4 Ways To Increase Sales and Improve Customer Relations

Finnegan Pierson

Whether you own a small business or a large establishment, an established company or a startup, every business owner is laser-focused on increasing their sales. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. All the planning, marketing and budgeting have the hoped-for end product of attracting customers and expanding sales. Here are a few strategies to consider for your next sales meeting.

Master Sales Management

At its core, sales management is all about planning, training, and implementing sales strategies that will drive a business's sales upward. To effectively manage all aspects of your sales plan, you should begin by placing a great deal of focus on hiring. The foundation of successful sales is building a great team. Once you have gathered the best team you can muster, you must then give them the best training possible, especially on product knowledge. Next, you should make sure that your sales goals have been clearly defined and that you have a detailed plan for implementation. Finally, your sales plan isn't complete until you have implemented a robust customer relationship strategy. Sales management can be quite complex and can be aided significantly with sales management software.

Use Social Media Advertising

Even the smallest business can and should engage in social media interactions and advertising. This is a great place to build relationships with potential customers. Make sure that your business has a profile on all of the major social media platforms. If you're on a tight budget and don't know a lot about social media, don't hesitate to hire a consultant from a local college to help you set up your profiles and begin identifying your target audience. College students in the marketing field are eager to build their resumes and will be willing to work with you even if you're not able to pay top dollar. If you sell a niche product, expand your presence to some of the smaller niche platforms in order to locate your prime audience.

Offer Information and Education

A great way to increase foot traffic into your location is to offer training classes or product demonstrations at your place of business. If you've got great products, showcasing them through a class or demonstration gives you the ability to show potential customers just how fantastic it is and clear up any doubts they might have about their ability to use it. Whether you're selling cosmetics, clothing, software or lawn equipment, organizing a demonstration or an educational resource can be invaluable to existing customers, draw in new customers and give you the opportunity to expose clientele to additional products they may not be aware of. 

Reward Loyal Customers

If you've been in business for a while, you know that existing customers are a precious commodity. They can be relied on for future sales and they advertise for you through word of mouth. If existing customers are happy with your products and service, they are also likely to increase the dollar amount of their purchases the longer they stay with you. Keeping them happy and coming back to your establishment should be high on your list of priorities.

There are a million ways to show your gratitude to loyal customers, and most of them are surprisingly low in cost. As long as you have a decent CRM program, you can keep track of your customers' birthdays and give them a little gift once a year. That can be as simple as a personal email containing a discount coupon or a product sample. Other simple possibilities are to offer a punch card that rewards the customer once they have made a certain number or amount of purchases or to hold special buy-one-get-one events in your store for loyal customers only.

Increasing your sales requires organized sales management, relationship development through social media and offering your customers education and rewards to keep them coming back for more. All of these ideas can be implemented on a small scale for businesses working with a limited budget, or in flashier ways by established businesses with a bit more to spend. Either way, if you want to increase sales, you'll need to be willing to take action to see results.