Friends last year we were asked to contribute to a popular series of business building books titled “Secrets of top sales professionals exposed”; in it we shared our passion for improving business performance through focusing on conversion rate and average dollar sale. More recently we were asked to record our thoughts by a leading International business audio/DVD magazine “Business Essentials”. Read the article and check out the DVD interview you are going to love it
What are your top five techniques for improving conversion rates?
These are tried and tested techniques that I have used with over 110 businesses across the world. These conversion rate strategies can be applied to any sales model.
1. Parkinson’s Law – according to this law, instant gratification is great because the more you earn, the more you spend. When your team member gets an increase in pay, guess what – they spend it! This means that they enjoy their new lifestyle (with all of its trappings) and are motivated to earn more money to support it.
2. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) – don’t give money away without some simple guidelines. Remember an increase in pay should equal an increase in productivity. Measure the performance of your salespeople by having indicators in place.
3. Communicate results openly – don’t be afraid to promote healthy competition within your store. Post the results up where everyone can see them and get motivated by their position on the ladder.
4. Put the team before the individual – if you have an exceptional salesperson that is bringing down the morale of the store, redirect, counsel, or remove that person.
5. Review and change if necessary – every strategy that you put into place should be reviewed in terms of its results. If you are not getting the return on investment from the program that you have introduced, don’t stop rewarding people; find a new program that will inspire people.
One of your favourite sayings is ‘a good docket is a full docket’. Why is this?
It’s better than being empty (just kidding). Businesses continuously focus on driving leads or enquiries as a way to increase business. But what if they focused not only on converting customers, but also on increasing the size of the transaction? For example, if you did 1,000 transactions a week and you moved your average dollar sale from $50 to $55, that would be an extra $5,000 in sales without having to advertise or find new customers. Some small businesses spend up to $3,500 in local newspaper advertising, but none of them will achieve a sales increase like the one I just described.
Computers are often regarded as an easy product to up sell or cross sell. Do you believe that this principle can work for any business?
People that say they cannot up sell or cross sell either lack the wisdom to do so or only have one product to sell. It is easy to shoot something down and define it as being ‘easy’ when they themselves are not performing.
For those interested in up selling or crossing selling, my advice is to write down your feature items and then list other items that can add value to feature item. By that I mean:
• What can you sell that would increase the life of the product?
• Create an overall package of associated lines that create a full experience.
• Where and what is the product going to be used for? If it is an outdoor furniture setting you could sell a cover to protect it, an umbrella to protect people from the sun, or an outdoor heater to use with the setting in the colder months.
Author Resource:
Tony Gattari of Achievers Group is a business keynote speaker and guest speaker. His passionate enthusiastic style makes him ideal as your next sales speaker, marketing speaker or keynote speaker. Tony Gattari has worked with over 120 businesses. See http://www.achieversgroup.com.au for more info.
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