Sales is the lifeblood of every business. If you're not making sales, then you're not making money.
Sales is what produces cash flow. And cash flow is the fuel to the rocket that is your business' growth. But sales can produce a lot of challenges.
Whether you have difficulty with sales and selling yourself, or you have trouble bottling up the magic that is your passion for selling your product or service to your team members, it is essential that you learn how to build an effective and scalable sales strategy for your business to ascend the growth curve.
We've compiled the 5 principles that you can apply right now that will enable you to generate more profitable revenue in a from-heart-way that is scalable and sustainable.
Principle 1 — What are you thinking about when it comes to sales?
When you think about sales, what comes to mind? Do you hate doing sales? Do you find it difficult? Are you worried about being pushy? Or do you think your team can't deliver the same journey as you?
Realise that how you think about sales determines the actions that you do. And this directly correlates with the results that you and your team generate.
Think back to when you first started your business and why you started it. Most business owners start because we believe our product or service will truly enrich people's lives and that we can do it better than what's out there right now.
Get back to that mindset. Understand how your product or service will immediately impact their world, and realise it can be a gift.
Because sales isn't about trying to get someone to do something they don't want to do. It's about helping your audience solve their problem with your product or service, and enabling that with an elegant buyer's journey that you guide them through.
Remember — sales is a skill, just like building a business is a skill. And it can be learnt by anyone. But first, you must understand your current relationship with sales, and develop the right attitude to prime your sales growth journey.
So ask, what are you thinking about when it comes to sales?
"One of the key core principles you need to understand as a business owner is that sales is business is a skill."
Principle 2 — Have a doctor's mindset
Doctors are some of the most trusted people in the world. As a patient, I trust the doctor to ask the right questions, to diagnose me correctly, and tell me what treatments I need to fix whatever problem I have. They are experts and have earned our trust when it comes to our health.
Start seeing yourself as the doctor in your industry. Develop the mindset that you are the one to lead, direct, and diagnose your customers' problems. Start acting like you are the expert and that you have the solution to the problems you know your consumers face.
This is no longer just something we can do, but something we should do. Consumers are overwhelmed with so much information, they want an expert to tell them what their best next step is. They want us, the doctors, to help lead them.
That means requiring behavioural flexibility from you to ask the right questions, to listen, digest all of the right information, to care and empathise with your consumer, and to lead them. Understand them better than they know themselves so you can help lead them to their best next step.
Principle 3 — Be authentic
Nobody wants to come off as pushy, especially if you're presenting yourself as an expert or leader. But you'll be deemed as pushy if you put something out there that isn't authentically to you, and if you don't understand your consumer in a way that can help their world.
If you are conveying something that you truly believe in, that's when people will start following your leadership.
Be you in every facet of your business — in your marketing message, in the way you do sales, in how you manage and lead people, in how you deliver your product or service.
Entrepreneurship is all about resonance in the end. And you can only resonate and connect with others when you show up being authentically you. That's when people will believe and follow you.
"When you show up being authentically you, that's when you'll connect. That's when people will trust you to be the leader in their world."
Principle 4 — Obsess about your consumer
The entrepreneur that is most connected to their audience is the entrepreneur that is most effective in the long run.
You can't become the doctor if you don't understand your patient. You can't become the expert in your industry if you don't understand your consumer. You won't be able to resonate or lead if you're not connecting with the right people through the right messaging.
Take the time to understand and truly obsess about your audience. Find out who they are, what they need, how they want it, where they're living, where they're coming from, what sales channels and avenues they are coming from. Dive deep and think not about your product or service, but about who your consumer is.
When you understand this, that is when you can run your business more effectively. That is when you can do sales more effectively. And when you get connected, stay connected. Because that is how you can avoid being like Blockbuster, Kodak or the taxi industry, and instead pivot and innovate if your consumer changes or if the market shifts.
Learn their fears, their wants, their needs, their goals and ambitions. Then create an eloquent buyer's journey to help them buy what they need to enrich and add value to their lives.
Principle 5 — Process is key
Your process is how you bottle all of these principles up and turn that magic into a scalable machine that can run without you.
There are 4 key things you need to have a highly effective sales process:
- You need to have a high converting sales process. Don't rely on you and someone in your team to be converting at this number. It should be your process, and it should be a process anyone in your team can learn and convert at.
- You need to shorten the length of your sales cycle. Remember the speed at which you convert can be killing your sales.
- You need to increase your average dollar per sale. Increase the value of which you sell your product. What are the steps and questions that you need to be asking your consumers and yourselves in order to sell your product and service at a higher price point that reduces the cost per lead, that reduces your acquisition cost?
- You need to have a replicable process. You need to bottle the magic either you or your best salesperson has so that anyone in your team can guide your consumer through an eloquent buyer's journey and convert them just as good, if not better than you or your best salesperson. This is what will help you stop being the technician, stop doing all of the sales and sales management, and start leaning into the activities and tasks that contribute to you achieving your vision.
Start increasing the sales in your business, today
If you apply these 5 principles right now, it will directly impact how much revenue you bring through the door. If you adopt these into your day-to-day, the relationship you have with sales and your sales team will change.
The rate and speed with which you grow your business and drive profitable revenue will change. So, lean into these principles, absorb them, and obsess about them.
If you need to understand more about sales and how you can increase your cash flow now, access our "22 Strategies To Increase Your Sales" short course featuring Australia's leading sales training expert Petar Lackovic here.
This blog is taken from the contents of my episode on The Make It Happen Show all about how you can build and grow your business through a powerful sales engine. Check it out.
