New To Sales? Here’s Five Problems Everyone Faces
You’ve got a great business idea, a killer business plan and raised enough funds to bring it to life. So now? You need to get out there and sell.
That can be trickier than it sounds, especially if you’ve never done it before. Sales is filled with unexpected challenges. To give you an idea of what you’re facing, here’s five problems you might encounter.
How to get people to know your product
You love your idea, but do other people? Before you start the hard-sell, you need to generate interest in what you’re offering. That involves getting yourself out there as a business.
There’s plenty of ways to generate interest in your small business. But once you’ve got people interested – you’ve got another potential problem to face…
How to keep track of potential sales
It’s easy to keep track of sales, especially when you use accounting and invoicing software to handle all the fine details. But how do you track a sale before it has taken place?
Knowing whether your customer is ready to buy from you or not is key to a successful sales strategy. If you know exactly how interested someone is, then you’re not wasting time trying to close the sale with someone that’s unsure while another customer, who might be ready to buy today, goes unnoticed.
When they are ready to buy, you’ve got some work to do…
How to represent your own brand
Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish yourself from your product or brand, especially if you’re a sole trader. Creating a product or brand identity is key to successfully promoting it. When you know exactly what you’re offering, it’ll be much easier for you to explain it to others.
The best way of working out how to represent your brand is to find out what customers think of you. There are a few really easy ways of doing this.
How to promote your business
For real success, your sales should tie directly into your marketing efforts. It’s one journey from initial interest to the final sale (and the aftercare).
We’re all inundated with marketing every day, but actually starting your own marketing campaign can be trickier than it seems.
You need to know which channel works for what you’re offering, and where to find your target audience.
How to keep track of your accounts
Congratulations – you’re generating sales and earning money!
It’s great news, but isn’t it also creating more work for you? Suddenly you’ve got more invoices to issue, more payments to track. Now you’re managing books and accounts when you could be out there generating more sales and making more money.
That’s why we created hassle-free accounting software. It makes managing books and accounts easy, so you can concentrate on your sales and your business.
So… how do you do it?
That’s a lot to process, right?
Sales is a big job, and it’s ongoing too. That said, the hardest part is getting started. To help you get going, we’ve created a handy guide for small businesses like you that cover all of the issues raised in this blog and more.
You can get your free copy of “smart sales techniques for small businesses” here.
Don’t forget you can start a 30 day trial of KashFlow’s hassle-free accounting software, or request a free demo by calling 0344 815 5779.
