A lot of people think that the hardest part of the business is the startup. It can be pretty hard launching, but most businesses manage to whip up some excitement around the launch with promotions and advertisements, etc. However, when you get over the initial hump, and business dies down, it can be hard trying to maintain the same levels of growth consistently. If your business growth has started to stagnate, it’s time to try something new. You can’t keep doing the same thing and hope for some success. Instead, you need to consider unexplored areas to rejuvenate your business and once again find healthy growth.
Schedule A Meeting With The Decision Maker
Sometimes it can be hard to find the decision-maker. You’ll have to go through loops to get to the person who can sanction a sale. Especially if you’re in a B2B market instead of B2C. The key gain here is that you’re capturing some of their time beforehand, instead of trying to steal some time and make a quick sale. If you can Schedule some time in, they won’t have their mind on something else, as they often will when you’re cold calling. In the space of half an hour, you have the time to build a report slowly, and can give your product or service the time it deserves.
Try Different Sales Techniques
If you and your team can learn and apply new sales techniques you might pull in some more customers. Learning new sales techniques gives you more tools. For example, it might be that you apply ABM strategies to ensure you capture the high-value clients that you and your sales team are looking to target. Account-based marketing isn’t necessarily a new approach to capturing high-value targets, but if it’s something you haven’t done before it’s worth considering. Look at your team too, think about their strengths and weaknesses. If you’re on your own, do it to yourself and try to be objective. If one person excels, have them teach the rest of your team. If you think you’re lacking in an area, try to learn the new technique which will raise your game.
Invest In SEO
Sometimes it might be your business visibility that’s the problem. Even if you close most of your sales using business outreach, it’s important to be discoverable. Sometimes, potential clients might search for you or your website to check up on you before agreeing to a sale. With that said, it’s also great to be discoverable for people searching for the products or services that you offer. SEO can usually be broken down into three elements:
- On page SEO
- Off Page SEO
- Technical
On page focussed on the content of your website. Perhaps you’ve got a blog, or you might want to optimize the sales pages you have. Technical focus on the technical side of SEO, so looking at your website’s code and whether or not it’s indexable by Google, etc. Whereas off-page looks at your link profile. If you invest a little in SEO, you might see some leads coming into your mailbox which from a sales perspective are historically a lot easier to close than cold outreach.
Consider A Subscription Model
It’s simple. You offer a slight discount for those who subscribe. It keeps your business ticking over. Whether you offer a product or a service, a subscription model is a brilliant way of ensuring customer retention. If you’re offering large ticket items which don’t lend themselves to subscriptions, you could offer service around the product. Such as ongoing support, maintenance, training, etc. There’s always an angle to take and if you can snag a percentage of your customer base as subscribers they’ll give you guaranteed repeat income which will, of course, help your business growth and aid in your financial projections.
Utilize Freelancers
Freelancers are great because it means you benefit from someone else’s expertise and input without having to directly hire someone, which comes with a chunk of laws and regulations. Freelancers are great for any number of reasons. It might be you want to bring one onboard for sales coaching, or indeed to reach out to businesses for you. Perhaps you want help launching a product elsewhere, or need some new copy for your website. Like everything, you can get good and bad freelancers, so make sure you vet them properly. Ask to see their portfolio of work and pay attention to the reviews if you’re looking to use a platform like Fiverr or Upwork.