Jun
18
Written by Suzanne Taylor-King
Sales slumps can do more harm than good for your business and your morale if you do not address them quickly and begin moving forward. The ideas below will help you address your sales slump immediately so you can begin the process of shaking the slump and propelling your business and your profits onward and upward.
The good news is that you do not have to implement all of these ideas at the same time. Go through the list one by one and begin making the changes you feel will offer the best results fastest.
Always seek to measure your results so you’re aware of which actions seem to gain the most traction, which provide the most immediate responses, etc. Tracking your data today can help you make highly effective slump-shaking decisions when future sales slumps arise.
- DON’T BE SHY….ASK FOR THEM TO BUY!
It’s something so simple and remains the one thing most difficult for coaches and other marketers and service providers to do. The first thing you have to do is start the conversation by asking your followers, the community you serve, and even the people you know to buy your products.
Obviously, you believe in what you’re doing. You have the talent and you’ve devoted the time to perfect your craft and create informative, educational, and useful products. You know the techniques you teach work. You can even tell others how effective these things are. But, if you do not ask, they will not buy.
It’s like in the old days of Internet marketing when ads had the huge blinking neon yellow arrows with red lettering telling audiences “Click here to buy now!” They were popular at the time because they were effective. People sometimes just need you to tell them what you want. In this case, they need you to ask them to buy.
- REVISIT YOUR SALES APPROACH
While some people struggle simply asking others to buy their products, others may struggle with the manner in which you ask your audience to buy. The average person has a list of ready-made excuses not to buy whatever it is people are selling. Don’t give them an “out” before you even make your “Ask”.
What this means is that you should avoid offering the people who need your services and products excuses or reasons not to buy before you even make your sales pitch.
Instead, reinforce all the reasons they NEED your products, then ask them to buy. It makes a huge difference in your sales, your confidence, and your bottom line.
More importantly, make the ask CLEARLY. Don’t hem and haw and stutter through a sales pitch. Simply say “These are the reasons you should buy my products, will that be credit card, PayPal, etc.?”
- BE BOLD!
Your plan may include a variety of mediums. From social media and blog posts to YouTube videos, email content, and dedicated sales funnels, the methods of asking people to buy your products and services are nearly limitless.
But you need a plan for how to ask that is bold, brash, and results-oriented. It is even better if you have tools in place to track your results to see where your efforts are offering the greatest rewards.
Of course, all the planning in the world amounts to very little if you do not act according to the plan you’ve created. Just remember to ask across multiple platforms and study your results to determine which platforms offer the greatest traction and ROI for future efforts.
Finally, be consistent when asking. Consistently asking people to buy your products makes it a habit for you and helps you avoid future sales slumps in many ways – as long as you continue offering value to your audience and generating new, relevant products and services.
- EXPAND YOUR CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE
This step involves reaching new audiences by “sharing” audiences with someone in a complementary industry. The highly technical term for this is “cross-pollination.” The process allows you to partner with other leaders in similar industries and share your services and products with the audiences of the other person.
It allows you an opportunity to make connections with a new audience you may not have otherwise connected with who are interested in services and products similar to those you offer. It helps you generate targeted leads for your own products while providing some degree of credibility as you’re being introduced by a “trusted” source.
You return the favor by introducing the other person and their products and services to your audience. Everyone wins. Your audience gains access to products and promotions that may be beneficial to them and you get to offer your products and promotions to a new audience. - SELECT PARTNERSHIPS CAREFULLY
If you choose the cross-pollination route, select your partnerships carefully. You’ve invested a great deal of time and effort in building your list and establishing a relationship of trust with your audience. Choosing the wrong partner could place that trust in jeopardy.
Look for characteristics and traits you admire in industry leaders who have similar ethics to your own before introducing them to your audience. Additionally, make sure they have an audience on a scale with your own audience and that they serve industries that are likely to have some interest in the types of products and services you offer.
- CREATE VIDEOS TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF
Whether you’re working with new audiences, through your own cross-pollination efforts, or you’re seeking to renew connections with your own audiences, videos are amazing tools that drive impressive results when it comes to relationship building.
It’s hard to put yourself out there. But to make the types of connections you need to break your sales slump and take your business to the next level, it is sometimes necessary to do things that are well outside of your comfort zone.
The great thing about using video for this purpose is that it promotes real connections with your audience that set the stage for loyal relationships with people who will buy your products over and over again.
- REVISIT OLD PRODUCTS
How many products do you have sitting on cyber-shelves collecting dust? Chances are you have a few. Whether they are older products that simply aren’t getting much love lately or nearly completed projects you put on the back burners for some reason, the odds are good that they can offer new value to your customers.
Nearly completed products, for instance, can be quickly completed and offered as new releases for your audience. Older products can be easily, and often quickly, updated and re-released in their own rights or as sweeteners for more current offers.
You can even bundle a few of your older products together and sell them as a package deal. This increases the odds that one or more of the products in the package will appeal to existing customers who do not yet own those products even if they have some of the other titles in the bundle.
The idea is to renew interest in your products and overcome your current sales slumps. It’s not necessarily about making record profits, but about generating sales throughout your current slump. Price these packages and bundles accordingly.
- SOLICIT FEEDBACK FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS
This goes back to asking, once again. This time you’re not asking your audience to buy products. You’re asking them to offer honest feedback on the products they’ve purchased from you.
Social validation is a powerful tool when it comes to motivating others to buy your products. Even if it has been months, or years, since they’ve purchased from you, getting reviews and feedback, from past and present customers alike, helps you learn what your audience wants, shows the value of your products to others, and offers validation to those sitting on the fence that people have found your products helpful.
Ultimately, social feedback, testimonials, and reviews encourage fence-sitters to make the buy in a way that you would be hard-pressed to do on your own. It shows them that real people have benefited from your products. It’s even better when the real people writing the reviews are people they already know, admire, and respect.
- GET CLIENT FEEDBACK
Contact some of your most loyal and consistent clients and ask a few questions. The answers will reveal a lot about what your people are looking for in the services and products you offer, including insights about why they keep coming back to you for the products you offer, what they love about your products, and what they feel are the most valuable aspects of their relationships with you, as customers.
Use this information to help improve morale at a time when it is generally low and to help you create products that add even more value for your audience in the future.
Don’t forget to take plenty of notes and ask them if you can use some of what they’ve said as a testimonial on your website.
- ASK THE QUESTIONS THEN TEST YOUR RESULTS
Take that client feedback then test your results by making tweaks to your sales pages. Understanding and utilizing split testing (or A/B testing) for your landing pages helps you make better-informed decisions about what products are in higher demand. The process may even help you avoid future sales slumps altogether if you use it consistently in your business.
- CREATE AN EXCLUSIVE SUBSCRIPTION PROGRAM
It doesn’t really take much effort to create an exclusive subscription service for your audience, but it can yield impressive results that offer you income month after month for as long as you continue offering content worthy of your audience.
Whether your interests and talents are better used for creating video content, audio content, webinars, extended newsletters, membership forums, or other types of groups, the key is in delivering stellar content to your subscribers each month. This generates buzz, drives subscriptions, and can help see you through minor stalls in sales as they arise. - GET CREATIVE….CULTIVATE NEW PRODUCT IDEAS
Continuous product generation is a great way to drive sales for your business. Sales slumps offer you ample opportunities to assess the products you currently have on the market today, explore competitor offerings, and look at products you’ve offered in the past to help cultivate new product ideas that will help you generate sales now and drive sales in the future.
In fact, you could start working on your next product right away and offer a “sneak peek” at the first chapter, a workbook page, or some other aspect of your new product to people who order any of your current product offerings.
Not only is this an ingenious way to motivate sales, but it also works to generate interest in your upcoming product well ahead of your release. Even better, invite feedback, questions, and suggestions from your audience about what you can include in your upcoming product to make it more relevant to them. - CONSISTENTLY OVER-DELIVER
There is one overlooked tactic that invites your audience to buy your products time and time again. Consistently over-deliver. This means that every product you create delivers more than promised and offers a few surprises and bonuses along the way.
The idea is that if you give your audience more than they expect every time they buy, they will ultimately always expect your product to be worth the investment. You encourage them to buy future products by giving them exceptional products today. - TRY NEW MARKETING METHODS
Sales slumps sometimes occur because your audience has become immune to your current marketing strategies. Try shaking things up a bit and adopting new approaches for delivering your message about new products you have available.
For instance, if you typically rely on email newsletters alone, consider branching out and writing a feature blog post about your latest offering. Don’t stop there, however. The more options you utilize, the more profound your results tend to be.
Think of all the tools available at your disposal for spreading the word about products, services, and launches. They include YouTube videos, webinars, Instagram posts, Facebook Live sessions, Twitter announcements, Facebook posts, forum announcements and so much more.
If one thing isn’t driving sales and getting results, move on to the next thing and use them in combination with one another for even better results. - CROSS-PROMOTE YOUR OWN PRODUCTS
The odds are good that you have multiple product offerings available at any given time. Use your existing products to promote new and upcoming products. It doesn’t take much time or effort to add an excerpt, sneak peek, or special preview at the end of your product to help your audience see the other valuable products and services you offer.
Some savvy marketers simply include a video announcement of exciting products on the horizon or newly available to help drive sales and generate interest in the other products they offer.
You can even transform your efforts by making special offers at the end of the day to people who have already purchased one of your items with special discount codes for loyal customers who keep coming back for more. - GET TO KNOW YOUR COMPETITION
Now is the perfect time to start exploring your competition in greater detail. Subscribe to their mailing lists, follow them on social media, study them until you know their product offerings and services, as well as you know your own.
Start by identifying three to five competitors who most closely match your own business. Then make it your mission to know as much about their business practices as you know about your own. The goal is to understand their strategies, the promotion tools they use, and the types of relationships they build with their audiences to identify areas in which you can improve upon what they offer.
Your ultimate goal in this is to identify ways in which you can add value over what your competition has to offer. It’s not simply their products and services you need to offer. Those are great places to begin. However, they are only a small window into the big picture you want to know about all your competitors. Ultimately, you want to make sure you offer more complete products, better service, a more pleasant buying experience, and greater overall value from your products – those you offer for free as well as those you sell.
Make sure, though, that you don’t find yourself following your competitors and reinventing the products they’ve created. Instead, use what you learn to inspire you to create something new and different that sets you apart from all your competition. - OFFER A FREE WEBINAR TO SHOWCASE YOUR PRODUCTS
Create a webinar that showcases the products you have available and do a live brainstorming session with attendees about how they can implement your products in their businesses.
Webinars do not take much time to plan, especially when your audience is generating the bulk of the material in terms of their brainstorming sessions. Do a full-scale social media push to encourage attendance and encourage everyone to bring their best challenges to the table.
Alternately you could hop on and do a quick Facebook Live event offering the same information on a smaller, more intimate scale. The webinar, though, reaches out to audiences that might otherwise miss the Facebook Live session and invites people to submit their questions or ideas ahead of time in case they can’t attend the live session.
Doing this accomplishes more than creating new interest in products and cross-promoting all your products. It also helps your audience see new ways to use your products, builds trust, and offers you invaluable insights and new ideas for future products.
Make sure to record the webinar so people can watch it in their own free time. Plus, this makes it possible for you to revisit the entire event and take notes about areas where your audience is struggling – and address those needs with future products. - WRITE A STUDY GUIDE OR COMPANION TO YOUR LATEST PRODUCTS
Offer this as either a free promotion to encourage people to buy your products or an add-on companion to add value to your product for the people who do purchase it.
Because you’re so intimately acquainted with all aspects of the products you’ve created, this isn’t a stretch for you. It should take very little time to drum out a quick study guide, workbook, study sheet, etc. that will help your customers use your product more effectively for their own purposes. - PUT YOUR FOLLOWERS TO WORK ON YOUR BEHALF
It’s easier than you think to put your own followers to work for you. One of the most effective methods for doing this is to create an affiliate program. When you do this, you pay your followers a “commission” for each of your products they sell to their audiences, friends, family, and followers.
The process costs a nominal fee for whatever affiliate platform you choose to use and can help you correct a fairly significant sales slump fast. That’s only the beginning. You can also ask your followers for testimonials on how they’ve used your products and services to improve their own lives, businesses, and relationships.
Since the hard work of creating your products is already done at this point, creating an affiliate program for people who sell your products serves to help you get even more profits from your efforts by addressing new audiences through the hard work of people who already know and like your products. - QUICKLY ADDRESS SOCIAL RESPONSES CONCERNING YOUR PRODUCTS
Social media is a two-edged sword. It provides great social feedback opportunities for positive as well as unfavorable responses. While everyone wants to hear and respond to positive feedback, negative feedback requires a swift response, even if it isn’t an attractive idea for you.
Almost everyone prefers to deal with favorable interactions and positive responses. Especially when it involves a product you’ve poured your heart and soul into. At the same time, you must address negative responses quickly and favorably to avoid future heartaches and headaches as a result. Not only does this manage the issue and allow you to move forward with the issue behind you but it also reveals to your audience that you will deal with adversity proactively and with great integrity. - IMPLEMENT SURVEYS TO DISCOVER IF PROBLEMS EXIST
Surveys are excellent tools that any business can use because they are infinitely scalable. Giant corporations like McDonald’s and Target use surveys to help gauge customer satisfaction, judge customer experiences, and improve product offerings. The great news is that you can use them too. No matter how large or small your business may be, surveys can be instrumental for identifying your strengths and weaknesses as well as gauging customer interest in select services, products, and more.
You can use tools like SurveyMonkey to create tools for email promotions, to add to the final pages of information products, and to create social media surveys for your organization. This is a tool that is easy to use, intuitive, and scalable (it will grow with you as your business grows).
The better you understand how your audience feels about your products, the price, and the value for what they receive; the better choices you can make about promoting your products and creating new products that meet the needs of your audience.
Surveys can be instrumental in helping you determine the value your products offer your audience and to identify ways you can add great value to this product, through companion products, or future products you create.
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