Are you an entrepreneur who wants to make more sales and keep more profit in your business?

Good.

After reading this article, you will have the information you need to know to accomplish both of those goals.

So let’s get started…

How To Make More Sales in Your Business

Before I get into the detailed how-to information for this article, I want to tell you something that is really important for you to understand.

If you are committed to making more sales in your business, you have to consciously decide right now to stop listening to so-called gurus and consultants who are telling you that you need to implement “new marketing tactics” to make more sales.

Here’s why…

There are hundreds of tactics you can implement right now in your business to help you generate more sales…

But if you don’t have the key moving parts in place, and the right mindset to help you leverage each specific marketing tactic in the best way possible, you are going to just spin your wheels, waste your time, and end up spending money and resources that aren’t going to help you reach your goal.

Now before getting to the meat of this article, I have one more thing to say that I want you remember forever…

One of the biggest things that will help you generate more sales in your business is by understanding marketing, and the psychology of what makes people tick.

When you study and understand how these two concepts drive human behavior, you will literally be able to print money on demand in whatever business you are in (more on that later).

When you have a solid grasp on marketing and psychology, and how both concepts drive human behavior and motivation you will know…

1) exactly what product to create…
2) exactly how to position the product…
3) exactly how to put a profitable marketing system together for the product that will attract the right customer
4) exactly how to write copy for the marketing system that will resonate with the customer and generate the highest conversion rates
5) exactly what to “do” with that marketing system to generate more sales and a positive ROI when sending paid and free traffic to it and through it
6) exactly how to launch proven marketing pieces that generate the most amount of sales in the shortest period of time
7) exactly how to strategically integrate your marketing system into everything you do, so that it creates a predictable result every time in top line sales and bottom line profit

Let me give you the bigger picture…

If you decided to buy a product on “Facebook Advertising,” and then did everything that it told you to do WITHOUT tweaking the process of how you will handle and test that traffic source, you are going to end up with a huge charge on your credit card and a negative ROI (Return on Investment).

So now lets start moving in the direction of actually helping you make more sales and implementing the right actions to get you the desired result…

1) Ask Yourself Better Questions

If you are really serious about making more sales, you need to start asking yourself better questions. You know…questions that start with “How,” “Where,” and “What.”

When you ask yourself the right questions, it will lead you down the right path to figuring out what you need to do so that you can accomplish your goal of generating more sales.

Here are some key questions you can ask yourself right now that will help you begin the process…

Q1: Where is My Market?

Where can you reach your market, and begin to engage with them?

Once you know where and how your market can be reached, then you can start putting together strategic marketing campaigns targeted directly to them in those specific channels.

Depending on what business you run, will depend on how you will treat that audience and traffic source.

For example…

You are a restaurant owner, and your target market is located in the surrounding area near your location. You decide that placing a newspaper ad in the local paper is the best way to reach that target customer base.

Your ad’s call to action will most likely be to “visit (your restaurant) to experience a wonderful dinner with the family.”

Now another example…

You are a website owner selling a really valuable product for $19.99.

You also feel that your target market is located in the surrounding area where you live. You decide to run an ad in the local newspaper, and you are going to make your call to action be “visit the website to learn more, and to make a purchase.”

The Distinction: Both businesses are leveraging the same marketing tactic, but each of them are using the traffic source differently and uniquely catered to their specific line of business.

Q2: How Will I “Treat” The Targeted Traffic Being Exposed to My Ad to Generate the Best Response and Highest Conversion Rate Possible?

After you know where and how you can reach your market, then you need to figure out how you are going to “treat” the traffic that is driven either into your store (restaurant owner), or your website (internet business owner) to generate the best response.

For example…

If you are running a restaurant, will you have something in the entryway that let’s people know you were expecting them from the ad you placed?

Or…

If you are a website owner, are you sending the traffic to a specific page connected to the ad that ran in the paper, and cater the message accordingly to make them feel as special as possible (which will increase the conversion rate)?

As I stated in the few paragraphs above, if you just followed the “Facebook Advertising tips” that you received in the product you purchased, and just sent the pay per click traffic straight to your current website to buy your product, WITHOUT tweaking the process and page they were landing on KNOWING they were coming from Facebook…you are leaving a ton of money on the table, and will probably have a negative ROI when all is said and done.

Q3: How Can I Make More Money From Every Customer I Serve, and Deliver Even More Value?

As a business owner, one of the main things you should focus on is always adding value to your customer base.

But let me ask you…

Have you taken the time to ask yourself if there are other ways you can add even more value to customers than how you already are, and be able to integrate your ideas seamlessly into your entire sales process?

When you do this correctly, you will be able to make more sales, and do it with the same amount of customer flow. This will make your profit per customer shoot through the roof.

This is a relatively simple example but, you can easily implement a program where you ask a customer to buy another product before they finish their purchase on your website, or when checking out at the counter at your store.

Here is what I want you to realize…

There are so many hidden opportunities within your business that you may not be directly aware of right now, and the only reason you aren’t taking advantage of these opportunities is because you are so tied into the day-to-day operations that you are failing to see where other opportunities are.

Take a moment right now to sketch out a few ideas you can implement in your business to increase your profit per customer. The best way to do this is imagine you are a customer entering your business, and think about how you are serving that customer throughout the entire browsing and buying process.

Q4: What are the Pains, Desires and Frustrations my Market is Experiencing Right Now?

This one is simple…

The more you know about how your market thinks and operates, the more possibilities there will be for you to generate more sales from this intelligence.

One great way to do this is go to Twitter search.

Type in your browser bar… search.twitter.com and type in keywords and phrases you know your market is using in their tweets to see what they are saying. From this one activity alone you may just discover a new unmet need that your business could take some serious advantage of!

Take some time right now to write down what you know about your market, and think about if there is a way you can turn what you write down into an idea that will help you generate more sales with what you are currently working with.

Q5: What am I Not Leveraging Right Now that Is At My Disposal to Make More Sales?

You would be surprised at how many things are in your business right now that aren’t being utilized to their fullest potential to help you make more sales, expand your reach and make you more profitable.

I will give you one example to get your mind turning with possibility.

A client I was working with needed help growing their Facebook and Twitter audience. To effectively implement their campaign, they leveraged the thousands of pieces of product they were already shipping out every month. By putting a simple insert in the package for one month, letting telling their customers that if they wanted exclusive promotions and specials, they should follow them on those two sites (FB and Twitter)…The campaign was a raving success!

What is currently happening in your business that isn’t being leveraged to its fullest potential? What specific things can you leverage right now to help you make more sales?

Q6: How Can I Increase My Customer Lifetime Value?

The lifetime value of a customer is one of the most important metrics to track in your business. This number lets you know how much you can spend in marketing dollars to generate a customer, and still be profitable on that customer over the entire lifetime the customer does business with you.

While one of the questions above was about increasing the profit per customer every single time they purchase, this question deals with the aggregate number of purchases a client is going to make over the lifetime they do business with you.

Out of the gate you won’t know this number unless you start testing and tracking your marketing from day one.

Sit and think…is there anything else I can do right now to increase the customer lifetime value and make more sales in the process? Write down your answers and see what you can implement right now then go do it!

Q7: What is It Going To Cost Me To Generate A Customer?

Piggy-backing off of the customer lifetime value question, you should know what it will cost to help you generate a customer. You won’t know this number unless you are doing a good job at tracking your marketing spend every month.

Once you know this number, you can start thinking of ways to optimize how you spend your marketing dollars to make your future campaigns more effective, which will in turn make you more profitable in the process!

Q8: How Can I Leverage My Current Customer List To Make More Sales?

Your customer list is a goldmine.

The people on that list already know you, like you, and trust you, and even better they are easier to sell because they have bought something from you before.

Sit down right now and think about what you can do with your current customer list to start making more sales!

Are you going to run a “referral special” where you will give a 20% discount to everyone who refers someone to you, or are you going to leverage your customer list to help bring more people into your funnel using social media?

There are so many things you can do with your customer list. Really sit and think about this one.

Q9: How can I Communicate the Value I Provide my Target Market so that they Choose me Over my Competitors?

This is one of the final questions you should ask yourself if you really want to make more sales. If you aren’t doing a good job at communicating with your target market, they will take their business elsewhere.

Are you going to use better videos? Better copy? Change the message?

There are so many options here. Really sit and think about it!

As talked about above, knowing and understanding what makes your market tick is half the battle to effectively answering this question and implementing what you come up with in your business.

2) Create Better Marketing

If you want to make more sales, it really comes down to creating better marketing to attract customers.

When I say better marketing, I don’t mean that you need to make the pictures and graphics more beautiful on your website…far from it in fact.

What I mean is that you need to stop implementing marketing that sucks!

There…I said it…

Stop implementing marketing just to “get out there,” or to “increase brand exposure.”

Every time I hear a business owner say that I cringe.

I cringe because I know they are saying it just to look good, even though they are struggling to break even every month.

Instead, think about the questions you answered in the section above, and then take your answers and ask yourself this question…

“Knowing what I know about my market, where my target customers are reachable, and what their hot buttons are, what can I specifically do or create to increase the amount of sales I can make from that group every single month?”

Is it going to take sending a direct mail piece in a white envelope with their address written on it in what looks like a real pen, providing them the opportunity to come into my store with a coupon to experience 25% off their next meal (restaurant owners)?

Or is it going to take implementing a Google Adwords direct marketing campaign sending traffic into a capture page asking for peoples name and e-mails to build a targeted opt-in list of leads to follow up with to sell them the value you have created?

Stop just trying to “get out there” spending money like there’s no tomorrow. Instead sit down and really think about your marketing approach/sales funnel, and how the specific actions you plan to take will bring more sales into the door in the most profitable way possible.

There is no one size fits all solution. This is going to take some work!

3) Spend Time Studying What Makes People Tick

As I said earlier, if you want to print money in any business you run, understanding what makes people tick and how they operate is one of the best “informational assets” you can build for yourself.

When you know how to write words that make people read your entire ad, and create advertisements that get people to take action, you will never have any issues creating a customer base ever again.

Books like Influence, and Tested Advertising Methods are must reads if you truly want to learn the most you can about people, and building a solid customer base!

This will help you solve your sales problem, and create better marketing that gets results!

4) Focus on Lead Generation First Then Sales Second (Be Sure This Process is as Automated as Possible)

The difference between marketing and sales is that marketing is the activity of generating leads, where sales is the process you take an interested lead through to sell them what you have.

Take a moment right now and really let that sink in.

What specific things are you doing in your business right now to generate more leads?

What process are you taking those leads through to help you increase the chances they will convert into a sale?

Is this process automated and seamless, or does it suck up too much of your time every month, and create a lot of headaches?

If you really want to make more sales, you must have a solid lead generation funnel in place that then is connected to your sales process in the most automated way possible.

No matter what business you are in, your first focus should be to generate leads, and then sell them (convert them) the best way you can with the marketing assets you have at your disposal (people, copy, content, webinars etc.).

5) Focus on Generating Higher Conversion Rates

When you start generating leads for your product or service, you should always be tracking all of your metrics and optimizing as much as you can.

By testing, tweaking and improving your conversion rates throughout your entire funnel, your cost to acquire a customer will decrease, and in turn you will increase your profit and make more sales in the process putting in the same amount of effort.

For example…

If you are running a Google Adwords ad and you are able to increase the click through rate by 1%, and then increase the call to action on that page by 5%, but you still spent the same amount of money for the campaign you just decreased the cost to acquire a lead or sale substantially!

Here is an equation for you to commit to memory…

Higher Conversion Rates = Lower Cost To Acquire Customers = More Profit

Please don’t ever forget this.

6) Test Better

If you want to make more sales, another thing you must do is test better. Test everything you are doing so you can get baseline numbers to start from and focus on improving.

This principle to making more sales piggy-backs off of focusing on generating higher conversions.

By making sure every possible part to your lead generation and sales funnel is being tracked and monitored like a hawk, it allows you to test things effectively to see how “what you change” has a direct impact on lead generation or your conversion process from the front to the backend of your funnel.

7) Leverage Free PR

Another great way for you to make more sales is by leveraging free PR. Do everything you can to get in the local media in some way shape or form.

Once you generate the PR for you and your company, then make sure to integrate it into all of your marketing pieces, to bring greater credibility to you and your business.

The only other thing I want to say about leveraging PR for traffic is to be sure your marketing and sales funnel are set up appropriately for you to manage and treat the traffic accordingly, so you get the highest return possible for the time and effort you spent generating the free PR.

I can’t tell you how many times I see an article written about a company somewhere, or where someone appeared on a news program or huge national TV show only to find that their website wasn’t set up properly to manage the influx of visitors to the web property.

Please don’t make this mistake, or else you will waste your time!

8) Partner Strategically

Another great way to create more sales and new customers in your business is to partner strategically with other vendors or competitors in your geographic area or niche.

Depending on what business you are in will depend on how you structure a deal with the other business, and will also affect what you will be willing to do to create a win/win between the both of you.

If you are a restaurant owner, one idea that may work for you is reaching out to other local restaurant owners and asking if they would be interested in a collaborative promotional deal where you promote their restaurant while they promote yours.

There are many ways you can go about doing this without detracting from the experience you are trying to create for your restaurant. One creative way you can do this is by putting something in the check at the end of the meal that says, “We also recommend XYZ restaurant, and the other restaurant owner can do the same!”

You can follow this same principle if you run an online business also. Reach out to some competitors, or other people in your network that would make sense to create a joint venture with. You can choose to sell their product to your customer list, while they sell yours to theirs. You both can figure out a fair profit split to create a win/win.

9) Find a Mentor

Last but not least, find a mentor who has been in your line of business before. They have most likely gone through many of the same challenges and hurdles you are facing, and will be able to guide you through them.

Every successful person has a mentor. If you don’t have one, start looking for one!

How To Keep More Profit in Your Business

Now that you know what you need to do to generate more sales every month in your business, lets switch gears and talk about how you can keep the most amount of profit in your business for the sales that you generate on the top line.

As a savvy business owner, you know a huge top line sales number may not always mean a positive net income (Your goal is to shoot for 20-30% as your net profit margin)!

What I mean is…

If you generate $1,000,000 in yearly sales, you want to make sure you are at least making $200,000 in net income by the end of the year for selling $1,000,000 worth of product.

When you are serious about bringing in the most amount of sales, in the shortest amount of time, and running as lean as possible to make sure the profit is the highest possible at the end of the year, life in your business really starts to get fun!

But you must be sitting there asking yourself, “I am doing everything I can to cut my ‘cost of doing business’ as low as I can, I don’t know what else I can cut further!”

This is why this section is going to be really valuable for you…

In the points below, I am going to highlight the specific things you can examine in your business right now to help you make sure you run as lean and effectively as possible to experience the greatest amount of profit flowing to the bottom line, without sacrificing the customer service experience, or your ability to deliver on your brand promise.

Lets get started…

1) Find A Credit Card Processor Who Actually Cares About Your Profitability Per Transaction, and A Sales Rep Who Will Provide High Quality Service and Truly Take Care of You

One place you can lower your costs substantially in your business, and keep more profit per sale is to stop doing business with a credit card processor who cares more about lining their own pockets than providing you a service that is a true win/win.

Most processors are out for themselves, and in most cases, entrepreneurs are paying more than they should in credit card processing fees…which is eating into the bottom line of your business every single month.

When I work with a client, not only do I focus on helping them increase their top line sales number without substantially increasing costs, but the next thing I do is ask to examine their credit card merchant statement to know how much they are being charged to make those sales via credit and debit cards.

Here is why this is important + A Little Story…

It was in May of 2012, when I realized that most entrepreneurs and merchants have no clue about what or how they are being charged to take credit cards, and in learning about this it made me very angry.

It made me angry because the truth is…

Most entrepreneurs are robbed right under their nose by their current processor without them even knowing it through deceptive pricing and confusing un-transparent monthly statements.

As someone who has always been focused on the increasing the top and bottom line for the people I work with, I was never fully aware how much this can and will eat into a business owners bottom line until I really took the time to understand every single moving part of the industry.

Entrepreneurs are taken advantage of because…

Most entrepreneurs go to sign up for a credit card processing service, and they typically take what they are given, or are suckered into a pricing plan that does not serve them or their business.

Most of the time they don’t know any better…which is how the credit card processing company is able to get away with charging you exorbitant fees right under your nose!

It’s not until entrepreneurs take a look at their statement when they realize they have been taken to the cleaners.

I decided to join the merchant services industry as well to help entrepreneurs all around the country stop being a victim to this scheme, while helping them pay lower monthly fees and providing better service.

As a matter of fact…

A couple weeks ago I showed a client how I was able to help them save over 30% on a monthly basis if they allowed me to help them switch over to a better processor.

2) Hire an Accountant Who Understands The Tax Law Inside and Out Who Will Help You Legally Pay Less Tax

Another way you can keep more profit in the bottom line is to work with an accountant who is going to help you legally pay less tax (following all the rules of course).

The truth is…

If you are a business owner who doesn’t have a good accountant that understands the tax law, and stays on top of all the rule changes, there is a higher likelihood that you are paying more than you should in taxes every year for the business.

By focusing on following the rules, and leveraging the current laws in place that will help you pay less tax, this help you keep more money in the bottom line, and more money in your pocket.

If you are looking for a better accountant please feel free to contact me! I would be happy to send you to the right place!

3) Have a Trusted Attorney on Hand to Consult When Necessary

Depending on what business you are in, will determine how often you will have to speak to an attorney.

Having exceptional attorneys and accountants on your team is a must if you want to ensure that you will be taken care of if you run into any matters that involve the law or your businesses finances.

If you need stuff created to protect intellectual property, or are being sued by someone or another organization, it is important to always have a trusted attorney to contact so that you are able to handle the situation in the best way possible to mitigate any future losses.

By mitigating any future losses, you will keep more profit in the bottom line.

4) Don’t Be Shady

This final principle goes without saying.

If you want to run a successful healthy business, don’t compromise your personal integrity doing something shady to only make a little progress in the short term, but have a lot of pain in the long run when it blows up in your face.

There was something that I learned from a venture capitalist when I was in college…

“Short term gain, long term pain”

and…

“Short term pain, long term gain.”

If you are given the choice, always choose the latter of the two. Even though it is harder to make that choice, you will be better because of it over the long run.

Being shady, and doing things that will cause a negative result later only hurts you, your employees and the bottom line altogether.

If you run into some financial problems, it is always best to consult your team of advisors to help you weather the storm.

Summary

After reading this post, I hope you feel excited to work on your business again! As someone who is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build a better more profitable business, while optimizing every moving part of their operation to serve the customer and help you accomplish your goals, I hope this post adds a ton of value to you.

If you are interested in learning how I can help you either increase your sales, or help you experience similar results helping a client decrease their credit card processing fees by 30% per month please contact me. I would love to learn more about you and your business, to see how I can help you reach your goals. Be sure to mention that you read this article!