Without customers, you don’t have much of a business. For small business leaders, this reality can be a stressful issue. Unlike their massive corporate counterparts, small businesses don’t have huge stashes of cash and big margins for error. You need to make sales constantly in order to survive.
But what if you’re not making such sales? What if you keep falling short of projections and fail to make progress on long-term goals? Here are some reasons why you might be seeing fewer sales at your business, along with some thoughts on how to fight back.
1. You’re short on leads
When it comes to generating sales, few things are as important as generating your initial sales leads. No matter how great your conversion rate may be, you’ll always be starting from the base of sales leads that you have — and if that number is too low, your sales conversions will be low, too.
If you’re concerned about your sales goals, take a closer look at your marketing and lead generation. You may find that making changes to your marketing strategy or your lead generation techniques will make all the difference.
2. You aren’t using the right software
Sales and business leads aren’t things that you’ll cultivate exclusively through in-house strategies and techniques. On the contrary. You have a lot of allies in the fight for great sales leads.
And some of the most important allies that you have come in the form of software. Sales leads and management software solutions can make a massive difference in the productivity and the efficiency of your lead generation and sales efforts. Keeping your team organized and streamlining processes like mass emails will save you time and money while giving your organization a better shot at hitting sales targets.
3. There’s something wrong with your goals
If you’re going to hit big sales numbers, you need to aim high. But sales projections aren’t just dreams and wishes — they need to be clear and sensible so that you can plan for the future of your company. If your sales targets and company goals aren’t clear (both to you and to everyone else in your organization), you’re going to have a hard time achieving them — or even determining what, exactly, they are.
Take the time to sit down with your team and set clear goals and expectations. Make sure that your sales targets are feasible and that you’re not creating artificial failure by aiming too high, and make sure that all of your goals (be they sales-related or otherwise) are clear and measurable.
4. Your employees aren’t working at the highest level
When the procedures and techniques look right but the results aren’t there, you have to look at the people that are executing your strategy. This doesn’t mean that you should go out and fire half your workforce — turnover is expensive, and you probably don’t have enough information to make such a call. But it does mean that you’ll need to look into the various ways in which your workforce may be growing inefficient.
Are your employees disengaged? Are they not communicating with each other properly, especially between departments? Do your employees understand how to make the best possible use of your software tools and best practices? Are they on the same page as you are in regards to sales projections, long-term goals, and company culture?
Getting your employees to work happily, work hard, and work in concert with each other isn’t always easy. But if you can pull it off, and master the things mentioned above, you’ll put your small business in a position to achieve great sales numbers.
