If you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner who wants to jumpstart their sales, there is just so much you can do. Of course, sales depend on many different factors, but you can still improve some of them yourself. Here are ten highly effective techniques to jumpstart your sales.

1.Focus on Emotions and Feelings

You’ve probably heard about it before that focusing on emotions and feelings is essential for building strong short-term and long-term relationships with your customers. If you have a connection with them, they will be able to relate to your brand better. Make your audience feel good on an emotional level first, then follow up with facts.

The thing is that we are used to focusing on emotions rather than on logic when we experience something for the first time. This is why first impressions matter so much and can make a big impact on how your first-time customers feel about your brand and whether or not they become your long-term clients.

2. Make Them Agree With You

Did you hear about cognitive dissonance? Basically, it’s the idea that we are committed to a certain “version” or perception of ourselves. This is why we tend to avoid putting ourselves in situations that negate that perception. Knowing about cognitive dissonance and using it can help you increase sales dramatically.

If you ask your customers certain questions that will make them agree with you, they will get “on board” early on. Afterward, they will be less likely to disagree with you about the usefulness of a certain product or feature. This will help you easier sell your products or services to such clients.

3. Sell It to Themselves

Yes, you heard it right. You can make your clients sell your own products to themselves. It’s funny how easy that can be done and how many business owners and marketers are missing out on the opportunities this technique brings.

The point is to give your client reasons to defend what you’re selling. You can do this by saying that you are not sure whether a product or service is right for them or by mentioning that they seem more interested than you originally expected. If you allow them to defend your product, they will put together their own argument about why they should make the purchase.

4. Show Examples of Other Clients

Making other clients an example for your potential customers will help you persuade the latter ones to make a purchase. We are social beings and like to know about what other people feel about this or that. It’s all about psychology at the end of the day.

Social proof is so effective exactly for that reason. If you share positive feedback, it will only have a good effect on the overall image of your organization. In addition to that, genuine and honest reviews can highlight the benefits of your products maybe even better than you ever could.

 

5. Outsource Your Content Creation

One of the best marketing strategies you could use is content marketing. It is cheap, easy to set up, and quite effective. One of the downsides, however, is that it may take too much of your time as content creation is a painstaking process.

A great solution for this problem is outsourcing your content creation with the help of an online writing service such as Trust My Paper. This will give you more time to focus on the more important aspects of your business such as increasing your sales. You can outsource other tasks as well such as administrative chores and so on.

6. Limit Time and Create Urgency

Everyone loves special deals because they allow you to purchase something you really like for a price smaller than the usual one. If you make such deals limited, you will realize that people are starting to buy more and more (even if the product is not that popular or valuable.)

We are afraid of missing out on an opportunity, so when your customers realize that there is a limited time the product will be available or there is a set number of such products, they will try to grab it as fast as possible. You can see that by looking at the holiday sales most stores usually have. For example, Black Friday.

7. Give Them Some Space

Sometimes marketers make the mistake of being too pushy. Alright, let’s be honest, not sometimes but quite often. It doesn’t matter whether this comes in the form of too many promotional emails or constant phone calls – people don’t like it.

Your aim, on the other hand, is to make your customers feel comfortable. Give them some space. If they realize that they can feel safe and there is no pressure in the relationship between you and them, they will start feeling more confident. They will start trusting you more and even making the first step rather than waiting for you to do it.

 

8. Highlight the Benefits

We are used to paying attention to risk first and only then to everything else. If you are not a popular company, your potential customers might be afraid to purchase from you even if your products are absolutely outstanding. This is why it is so important to highlight the benefits of buying from you.

Show why and how your product or service is great. Keep the focus on the rewards your customers get when they buy it. Tell them about the advantages they get, whether it is a smaller price or a higher value. At the same time, try to minimize the risks as much as possible.

9. Tell Great Stories (and Jokes)

Never forget about the power of storytelling. Telling great stories is an amazing way to build trust and establish a strong relationship with your customer. Stop thinking in terms of statistics and start telling anecdotes.

If you want to be impressive, tell the story of a single happy client rather than claiming that hundreds of your clients have been satisfied with your work. It is a lot more personal and will show the “real” factors that determined such a great experience.

10. Outsmart Your Competition

Lastly, outsmart your competition by doing regular research about them. You have to know what they are up to at any given moment. Maybe you can even use this knowledge in your own strategy and increase your sales with the same tactics they used.

Always be a step ahead of them. And, on the contrary, don’t copy directly whatever your competitors are doing. That will only make you look unprofessional and a copycat that nobody respects. Know the limits.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, sales are a constant worry for all business owners, so it’s only natural that you want to increase them. If you use some or all of these tactics, you will definitely see an improvement.

 

Bridgette Hernandez is a Master in Anthropology who is interested in writing and is planning to publish her own book in the near future. She works with professional writing companies such as GrabMyEssay and SupremeDissertations as a writer. The texts she writes are always informative, based on qualitative research but nevertheless pleasant to read.

 

 

The engagement of a prospect is very important if a software business is set to earn considerable revenue. One of the compelling ways to attract a customer towards your services is to write a proposal that is convincing as well as straight forward. A sales proposal for a software business might be your way of redefining how much value your service holds and what it brings for the clients.

With a large number of competitors in the business software arena, it has become important than ever before to come up with a proposal that will necessarily intrigue the prospects. The notion of making a proposal compelling has been considered by all those running a software business.

There are some factors that makes a sales proposal stand out from all the others. Let’s discuss a few things to know more about the particularities related to such proposals;

Focus On the Prospects

If the client has spared some time to read your proposal, it suggests he/she already knows you have something worth a consideration. What you need to do now is to keep them on the same page by emphasizing more on the ways SaaS will reduce work related complications for them and how it will be fulfilling their business needs.

The prospects are not as much interested in a business’s achievements the way they are interested in getting their problems resolved. Focusing on the prospects doesn’t mean to ignore the main features of the software that a company sells. Add the features too, but keep the focus maintained upon the requirements of the prospect. Tell them how your software will cope with the obstacles and how it will support their existing setup?

Give Them Different Options

The consumer psychology suggests that the prospects show more interest in availing products/services when they know they have a set of options to choose from, and this is what a person should take care of while designing a sales proposal for a software business.

Be as much flexible as you can when it comes to options. These options can be created by offering different plans, packages and offers in your proposal. Such choices provide a convenience to prospects to choose an option that suits their needs the most. In short, prospects are more likely to turn into customers if they are given options. One way of doing this is to offer them a free use of your software for a limited time or maybe some freemium package.

Make Your Point with Comparisons

As discussed earlier, there are many competitors in the case of a software business.  To stand out, a company must portray value in a distinguishing way to look different and better than its competitors. These comparisons are a better approach to convince prospects instead of boasting about how good your company is.

The comparisons can be made by introducing such add-ons and features along with the software services that haven’t been introduced before by anyone else. The proposals are one of the suitable platforms to inform prospects what makes the software better than the competitors. For instance, you can tell them how your software works better than the hardware fulfilling same purposes?

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Customize the Perks

It is an understood fact that the use of software service will differ from person to person, since everyone doesn’t come in for the same reason. See what your software service provides to different kinds of clients, categorize your services accordingly and then make a proposal in a customized manner.

It is indeed a better approach to present the proposal to potential customers in a personalized way. It becomes easy to persuade the prospects for using your services this way. The selection of words should also be made carefully to achieve all your personalization goals.

In a nutshell, the quality of proposals that a business design greatly influences its win-rate as far as a sales process is concerned. If a proposal doesn’t have any spark, the prospect would more likely abstain from attaining SaaS. So being super circumspect is the key to designing best sales proposals for a software business.

Article Summary

A comprehensive and persuasive sales proposal can increase the sales and revenue of a software business in an amazing way. One must take care of different factors while designing a sales proposal to get maximum benefits out of it.

The approach to selling is based on the principles of the sales process known as the sales pipeline. A sales pipeline involves various steps that an individual salesperson should take to convert the potential customers to qualifying prospects, then to lead, and further take the lead into a sales opportunity. The process is then taken through different stages to be considered closed.

Below is the typical sales funnel:

  • Cold Suspect
  • Warm Lead
  • Hot Deal
  • Qualified Buyer
  • Customer

Sales are a continuous process that requires you to bring in the needed prospects and close customers again and again. It is a process that never ends, and keeping this process under control requires a proper sales pipeline which was defined a while ago. The most fundamental thing about a sales pipeline is that you need to prioritize the prospects.

In many cases, the companies that do not use a sales pipeline management end up failing in the recognition of the benefits that it provides or they are unaware of the ways in which they can shape their sales.

A sales pipeline distinguishes between a good sales team from a great one. It is quite painful to have the goals you set out for your sales team to be missed out.

Five problems prevent the development of a robust sales pipeline:

  1. Unrealistic Timelines
  2. Research that takes too much time
  3. Wastage of time in communicating with unqualified companies
  4. Email response rates being poor
  5. Follow ups with the prospects are inefficient

Related: 4 Ways CRM Makes Small Business Employees More Productive

Unrealistic Timelines

One of the major causes of the forecasting frustration in business is the overly aggressive close dates (unrealistic timelines) and the stalling of opportunities. If the sales management is entirely focused on the acquisition of accurate numbers, then it is not helping the sales reps in choosing the opportunities that might assist in uncovering the unpredicted customer problems. This impacts the accuracy of forecasts and the velocity of the pipeline. This can be due to the causes:

The solution for such timelines is quite a straightforward one. The sales management should be more focused at the front end of the sales pipeline, which is wide and the opportunities are numerous. Also, the leading indicators are the basis for a good pipeline management. These can be found in the early stages of the sales cycle with the help of good buyer analysis and questioning.

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Researching Prospects

Almost 20% of the time is spent by the sales reps researching the prospects. To overcome such problem, the sales reps should be presented with a list of prospective customers that are beyond the basic demographics. This way the reps will lead towards revenue generation.

Unqualified Companies

Your sales representatives most probably spend too much of their time on the businesses that are not even qualified. Nothing can be more wasteful for business than the sales reps spending time on the prospects that they will not be able to close. To overcome this, you should target the companies that are growing, as they have the budget. By providing your reps with the list of growing companies, you improve the closing rates and reduce the time wasted on the businesses that will never agree to the prices.

Cold Emails

Sales reps are only able to get a 5% response rate on the email blasts. Cold emails, if utilized well, are a guaranteed way of opening up new opportunities. However, the response rate of these cold emails is very degrading. To make most of it, you should make batches and email the companies that have commonalities that would improve the response rate. You should send out the emails that resonate with the receiver. To do this, the companies should be segmented, and the commonalities should be determined. 

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Cold Calls

In the least, only 2% of the cold calls are ever received, it is a losing battle for the sales. To avoid such a problem, the sales reps should make the cold calls with a profound knowledge about the company they contract with. This can be done easily in a few minutes by visiting the websites and by pulling out information about them.

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Follow Up with Prospects

Most of the reps do not follow up with the prospective customers; almost 80% of the sales require that 5 or more follow-up interactions should be made. This is because the reps do not always have anything relevant to reach out to. To overcome this problem, you should provide the sales rep with information promptly so that they can do the follow ups more diligently.

In hope that this gives the clear overview of the most common sales pipeline problems and the fixes, if you recognize any of these problems, you now have the knowledge as to how you can optimize and predict your sales and revenues.

Related: How To Analyze Your Sales Pipeline and Track Sales Effectively and Key Aspects of Building True Customer Demand