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I provided a seminar on Business and Marketing Plans for a group of senior managers recently. At the end of the session, during our final question and answer session, one attendee said, "I understand the value in everything you've shared today, but what can I do to increase sales right now?" Good question. I'm sure others wanted to know the same thing. I wish I had a sure-fire, guaranteed-to-succeed answer. But I don't. No one does. And if someone says they do, be very careful. Because if something sounds too good to be true - it probably is. And a sure-fire, magic pill to increase sales immediately - without negatively impacting other areas of your business in the longer run - is more fantasy than reality. Sure you can dramatically reduce prices. You can offer 2-for-1 specials. You can provide freebies, 0% financing, 180 days same as cash specials, huge rebates, and other tactics. And they may well work - if you've already got sufficient cash-flow to carry the potential shifts in revenues. However, most businesses don't. So any knee-jerk reaction to what sounds like a good idea to spike sales, may instead hurt your business dramatically. Could you afford to give away one unit for each unit sold over the next month? You may be able to -- with a bit of time and strategy adjustments (i.e., planning). We can't force people to become our customers. We can't force them to give us their business or their money. Therefore, we have to determine what will cause them to choose to do business with us. How do we do that? We pay attention to them. We listen to them. We notice what they like and what they don't like. We identify what they view as problematic and determine if we can help make their problems go away. If we can do all of this, we may get more customers. If we don't, we spend time trying to get anybody and everybody as customers. And we usually end up having spent bunches of time, money, and effort going after customers who really don't want to do business with us. We typically just spike expenses - not sales. So, I'm sorry to say, there is no magic pill to immediately, dramatically,and successfully increase sales - without negatively impacting other areas of your business. There is no sure-fire answer. Even if you pay attention to customers and provide what they like, and you can make their problems go away, there is no guarantee they'll buy from you right away. However, in time, if you continue to aggressively plan your business and marketing tactics to align with what your current and prospective customers want, like, and will ultimately pay for, you'll find your magic pill. Yours just comes in the timed-release format. Start planning for your increased sales now. Copyright 2004 - Liz Weber of Weber Business Services, LLC.
Permission to reprint this article is granted as long as you use the complete attribution above - including live website link and e-mail address - and you send me an email at liz@wbsllc.com to let me know where the article will be published. |
