To grow a business you need to grow sales. Improving sales is one of the top 5 challenges for Stage 1 (1-10 employees) and Stage 2 (11-19 employees). Improving sales at any stage of growth can be a challenge. How do you do it?
I have written before about the three customers everyone sells to. The common focus is on finding new customers, but the wise approach is to focus 50% of your effort on growing more sales from existing customers who already know you.
Another common mistake is to treat all customers the same. The wise approach is the 80-20 rule. It says 20% of your customers generate 80% of your sales. You want to focus on the 20% and determine if you have customers just below this 20% group who you can move up.
The Pumpkin Plan is a book by Mike Michalowicz in which he shares some practical advice. He explains the difference between the usual pumpkin farmer who is interested in growing a lot of pumpkins and the colossal pumpkin farmer that is focused on growing a 1000+lb. pumpkin. Here is some practical sales advice.
Customer Selection
Most pumpkin farmers want a lot of cheap seeds. They are in the quantity game. To grow a colossal pumpkin, you look for a colossal seed. In business, people look to copy the competition and do what everyone else is doing. The colossal entrepreneur looks to combine three things – be unique, focus on repeat sales, and systemization (attract prospects, covert them to customers, and get paid).
Sprout Analysis
The usual pumpkin farmer looks for the weak sprouts and encourages them to grow because they are after quantity. Colossal farmer focuses on the strongest sprout. In business, ordinary entrepreneurs focus on staff or clients that are not doing well and try to get them help. Colossal entrepreneurs focus on strengths and try to exploit them. Who are my strongest staff and clients?
Rate of Return
Go through your client list. Ask yourself: Who buys the most from you? Who do you like working with? And finally, what do you earn per hour/unit. When I started my business in 1986 we looked for CAP clients. These were clients who Cooperated with us, Appreciated what we did, and Paid us.
Watering Process
The ordinary pumpkin farmer waters the field at night and pumps as much water as possible over the entire field. The Colossal farmer pumps as much water as possible into each plant. Ordinary entrepreneurs blast their selling message everywhere to everyone. Colossal entrepreneurs find out what their clients read (magazine, podcast, etc.,) where they hang out (conferences), etc. Then they go to where these key clients are. The clients see you and they start to trust you.
Root Analysis
The ordinary farmer does not care about the roots. They look at the surface. Colossal farmer looks at the health of the root system which can deliver huge amounts of water to grow the pumpkin. Ordinary entrepreneurs ask for a client referral. They ask for feedback on their product/service. If you ask for a referral, the customer gets less attention. And they paid you and now you are asking for more. The Colossal entrepreneur asks about other vendors their customer depends upon. The idea is to collaborate and improve delivery. This focuses more attention on the customer. The goal is to serve the customer even better. You called the vendor up and explained you had a mutual client. This led to referrals from the other vendor because you’ve solved a common problem.
The Pruning Process
The ordinary farmer does not prune. The more pumpkin the better. Colossal farmer prunes the small pumpkins so the large pumpkin can grow larger. Colossal entrepreneurs says no a lot. They know the little ones (often labeled opportunities) will take away from the big ones. If the opportunity does not feed the big pumpkin, the answer is no (10 times more than saying yes).
Who Are You
Who are you? Who do you want to become? Are you an ordinary farmer or colossal farmer? Are you an ordinary or colossal entrepreneur?
Expanding Sales are just 1 of 27 Challenges that you will face as you grow your firm through the 7 Stages of Growth. As with the sales challenge, we can help you with the other 26 challenges.
Getting Started – A FREE Test Drive
James Fischer identified the top five challenges at each stage of growth. Do you know your Top 5 Challenges? I challenge you to take the FREE 27 Challenge Assessment. It will not only give you better insight into your Top 5 Challenges, but you will receive a Special Report for your Stage of Growth. The Report will provide you with the following:
- 5 Biggest Challenges for your firm’s stage of growth
- Tools to Build Your Business
- 5 Non-Negotiable Rules for your firm’s stage of growth
- Business Building Blocks
- Getting Ready for the next Stage of Growth
To take the FREE 27 Challenge Assessment go to https://www.trwconsulting16.com/ and click on Take 27 Challenge Assessment.