Happy New Year! Are you ready to grow sales and grow your business in 2018? Check these ten tips to get started:
- Review last year That’s right – 2018 is here, 2017 is now last year! How did your sales grow in 2017? Hopefully you saw an upward growth trajectory! Are you pleased with the trajectory or would you like to see some serious change? If you are pleased, how could you grow sales even more?
- Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions Decide what you’ll continue to do, what you’ll do differently and how you’ll do it differently.
- Consider your marketing plan How do you plan to reach all your target markets in the 2018 year ahead? How successful were you at reaching your target markets in the 2017 year? What can you do differently to improve your reach? There’s a lot more to a good marketing plan, but these questions are a great starting point.
- Market to your existing clients That’s right – your existing clients are a specific target market group in themselves. How can you grow sales with your existing clients?
- Plan for growth with a sales strategy There’s an old saying – Fail to plan, plan to fail. If you don’t have a roadmap, how will you know you’ve arrived at your destination? You need a sales strategy and some strong goal setting supported by well-thought out tasks to support your sales growth in 2018. Your sales strategy must focus on growing sales.
- Consider your resources Is your plan achievable with your current sales and marketing resources? Do you need more time, more skills, more people or more of all the above? How will you grow sales in 2018?
- Upgrade your sales and marketing systems How can you make the proverbial ship go faster? Where can you streamline and create additional efficiencies? Saving time equals saving money. When you save time, you create three choices. One – you can take everyone at your business out to a long lunch each Friday. Two – you can take that time you’ve saved and sell it to another client, growing sales for your business. Three – Combine points One and Two to grow sales and enjoy your team more!
- Create some Dream Time Especially for Founders – all of us need time to dream. Not all your time should be spent working in the business. Do you have time set aside each week to work on the business? Creating some Dream Time will free you to come up with some more of those great ideas that got your business started in the first place.
- Get inspired and get educated Do you feel inspired and excited about the year ahead? Is there something you could learn this year that would grow sales, make you a better leader, or achieve any of your other business goals? Check out learning and networking opportunities, online as well as in-person
- Get help Yes, it’s a big list. Can you outsource all or part of your sales and business growth tasks to create a bigger, better and faster return on investment?