A 2017 report by Infusionsoft found that nearly 31% of business owners identified ‘driving sales’ as their No. 1 business goal, whilst 23% said that they needed to ‘keep the customers they already had’.
The report also found that 47% of small business owners have no idea whether their marketing efforts are effective, whilst 10% know they aren’t effective! Furthermore, the top two challenges for business owners were ‘finding time and resource’ followed by ‘converting leads into customers’.
This is hardly surprising given that the research also found that 49% of business owners do the sales and marketing themselves – yet only a small percentage actually have a sales or marketing background!
Sales doesn’t stand still because customers’ buying habits and preferences don’t stand still. Today’s’ savvy buyer is much more sophisticated and educated now than they were even five years ago – therefore how you approach your sales, must be much more sophisticated than previously.
Start with the fundamentals of sales first and then build on that. Once you have a defined customer strategy, a consistent sales process and some proven selling technique in place – then you can start to ‘sophisticate’ your sales further.
This will help you meet the challenges set by the modern savvy buyer and allow you to prioritise something else other than ‘driving more sales’ as your number one business priority for 2019!
If you are one of the many business owners without a sales background and doing the selling yourself or perhaps a new salesperson in your first sales role – then try our new ‘Fundamental Sales’ online training course, packed with 10 training modules and 10 downloadable sales tools for you to use and keep.
This equivalent full-day sales training course (which can be taken at your own pace) takes you through every step of the sale from lead generation to conversion and retention – as well as how to handle sales objections and close the deal.
PS. There’s a 20% discount if you sign up for our monthly ‘PDT Newswire’ (visit our homepage at: https://pdtsalesconsultancy.co.uk/19/) and may the ‘Sales force’ be with you.