Top 6 Cash Flow Improving Sales Strategies

Selling #1: Test & Measuring System for ALL aspects of Sales

You need to know at least the “5 Money Points” in your business….

1. Leads
2. Conversion Rate (%)
3. Average Sale Value (£,$,€ etc)
4. Average Number of Transactions
5. Margins

But I would also add in….  Break Even

What other critical numbers are there in your business?   Look at these critical numbers as the dashboard for your business.  How you much fuel is in the tank, how fast are you going and any warning lights on?

Selling #2: Use Selling Strategies that improve Cash flow

This may sound obvious but there are some key steps to take.

Improve Conversion.  This is the easiest and cheapest sales strategy to work on – not sure how?  Get our FREE report on the home page of vivavi.co.uk.

Use Phone Scripts – Incoming and Sales:  yes I know, I know, people reading scripts always sound really bad.  So think of these scripts more as check lists or flow charts to get your sales conversations following a proven process that sells your benefits through questions

Add on Sale – Cross sell & Up sell.  Checklists for your sales team will help with this. For example;  if they are buying paint do they need any dust sheets, brushes or brush cleaner?

Pre paid sales: Money in full, or even a deposit before you need to pay out for the relevant stock / wages .  This gives you positive cash flow.  Difficult to ask?  Start with your slow payers and your customers who you need to chase to pay.

Packaged offer – ‘Bundle’ Quick moving line with slow moving line, or sales of products with services where the service hardly gets used – but they already paid for it (service warranties)

Product Range add on sale – limited campaign (this week only).  Very good if you sell disposables / consumables  - look to sell linked products and like before; make a slow moving stock look more attractive with a fast moving stock item

Reverse Host Beneficiary (sell other peoples product for %) – on the internet this gets called Affiliate, except you normally don’t sell the product you direct the buyer to the seller page.  Think of who else could benefit selling to your customer base and agree a %.  You send out the offer at the product owners expense and get a % of sales. 

The best conversion strategy is to sell more effectively. Train, train, train and train even more – make sure everyone in your team is looking at spending 5 hours a week improving their sales skills

Selling #3: Stop BAD Marketing. 

Test and Measure – if it’s not delivering review it.  Can it be improved without spending a fortune? 

Look at the offer to fit the market need now – adapt.  Market on what people want and what they want now is different from before the crisis.  Most improvements in adverts (of ANY type) come from location (what media and location in that media) and headline.

Selling #4: Put Your Prices UP. 

This goes straight to the bottom line and you’d be amazed how much business you need to lose before you lose money.    No client of ours ever likes doing this but it works – and right now people are expecting prices to go up.   Put Prices Up:  Even in good times this gets resisted by business owners and managers but in reality it’s about understanding your market and what products your customers compare  (the headline products) and which ones they just buy if the headline price is ok.

Selling #5: Sell on ‘fear’ during times of crisis

During a recession work on expansion not contraction.  Most customers (consumers and business) will buy if your product removes one of their buying fears – even more so if it is related to their perception of what they need.  Fears during a recession become different and will stop people buying so you need to address those Fears, remove the fears they have our your product / service and highlight the fears of not buying. 

Selling #6: Sales Team Incentives

As part of a programme of activities – sales team incentives work.  On their own – they don’t.  So make sure you have a structure that has minimum and target levels but more importantly focuses on margin plus the key areas that each sales person needs to look at (e.g. Frank may need to look at their conversion rate, where as Jenny my need to focus on the number of leads generated).  Make the sales incentive targeted at sales and improving their skills.

Other Good Things To Do….

Other Good Things To Do #1: Sell Excess Assets

Do you really need that much stock?

Other Good Things To Do #2: Recruit Better People

There are some good people now on the job market – if you need a new recruit – now is when you’ll get the best choice.

Other Good Things To Do #3: Put together a stop doing list as opposed to a start doing

Look at your business and yourself and what needs to stop…

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