How to Sell More: Pursue All Four Ways To Grow Your Sales — Part I

by David Lund           

That is the big question in business.  On a daily, monthly, and annual basis, we ask, how can we grow our sales?  This blog post will focus on four ways to sell more to your existing customers.  Part 1 will cover planned and impulse purchases. Part 2 (one week from today) will cover up-selling and cross-selling.  We will save the topic of attracting new customers for another day.

Sales training teaches the obvious fact that to sell more to a customer, you either have to get them to buy more per purchase transaction or get them to buy more frequently.  Easy to say, but, in our fragmented media environment and multi-channel retailing world, it can be difficult to engage your customers and close a sale, let alone sell them more.  The intent of this MENG Blend post is to not to provide all the answers for all markets, but to get you thinking afresh about these basic approaches to your current customer base.

Planned Purchases

The easiest way to grow sales should be to close the planned purchase.  Customers want to and plan to buy products like yours – your product is an intentional purchase.  You need to be prepared to capture that planned purchase and not lose it. It should be easy…but consumers leave stores every day without making a purchase and customers choose your competitor’s products over yours.  Many companies/sales people act just as order takers and will just take orders that come to them.  Companies that take the time to get to know their customers can then offer solutions that are aligned with the customer’s wants and needs.   Whether selling on-line or off-line, creating value through a customer specific solution and a great user/selling experience can win and keep customers.

Where in these key steps might you strengthen your sales process?

• Qualifying a customer – What do they want to buy and when?
• Identifying needs – What is motivating the purchase – both rational and emotional purchase drivers.
• Presenting solution – What is the recommended solution that is a good fit for the customer’s wants and needs.  Explain the value of your solution versus alternatives.
• Handling objections – Give information to address concerns regarding your recommendation.
• Call to action – Ask for the sale.

In some categories, you have the time, the staffing, and the opportunity to hold these sales discussions.  But in most consumer sales, you must rely on packaging, POP materials, and marketing communications.  Take time to think through how you can get better consumer purchase decision information through ethnographic and behavioral research, shopping basket, and purchase data analysis.  Use these insights to better present your sales information.  Where are the leverage points?  What new information and message points can be more persuasive that your current communication?

If the first category is planned purchases, all other purchases must be unplanned purchases.  We will discuss three ways to sell and close unplanned purchases.  These include impulse selling, up-selling and cross-selling.

Impulse Selling- The Opportunity To Introduce Value

All of us have been in a store to buy one thing and ended up buying an additional item by seeing it on display or on sale and adding it to our shopping cart.  For today’s discussion, impulse purchases will be defined as an unplanned purchased that has nothing to do with our planned purchase item or category.  Impulse purchases are driven by new information presented to customers while they are shopping or making another purchase. 

Are you using all of these approaches to gain impulse sales?

• A new product the customer has not seen before.
• A featured item (in store on display or signed at shelf, on-line, on a menu or in a sales brochure).
• A price discount or promotional item.
• Prompting consumers to remember key consumable/refill products they need.

How are you leveraging new information and location to win impulse purchases?

Information - are you providing the right information about your products to create an impulse purchase?  A reduced price sign will often prompt an impulse sale.  Highlighting a new product attracts attention and trial.  Telling your product’s story can help trigger impulse buys vs. competitive products.  Tell them what this product is, why it is right for them, and why it is a good value.  Consumers respond to products that tell authentic stories.

Location - are you placing target products or product information where your customers will easily find them while shopping or researching other products or services?  At retail, you can place products on secondary displays or use signs and packaging to call attention to your products.  If you do not sell your products at retail, locate information about your products in targeted, relevant places to be discovered by your customers and prompt a purchase decision.

Part 2 of How to Sell More will be featured in the MENG Blend next week.  In that post, we will review if you are doing all you can to up-sell and cross-sell your customers to enhance the value and the experience your customers have with your products and services.

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