Struggling with Sales? Here’s the Best Way to Increase Sales!
One of the biggest challenges that businesses have, is how to make sales. Really, the subject of sales is the most important subject when it comes to your business.
You see, the money is not in any product or service. It’s in your ability to SELL your product or service.
This is a very important concept that you need to grasp as a business owner. Here’s the idea. Money is with people. All the money in the world, including the one that your business needs are with people.
However, you need to find a way for them to hand it over to you so that it can become yours.
This is what Sales is essentially about
Here’s the first thing that I’ve found that influences the success of a sale.
A sale is concluded in the mind before money changes hands
The ability to communicate to your prospective audience, that you have a product or service that will benefit them, and then be able to convince them that you are saying the truth, is what will guarantee that you remain a success in business
Many of us go for the hard sell. That is the ‘come and buy’ kind of marketing that we’re familiar with. Unfortunately, it more or less turns your audience off.
Let me explain.
A major component of sales is psychology. That is, in your attempt to sell, you must take into consideration the mindset that your audience has, then influence it to favour you.
At any time, only 3% of your audience is in a ready position to buy. That is, only 3% of your audience has an acute need for your product, is willing to buy now, and has money to pay. In other words, when all you do is go for the hard sale, then you are leaving 97% of the people that can buy from you on the table.
17% of your audience is looking for information on where and what to buy.
30% are aware that they have a problem, but have no idea how to solve it.
60% are not even aware that there is a problem at all‼️
So, how do you use this information? First off, understand that not everyone that is within your network, will buy from you right now.
So, what do you say to the remaining 97% of your audience?
The answer is CONTENT
Research has shown that you need to market between 5 to 7 times before a prospect buys from you. Yet, most people get turned off by the third time you do a direct sale to them.
To put it in context. By the time I get the third unsolicited WhatsApp BC or email, or the third picture of your product on your Instagram feed or WhatsApp Status, I’m turned off.
Do you sell shoes? Start with a free guide that shows people how to take care of their shoes. Talk about how they can care for their shoes.
Talk about WHY they need a lot of shoes. The solution then is to create content aimed at every segment of your audience.
Start talking about their problem.
Show some empathy.
Show that you care.
By having these conversations,
1. Your target audience begins to see you as an expert:
Expertise is the reason why You Trust your doctor/pharmacist enough to buy whatever they tell you to
2. You start to understand your target audience more.
When you understand who you are selling to, it is easier to sell to them
Finally, tonight, let’s talk about sales funnels.
You’ve probably heard about them and think it’s a complicated something…It’s really not. It’s a very simple concept.
It’s like this. If you have to speak with your audience 7 times before they buy,
You design how and where they hear from you so that it is easy to sell to them
A sales funnel has four stages.
A — Attention
I — Interest
D — Desire
A — Action
This is called the AIDA formula and is good enough for a small business. some variants teach it as, AIDA, AIDAR or even AIIDAR.
So, back to AIDA
The first thing you want to do is attract attention.
Interest is what follows next, you want to arouse the interest of your audience, and then make them desire what you sell.
It is at the Desire stage that you start talking a lot about what you sell.
In the Action and Interest stage, you talk the most about what your customer’s problems are.
Then, in the Desire stage, you start talking about how your product solves that problem.
Paint a picture of how good their lives will look with your product or service.
The Action Phase is where the Hard Sell takes place. That’s where you tell them to buy now. But, the Hard Sell never works, unless you go through the first 4 stages First.
That, in a nutshell, is how to sell.
Let’s close here today.
Oh, and I wrote a little material on content marketing, sales funnels and sales.
It’s called Content Marketing: Hawkers VS Market Women.
If I’ve not sent it to you before, slide into my WhatsApp DM and get it.
P.S This article is part of a new series I’m starting called Business FAQs. It’s aimed at answering the questions that small business owners and solopreneurs have. You can join the live sessions on WhatsApp here
