When working in sales, it is easy to become set in your ways of doing things; however, this can cause you to become stale, and your sales may slow down as a result. You should then take some time each year to evaluate your sales strategy and determine what you can do to improve your technique. If you have yet to take time to evaluate your sales strategy in 2019 and you feel as though your sales have fallen flat, here is a list of things every salesperson can do to be more successful in 2019.
Set Personal Goals
One of the simplest things that you can do to improve your sales is to set goals for yourself and what you want to achieve this week, this month, and in the coming year. Many people underestimate the power setting goals for oneself can have; however, setting yourself goals can give you the motivation to take real steps to improve your sales and further your career. Outline realistic steps that you can take in the coming weeks to increase your sales including setting a goal for how many cold calls you plan to make each day, and how many leads you plan to follow up on.
You may also want to make long term goals if you do not see yourself in your current position forever. If you would like to eventually move up into a management position, outline things that you can do to further your career in the coming year such as signing up for a business course or talking with your manager about what opportunities are available and how you can work towards them. Having a career goal to aspire to can give you more motivation to increase your sales in the present.
Review Your Past Pitches for Commonalities
An important step every salesperson should take to improve their success rate is to frequently review their recent pitches, both lost and won, to see what commonalities are present. Doing this can help you to see where you are succeeding, where you are failing, and if there are any bad habits in your sales strategy that you can get rid of. Look at your recent sales and see if your successful pitches had anything in common, and do the same with your failed pitches. Finding commonalities in your past failures and successes can help you to get a better idea of what prospects you should be targeting, and which ones you should be avoiding.
Ask For Referrals
Perhaps one of the easiest ways to improve your sales numbers is to incorporate asking for referrals into your sales process. While referrals are often one of the most successful resources for new leads, many salespeople do not have a referral process in place. However, the fact is that your customers are your brand\’s best ambassadors, and you need to take advantage of their satisfaction with your product or services. Make sure that you routinely call satisfied customers with whom you have a good relationship to see if they would be willing to recommend your goods/services. Once you make this a habit, you will be surprised by how many leads this will generate.
Taking steps to reevaluate and enhance your sales strategy regularly can go a long way in helping to boost your sales. Even simple steps like setting personal goals and reviewing your past successes and failures can help to improve your sales strategy. Contact us to learn more about things every salesperson should do in 2019 to boost sales, and look out for our next post as we continue to discuss this topic.