisions.
4. Celebrate small victories
Recognition can be an effective tool in motivating employees and driving sales growth. Furthermore, such recognition provides ongoing motivation and confirms they’re on the right path.
Celebrate both small and large victories – such as scheduling the initial meeting with a dream client or closing a deal – so as to encourage further success for all team members and help celebrate any achievements, such as successful collaboration between departments or the completion of specific projects.
Focusing on this area can help a business achieve both short- and long-term goals more easily.
5. Be flexible
Rei launched its Cyber Week to maintain shopping momentum and encourage those still unfinished with holiday shopping to finish up. Bundling products into collections makes completing lists simpler for shoppers – increasing cart value and revenue as a result!
Assuring sales goals align with organizational objectives can help build ownership and accountability within your team. Analyzing what worked and didn’t help will enable you to set manageable milestones that your sales staff can work toward meeting.
One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions involves living a healthier lifestyle. Host a social media event featuring health and fitness experts who will empower your audience to love their bodies while leading them toward leading an active, balanced life.