Starting a new company or a new process like revamping or entering a new geographical market feels great. At the same time, you need to be careful with each step you take. Especially for small businesses, there will be many challenges to face both financially and process-wise. To tackle them, your focus should be on developing strategies that increase your sales. No shortcuts or success guides will suit all. But, there are certain ways you can follow to improve your business growth, which we will discuss in the latter part of this blog.
Initially, you either have to start with less investment you possess or bootstrap your business with funds from investors. There will be other challenges too while forming your team. To overcome all these initial hurdles, you need to close more deals and earn enough to stabilize your stand in the market.
Challenges Faced By Small Businesses
As a small business owner, you may come across one or many of the following challenges:
1. Limited cash flow – Financial struggles are real. If you have raised funds from investors, you may not have access to the entire capital. You need to spend every penny carefully, be it for marketing, onboarding, or any other business processes.
2. Hiring & Team management – Hiring and onboarding the right people is crucial for your business’s success. Encouraging them often and treating them with respect will make them feel connected and stay with your company for a long time. Also, give them smaller breaks like team outings or holidays to prevent exhaustion. As you are a small team, you need to give rest to your employees as well to improve their productivity.
3. Establishing scalable processes – Various business processes like administration, operations, hiring and onboarding, performance management, analytics & reporting, deciding on the right marketing and sales strategies, etc should be established in an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective manner.
4. Bringing down excessive costs – You need to be keen on cutting down unnecessary costs. Remote working options will cut down your location, equipment, and other maintenance costs. Same way, try to get more organic leads through social media, blogs, etc. Before you invest in paid marketing channels like ads and collaborations.
5. Limited resources – As we just mentioned, plan your marketing investments as per the budget you can allocate. Also, invest in customer engagement and also focus on prospecting and bringing in new customers to your business. Make optimized use of all the available resources – be it the people, process, or money to get maximum ROI.
Sales Tips For Small Businesses
Hope you are now clear of the challenges that may come in your path. Don’t anticipate or be afraid of them. Instead, take your time and sell with conviction. Here are some tips to increase your sales:
1. Business Evaluation
Assess the current situation of your business and the market conditions thoroughly including expenses, your current market value, current trends, and investments. Once you have a detailed report with exact figures, you can make necessary changes in your cash flow and control it. Find out which of your products or services are gaining you the maximum income and promote them further. With data reports, based on your past performance, predict your future sales and start working towards it.
2. Find Your USP
A unique Selling Point is the one that differentiates your product or service from others. Observe which feature of your product stands out. Through competitor analysis and historical sales data, small businesses can find their USP and highlight it in their campaigns.
3. Utilize Right Tools
Small businesses have financial constraints at the initial stage. So, you need to utilize all the free plans and tools available to their full potential in favor of your business, like free invoice templates. Hire the right, talented team who are passionate about marketing and sales to do this. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the most useful for small businesses. Create your unique brand voice on these platforms to grab the attention of people. Also, the LinkedIn sales navigator can help you with prospecting.
4. Create Long-Term Customer Relationships
The best sales tips for small businesses are to create lasting customer relationships, nourish them, give value and get the best results out of them. Client retention is always more economical than new client acquisition. So, focus on the former one more. Keep your customers engaged, share valuable information through newsletters and social media, and give them exclusive offers and loyalty programs. If you deliver a seamless customer experience, they will recommend you to others and hence it’s a win-win.
5. Set Realistic Goals
Set specific, measurable goals that suit your business. It can be based on sales volume, no.of new customers, revenue, closing rate, etc. Measure them periodically to know the performance and derive ways to improve. Conduct team meetings to discuss the performance and convey their individual goals clearly.
6. Build An Action Plan
The last and most important tip is to create an action plan. i.e how to achieve the goals set? Formulate a simple, step-by-step plan so that it will be easy to follow for all. Set time limits for each task and motivate your team with rewards and recognition whenever they complete within the assigned time.
Summing Up
Increasing the sales of small businesses may be a little more difficult than an established business, but not an impossible one. You can do it through sales intelligence. Today, the latest technology and tools make it much easier for you. The only input your small business needs is your dedication. If you and your team can work dedicatedly towards building your own empire, then the world will bring you opportunities. “Even a big business starts small ! The secret of getting ahead is getting started!”.
