May 18th, 2018 | Updated on May 23rd, 2018
Surprisingly, increasing your sales and revenues are two different goals. Although they’re somewhat related, they both need their own, unique strategy. At the same time, it’s also important that the strategies complement one another.
With this in mind, there are a few things you should know about improving your revenue.
The Role of Google CRM
Customer relations management software helps your business grow by managing the various parts of your sales process – everything from lead scoring to enhancing the long-term relationships you have with your customers.
According to one study conducted by the Aberdeen Group in January 2010, about 63% of today’s fast-growing companies are using CRM technology to turn their sales leads into revenue. According to Chron, there are several reasons why they’re depending on CRM today, including:
- You’ll have a better overview of your sales planning process, which includes your projected sales for a specific period. This forecasting data will make it easier for you to plan marketing campaigns so you’re prepared for its highs and lows. Additionally, you’ll be able to more effectively manage your sales territories because you can see what your field agents have on their schedule. You can also make sure that the right agents are in the right places – where you most need them so your team’s performance is optimized as best as possible.
- Google CRM also enables you to improve your lead conversions. It shifts the focus from peripheral tasks to your sales professionals, giving them more time to spend selling your products or services.
- With your CRM you can track and assess things like incoming leads. The data you gather through this software allows you to monitor sales quotas, identify sales that agents haven’t yet closed, assign the most promising leads to agents who perform the best, and create ways that you can shorten your sales cycle.
- CRM applications store detailed information from each interaction your sales agents have with your customers. This is important because it costs less to maintain your existing customer relationships than to form new ones. With the information the system gives them this is easier to do because agents can anticipate your customers’ needs and consistently provide them with personalized service – the kind that makes your customers loyal to you.
- You’re able to track lead data so you know what your return on investment really is. This lets you know what leads are producing the most money so you can adjust your focus accordingly. With more data given to you about each of your leads, you’re now monitoring the health of your business, which means you can create accurate forecasts, proactively monitor how your pipeline is performing, effectively manage your company’s budget, and properly allocate your business’ resources so you can meet your revenue goals.
- There’s no more guessing about how to price your products or what to quote in regard to the services you provide. You’ll no longer be guessing about what your customers have ordered or at what stage their order is. Instead, everything is fully disclosed and can be expedited when necessary. This shows your customers that you understand their needs and effectively build relationships between your business, its customers, and your distribution partners too.
Diversification
Once you own a mature company, it’s time to start adding more products and services so it doesn’t stagnate and die. This is important because once you’ve saturated the marketplace you need to find something else to offer your customers.
You may even need to go as far as replacing your old products with new ones. While this may result in less sales, you could end up making more money if your replacement product has a higher price.
When you increase the average transaction size you’ll get your customers to buy more from you. This is what’s known as “upselling.” Forbes says this should be the next step for you business because it’s what improves your revenue.
However, the only way you can do this successfully is if you actually know your clients. This happens when you take the time to develop relationships with them. Investing in these people means they’ll grow loyal to your brand and purchase more from your company.
At the same time, Chron says that you also need to look for businesses that you don’t compete with – whom you can collaborate with. If they still share the same targeted customers though, you can work with them to develop cross promotions.
You can also choose to partner with charities. Using social media in both instances will help you build a huge following of highly satisfied clients.
By using these techniques to increase your customer base you’ll not only bring in more customers, you’ll also bring in more money because they’ll want to interact with your business more frequently.
All it takes is some work to encourage them to do so – encourage them to patronize your business weekly instead of monthly. The more you’re able to do this, the more money you’ll make even if the transaction size doesn’t change.
It’s Really all About Strategy
Clearly, this all has to do with creating a strong sales strategy for your business and marketing it properly. Youneed to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves and work to improve on your weaknesses.
This happens when you look to penetrate new markets with a killer strategy since having no strategy at all is actually quite devastating.
Before you look to improve on what you’re currently doing you need to take a close look at your sales strategy, making sure that it’s well aligned with your revenue goals.
Personal MBA reminds us that without these goals in place it’s going to be extremely difficult to grow more revenue if you don’t have a good, solid strategy in place.
This means investing time to look around and find areas you can exploit, opportunities you can take advantage of, where new revenue can be found, what’s currently working, and what you need to change. You’re bound to find ways to increase your revenue if you just look hard enough.
