Better sales results to increase bottom line profits

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I know this sounds obvious, but I’m working with four clients at the present time that have flat or decreasing sales over the past three years. While there are great economic reasons to justify slow or no sales growth it doesn’t change the equation.

Fuel costs, utilities, health care costs, are all rising, if sales don’t rise in the form of price increases or increasing the top line the only thing left to do is reduce internal costs. This is not an infinite source of dollars however and sooner or later you hit critical mass and cost reductions are no longer an option.

The clients I’m working with have all done a great job of reducing internal costs and have thus far weathered the storm. Now it’s time to put the focus on using their recently developed efficiencies to drive sales.

In an expanding economy it’s much easier to increase sales, dollars are flowing and everyone’s buying. How do you increase sales in a slow economy?

Remember the equation above doesn’t care if the economy is slow or not, so when you reach the point where you can no longer cut costs you either increase sales or go out of business. What do you do if the economy isn’t optimum?

You have to get innovative. You need to offer more value for the price than your competitors. Customers today are more knowledgeable and better informed than ever. You need to use this fact to your advantage.

Your sales strategy must be an integral part of your overall strategy, it can’t sit out there on it’s own and be low price one week and high service level another.

Decide who your customer is, what niche you will serve and align your internal cost structure, your compensation, your human resources to best support that niche. Become the subject matter expert, the obvious choice for your goods or services.

You need to be able to answer the question “with all of the goods and services available to my customer, why would they buy from me?”

Better sales results start with better strategic planning and are supported by marketing and execution.