eBusiness Weekly
Robert Gonye
Your company just launched a brand new product that is supposed to be a game-changer for your business. Not only is the product innovative, but it answers a direct need your customers have and your company is planning for it to be a hit with buyers and stakeholders.
Question, but how do you know how well your product is performing? Chances are, you have a set of sales metrics and KPIs that you review on a regular basis to track business performance which we will focus on through measuring sales volume.
Sales volume measures: How many units of a product your company sells during a specific reporting period. On its own, sales volume doesn’t break down how much revenue your company is bringing in from product sales.
However, understanding your sales volume can tell you what products are and aren’t selling, which is valuable information for business growth.
- Know the key qualities and differentiators of your product
When you’re looking to increase sales volume, you’re essentially looking to move more units of your product off of your shelf. To do this, you need to have a rock-solid understanding of your product’s key features and differentiating properties. Questions to consider:
What separates your product from the competition?
If a customer sees your product on a shelf next to several others that serve a similar purpose, what does your product provide that the others don’t?
If you only had 60 seconds to convince someone to buy your product, what would you say? What main features would you highlight?
- Keep customer benefits
front-and-centre
Anyone in the buyer’s seat of a transaction has one main question — “what’s in it for me?” When someone is looking to make a purchase, they want to know what they are receiving in exchange for their time and money.
Ultimately, customers want to make purchases that will save them time, or improve their quality of life in some way. When you present your products from this perspective, you can provide a more compelling case to the customer as to why they need to buy your product.
- Thoroughly qualify
your prospects
Are you sure you’re selling to the right prospects to begin with? If you notice your sales volume is declining or seems sluggish, it could be a good indication that you need to refresh key aspects of your sales process — and ensuring you’re selling to the right people is a good place to start.
When qualifying prospects, you want to reach those who are the best fit for your product, and are most likely to make a purchase. Pushing for a sale from the wrong people can be a frustrating endeavour that can hurt your sales efforts. The qualification process is achieved by asking insightful, pointed questions.
- Understand your
customer’s pain points
When you’re working towards the sale, you’re ultimately looking to pair your customers with products that can act as a solution to a problem they’re experiencing.
However, to be successful at this, you have to know what problem the customer is experiencing. When you understand what pain points your customer is experiencing, you can draw parallels between their challenges and why your product is the right solution.
- Work closely with
your marketing team
In addition to thoroughly qualifying your prospects and making sure you understand their pain points, maintaining alignment with your marketing team to ensure the right leads are being brought into the pipeline is also essential.
Additionally, if you have specific sales volume goals, make sure you share them with your marketing team. When your marketing team knows what products you want to focus on selling and why, they are able to create content and relevant material to support your goals.
- Focus on improving
sales velocity
Time is money. In sales, this phrase rings true every day.
Sales velocity is the measurement of how fast you can move prospects through your sales pipeline to generate revenue. The faster you are able to do this, the more potential customers you can reach. By increasing sales velocity, you can potentially reach more customers which can positively impact your sales volume.
- Re-assign your
sales territories
If your sales team relies on territory management as part of your strategy, you may want to take a look at how your territories are assigned to ensure you have your strongest sellers assigned to territories or accounts that have the most sales potential.
- Motivate and incentivise
your sales reps
Depending on your organisation’s compensation structure, providing monetary incentives to sales reps can inspire them to move more product. If revising your compensation structure isn’t an option at the moment, you can consider other ways to boost sales rep morale such as creating a sales volume leader board and recognizing top-performers through friendly competition.
- Implement customer rewards
While we’re on the topic of incentives, seeking ways to incentivise your customers can also be worthwhile. Whether you offer discounts for customers who purchase multiple products at once, or reward customers who refer other buyers with affiliate commission or other incentives, your existing customers can be a fantastic resource for driving sales volume.
- Focus on top buyers
When it comes to driving sales, prioritization is everything. Take a look at how you and your reps are spending their time. Are the top accounts (those that are likely to buy in greater amounts or on a repeated basis) being made a priority?
In conclusion, identify those who are more likely to make larger or repeat purchases and keep efforts to convert and retain these customers a priority for your team. Understanding how your products are performing can provide valuable insight that can ultimately create more sales for your company.
The views given herein are solely for information purposes; they are guidelines and suggestions and are not guaranteed to work in any particular way.
Robert Gonye is a business growth expert and influencer. He writes in his personal capacity. Comments and views: [email protected]
