5 Excellent tips on Doubling your Sales this Year

Do you want to double your sales?

Of course, you do. Every organisation does. A boost in sales provides all sorts of benefits. You’ll increase your revenue, which usually means you see a boost in profits. You can then use this extra money to grow the organisation, which should lead to even more sales and even higher profitability.

Find New Customers

So what’s the first one? The first thing is we have to get out and meet new people. One of the strategies is that we have to have our marketing focused on benefits. What are we doing for the customer? Remember, they only listen to that one radio station, WIIFM (what’s in it for me). So we need to have benefits-focused marketing, so that we can attract the most new people to the business. Source: businesstown

Build a revenue ladder

Unless you launch a killer new product, it is unlikely that you can double your revenue based upon a single offering. Get to work and brainstorm. Effective entrepreneurs know that the key to revenue growth is to get that revenue coming in from multiple streams. You build your revenue ladder one step at time based on the idea of growing multiple revenue sources simultaneously. Source: entrepreneur

Stay Visible and Connected

Accreditations, licenses, and certifications—for your business or individual employees—can set you apart from your competition. Take your reputation online, using social media, your website, and a blog to connect with clients and make strategic alliances.

Use advertisement sharing with complementary businesses, find ways to leverage referral selling and take advantage of affiliate marketing tools to drive new customers to your site. Eliminate stale, ineffective alliances that may be dragging you down. Source: thebalancesmb

Eliminate Costly Services and Activities

Many companies get into a routine or rhythm of offering expensive services to their customers that they could easily discontinue with no loss of customer satisfaction.

Look at the little services that you offer to your customers. Is there anything that you could reduce or discontinue altogether? Source: briantracy

Get Better Leads

Getting more leads may seem like the secret to doubling your business growth. After all, if you get twice as many leads, shouldn’t that mean twice as many sales? Not necessarily. For instance, if your marketing agency targets midsize businesses as clients, getting lots of leads from small businesses won’t do you much good.

The real secret to doubling your business is focusing on attracting leads that fit your target customer profile. These leads are more likely to convert to customers, making them more valuable and more profitable. Source: fundbox

Benefits of Hiring a Business Consultant

All business owners will agree – managing your own business entity is a challenge. You find yourself running around all day, strapped for time and often budget. While you may be able to visualize where you’d like your business to head, you might be finding it difficult to put the necessary action steps in place to ensure your organization heads in the right growth direction. With business consulting, you can entrust the planning and implementation of business growth tasks to those who make it their business to grow your business. Here are some benefits of business consulting..

You take advantages of New skills

The critical role of any consultant or business growth agency is to ensure the business stays afloat in regard to business strategies, methodologies, and trends. When a consultant puts these methodologies into play, its commonplace for the company’s top management to ask for an in-depth explanation as to how they utilized them to come to their conclusions.

This is the right time for the company’s top brass to learn these new business consulting skills. These skills will be beneficial in the long run, especially if the consultant walks away or their contract expires. Source: upwork

Objectivity

As the owner or manager of your business, you likely can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re immersed in the daily operations of the business, so it’s difficult for you to focus on the cause of an issue to reach a resolution. A business consultant can look at your situation objectively, without prejudice or getting caught up in the personal or political aspects of it. They can analyze the facts and offer solutions without getting sidetracked. The business consultant has probably helped other companies work through similar situations, so they can draw from that experience to benefit your business.

Because consultants are objective parties, they’re able to compile all of the data necessary to make the best informed decisions. By having all of the right data, you’re able to get complete transparency into your business, and how it impacts your role, and bottom-line. Source: e3businessconsultants

Accomplishing Short-Term Goals

Employees are established performers within their own job descriptions. However, it can be difficult to get employees to implement short-term goals when it involves utilizing other skill sets. Employees that normally perform specific tasks may get annoyed at having additional duties or may simply be unfit and too inexperienced for the task. Bringing in an experienced consultant and the resources available to him or her often ends up saving the substantial time and money that would be involved in retraining employees, organizing and prioritizing their schedules, and executing the strategy. Source: help.legalnature

Contributing fresh, new ideas

A solid strategic consultant should have the ability to bring a new perspective and generate new ideas that you haven’t already been considering for your small business.  Their specialty and expertise should contribute dynamic new approaches to what you’ve already laid out on the drawing board. Source: pcg-services

A consultation can provide answers and insight for industry-specific burning questions.

Business owners frequently have a specific problem that is pertinent to their particular industry and can’t rely on one-size-fits-all business advice. Business consultants often specialize in certain industries based on their professional experience and interests, and can pinpoint what works and doesn’t work for your industry. Many new business owners find themselves wandering around in the dark trying to apply standardized solutions to industry-specific problems; a business consultant can turn that situation around completely. Source: rueassociates

Save Time

Another benefit to using a consultant lies in their keen ability to simplify project components and strategize ways for your entire organization to save time.

This quality may not seem intuitive at first, as some organizations see researching, screening and selecting the right business consulting service as adding to their workloads, not reducing them. Yet the advantages of hiring a consultant are a lot like a new business investment, with the up-front effort saving you measurable time and resources down the road. Source: m-inc

Get an Outside Take on Your Operations

Sometimes all it takes to see the trees through the forest is an outside perspective. Rather than trying to improve operations from the inside out, having an outsider offer their view of your current state of business may clear things up as to how to achieve growth and improve overall efficiency. Source: cmtc

Confidentiality

When you work with a seasoned business consultant, you can be sure they will keep your information confidential. Advisors are often privy to highly sensitive data like compensation, personnel matters and changes in ownership. It is critical that business owners and senior leaders feel comfortable revealing everything that’s important with the clear understanding that it will remain private. Source: krissibarr

Delivery Speed

Consultants are not distracted. They are focused on the results and task(s) they are hired for. Unlike internal management, which tends to have other responsibilities. Consultants are able to deliver results with speed. They do not have a learning curve and are able to provide advise and guidance to clients. Source: illuminationconsulting

Navigate changing workloads

Here’s an important question for every small business owner to consider: If you would need to ramp up your small business suddenly and significantly, could you deliver?

If you don’t have ample support to meet an increase in demand for your products or services or to create new offerings, you could be at risk of disappointing your customers — and potentially damaging your business’s reputation.

You could also end up burdening your core staff and undermining their on-the-job happiness. But of course, you also want to avoid hiring more employees until you are certain that workloads will be sustained. Source: roberthalf

Increases accountability

It’s easy for business owners and CEOs to lose focus and veer off track. This is typically the result of a lack of accountability. When an individual finds himself in a position of power, accountability dissipates and the ability to act autonomously often clouds judgment and decision making. When a consultant is hired, accountability suddenly reenters the picture. The consultant will establish meetings, set goals and provide objectives that have to be satisfied by certain checkpoints. This is good for everyone involved. Source: cio

Training

Consultants can facilitate workshops and courses that can help your workforce learn a new skill, keep up on technology or achieve professional growth and development. Source: kjco

Things to consider in Starting a Business

However you’ve reached your decision to take the plunge and start your own business, you need to go in with your eyes open – there are certain things you need to do to make sure you stand the best chance of success.

The plan

Create a business plan. Many people skip right pass this step and end up backtracking. Creating your business plan at the beginning will help guide your vision and direction as you continue along you entrepreneurial journey.  Think of your business plan as your blue print…you wouldn’t just start building a house without a plan would you? Source: forbes

Self-discipline

This may be one of the most important qualities for an aspiring entrepreneur to have. You are at the heart of your business idea, meaning that you will be the one to hold yourself accountable. As an entrepreneur, you’ll have to stick to your business plan, make and respect your budget, dedicate time to developing your business, and meet the goals you’ve set for yourself. If you find yourself lacking in self-discipline, this might be something to work on before you pursue your entrepreneurial dream. You have to be ready to put the time and effort in before you begin your venture. Source: drivinginnovation

Define your target audience

Appealing to everyone appeals to no one. You need to focus on your target audience and style everything, from your website to your marketing campaigns, around them. Make sure you are targeting the right people by sending out questionnaires, speaking to your customers through social media and holding focus groups. The only way to provide a product or service people really want is to get inside their heads. Involve your target customer in the development of your business and continue to test, test, test. Consulting your customers will also make them feel like they have a voice, will breed loyalty and, if you're lucky, will increase the likelihood of them recommending you to others. Source: smarta

Don't listen to statistics

People love to throw around the statistic that 95 percent of business fail. Don't listen to that -- it's an excuse to make you feel comfortable about giving up. If that number is even correct, it's because most people don't commit, they don't follow through to the end or they are stupid in how they manage their money. Source: entrepreneur

Start small and grow

If possible, self-fund your startup and then go for funding when you can create a growth story. This might cause you to break up your product/service offering into smaller pieces so you can fund the early stages and get some traction and experience. Source: blogs.constantcontact

Find the funds

Start-ups often spend more than they earn for as long as two or three years. Make sure you have funding in place to cover initial purchases and the time it takes to start generating income. Remember, government grants are available to top up your investment, so don’t be shy of applying. Source: axa

Read Up on Managing People

Many first-time and new business owners have never had any experience managing people. Learning how to manage people is an art, and it is essential to the success of every business. Fortunately, there is plenty of great advice on management; you just need to know where to look. Source: help.legalnature

Focus on the market instead of the product

Many startups and small businesses make the mistake of relying too much on their product to drive sales. What this means is that they fail to take into consideration the market they're getting into.

Small businesses should focus on delivering a product that people are actually willing to buy. You can come up with the most revolutionary product in the world, but you won't get anywhere if there isn't a market for it. Focus on niches. Getting a small market share is better than trying to invest in a market that doesn't exist. Source: inc

Resolve Is Your Greatest Asset

Despite anything that you’ve heard or seen on TV, starting your own business isn’t very glamorous. It’s a grind that involves obsessive dedication and unrelenting effort and resolve.

Every startup will encounter obstacles that will threaten to shut it down. Every new business will face seemingly insurmountable odds. Getting your idea off the ground will require your weekdays, weeknights and weekends. There’s no getting around that.

If you’re launching out to start your own business, you must be prepared to fight. Will you be willing to stick to the plan even if it seems that it’s failing? Are you willing to make the sacrifices today that might pan out in five or 10 years? Source: businesscollective

Target Market

Determine your target market so that you know if a demand exists for your product or service and how best to market your business. Consider the demographics of your target market, including their age, gender, neighborhood, income level and consumer behavior. Research your target market by examining consumer surveys, census reports and competitor information. Source: smallbusiness

Get your advisers in places

Source your advisers early and get them involved in the set up of the business. Ensure you have a great accountant (ask other business owners for referrals), a great lawyer (especially if you are leasing a premises), a great marketing adviser to help develop your Marketing Plan ahead of time and possibly a few other advisers like a graphic designer, website developer, IT consultant etc. It does depend on the type of business you are planning to open. Invest in getting the right advice before you start your business and your chances of success will be dramatically increased. Source: news

Read up on what the government and tax office need

there are so many hoops to jump through from letting the tax office know that you are now self employed and registering for VAT to setting up a limited company if you are going down that route to any health and safety certificates if you need them. So make sure you know what’s required otherwise you may find yourself with a big fine. Source: smallbusinesspro

Rent – Don’t Own – At Least at the Beginning

It’s almost axiomatic that you will need cash in order to start a business. But most of that cash will likely be needed for your personal survival. The less that you put into the startup itself, the more you’ll have for survival, and the longer that you’ll be able to last during the early days of your business. Source: allbusiness