How to improve my sales techniques

Selling is as much of an art as it is a science. Find out our four-step process on how to improve your sales technique in this article. 

We’ll detail a foolproof way to improve your marketing so your initial invitation to customers lands better than before and walk you through to meet your customers’ needs better and increase your sales.

Whether you’re starting out as a sole trader or limited company director, an elegant and informed sales technique can be the make or break element missing from your business. Read on to find out how to improve your sales technique and how to meet the accounting demand with Countingup.

One of the most important ways to improve your sales technique is to refine your advertising so it reaches your target market. This action will underpin the rest of the sales process and is a critical step if you’re to be successful.

A target market is the portion of customers who are most interested in your product or service. This popularity is driven by a number of factors, including genuine need (like goods aimed at solving problems), personal preference or taste (fashion items or lifestyle brands) or trends that grow within a certain demographic that blend both of these factors together. Therefore, as a sales tactic, the premise is simple: make your business more visible to people already inclined to buy what you offer.

Recent data from Adobe showed that it works: not only do the majority of customers prefer having personalised offers provided to them, but around 70% of customers use personalised recommendations with some frequency to inform their shopping habits thereafter. Targeted advertising allows businesses to build sustainable sales with a base of customers interested in receiving your offers. 

Find out more about building a target market and personalised advertising in our guide How to define your target market.

As you’re looking to sell to customers, offering niche products that dominate a certain market can help. However, so can broadening your market to more people by increasing the value and utility that your product or service offers. Therefore, as you’re looking to identify your target market, can you also expand it by identifying new ways your product or service helps customers?

Even if you can’t necessarily broaden your potential customer pool, exploring and developing benefits that your business provides will also help you cater better to customers’ needs (see the next section on how). This is because you’ll be able to introduce different ways your product is relevant or useful in their lives, especially when compared to your competitors.

It’s important to note that this step does have limitations because even lesser-knowledgeable customers will be highly sceptical if you offer the next ‘do it all’ wonder product. Therefore, while it’s unlikely you can add 5-10 additional features after an afternoon of brainstorming, you may be able to develop one or two additional benefits to point out to new customers. If you were able to do this, you may wish to repeat the first step and see how this (re)informs your target market strategy.

As you interact with customers, a common first question is identifying what they’re looking for. It may even be the case that you’ve made this the first question in your enquiries submission process. 

Depending on your business, some customers may use industry terms or jargon while others may be less confident and instead explain what they’re looking for in their own language. You can improve your sales technique by meeting them on their level and using language, tone and delivery they’re comfortable with. Not only can this improve your sales and customer service, it also helps build a more welcome brand for your business.

If a customer has very little knowledge in an area, it’s particularly important to be sensitive to this point as they may be more hesitant to pay if they’re not sure of what they’re getting or how it’s valuable. Similarly, someone who’s able to keep pace with you on expert terms and challenge your offers will also be more likely to see through bold sales claims. Therefore, you need to be able to treat every customer as a new challenge, meeting their specific needs each time.

Once you’ve expanded the benefits and value your business provides, you should find this process easier. This is because you’ll be able to cater for more ways in which customers express their values and needs. 

Customers are more involved and informed than ever. The latest data on consumer habits shows that customers prefer using the internet to research goods and services more than other sources and the practice is higher than ever before.

Therefore, you must be honest and accurate in the claims you make during sales to customers. Not only is honest advertising a legal requirement within the UK, but customers are also more capable and willing to fact check on claims if you embellish or stretch the truth.

Similarly, many customers appreciate comparisons that businesses make to their competitors when specifying the tradeoffs they’ll make when choosing them over another business. Therefore, building an honest relationship with customers can improve your sales technique and increase your sales revenue.

Now you’ve got a sales technique to increase your revenue, don’t end up losing time to your financial admin. You can use the Countingup app to stay focused on growing your business.

The Countingup business current account makes it easy to keep on top of your business finances. The app comes with free built-in accounting software that automates the time-consuming aspects of bookkeeping. You’ll also be able to create customised invoices in seconds, saving you time to focus on improving your sales techniques. 

Find out more here and sign up for free today.