Do This One Thing to Increase Sales Revenue and Profits

Do This One Thing to Increase Sales Revenue and Profits

If you could only do one thing to improve your sales revenue and profits, what would it be?

In this post I will share how capturing and leveraging the current voice of your customers is that “one thing.”

When your team understands your customers – how they buy and what they need to buy today – you will experience the following:

Increased sales
Increased profits
Increased market share
Improved sales close rate percentages
(Oh, and much better board meetings!)

Why do most sales plans fail? The most common reason I have experienced is a dated value proposition. What worked years ago are not working now due to some change or shift.

Think about all the changes businesses have gone through in the last 12 months.

When was the last time you captured the voice of your customers?

As the authors of the book The One Thing share, we achieve more when we go small. Each of us can make a long laundry list of things we could do, but that dilutes focus.

The most powerful thing sales leaders can do are equipping sales teams with a repeatable sales process, sales training, and sales tools to hit their numbers based on how buyers buy today.

What do you need to know?
Why do customers buy from you today?
Why don’t customers buy from you today?
What is your buyer’s buying process today?
What buying criteria must your buyers have today?

Emphasis is placed on the word “today.”

Many of the teams I have served have been in business 10-20-80+ years.

We serve dynamic markets that are always shifting and we need to adjust to those shifts or realize stalled or declining sales. How do we capture current customer voice and market truth?

We contact our top 100-200 or even 400 customers and we conduct one on one interviews.

We ask open-ended questions to gain actionable insights.

We listen for what customers are promoters, neutral and detractors who are unhappy and preparing to leave.

The time to save a detractor is before they leave and this data equips your sales team to do so.

It can’t be that simple (I hear some of you saying).

Yep, it is…

What are some questions I have found produce good feedback?

If you were the president of our company, what would you have us do to win a larger percentage of your purchases?
What do our competitors do very well? How important is that to you?
Is there anything we are doing now you wish we would quit doing?
Have you experienced any changes in the past 6-12 months that have changed how you make buying decisions?
When you search for products or services, where do you look?

I still feel some doubters out there. Below are some companies I have helped leverage the voice of their customers and the results they experienced:

A plastics company that made mechanical security devices grew more than $38 million in 18 months.
An adaptive automotive vehicle manufacturer realized a $50 million sales increase over six years and realized a 6 percent increase in gross profits.
A custom metals fabricator grew sales 160% in 8 months
A custom tube and pipe builder added over 200 new customers
A machine shop strategically leveraged the voice of their customers and sales grew 156% in 6 months

I hope I have convinced you there is a power in understanding your buyers today.

In today’s competitive markets you must

Understand the current voice of your customers and markets.
Develop a repeatable sales process that mirrors how your buyers buy today.
Create sales tools that proactively provide answers to the criteria buyers must have to buy today.

Understanding your customers today is that powerful “one thing” that will position your team for profitable future success.

If you would like to capture the voice of your customers today and gain actionable insights please reach out and we will schedule a call. In most cases we can get the answers you seek to develop a buyer centric sales and marketing strategy in 30 days.

Want to learn more here is a link to my ebook https://otbsalessolutions.com/voc/

Pat, maybe use cover of my eBook as the graphic?