How to Increase your Sales?

Sales-building is so much easier when you know how it works.  And fortunately, the methodology is much easier with the following definitions. Every effort you could make to build sales falls into one of just four categories.  Every promotion, advertisement or offer will push one of the following four buttons:

• New Trial: These are first-time customers buying from you for the first time.  They will establish their opinion of your company during this first purchase and decide what percentage mindshare to award you in the future.  New trial is the most expensive of the four sales-builders as acquisition costs are typically 7-10 more costly to execute than the other sales builders.  However, it is impossible to increase frequency, check average or party size without customers to start with.  After a customer base has been established, however, it is advisable to focus considerable efforts on the sales-builders listed below.

• Frequency: Is how often existing customers return to you for future purchases.  Frequency is generated by developing enduring relationships and loyalty among customers.  While it is rare to disagree that frequency is important, an alarming number of businesses fail to appropriate the needed mindshare and resources to developing successful programs.  Consider that the average Pizza Hut loyalist purchases a pizza every 30 days.  If Pizza Hut can get this group to purchase just one more pizza in those 30 days, they’d double their sales.  So why do they blast the airwaves versus developing more successful frequency programs, such as bouncebacks, loyalty programs and the like?  You’ve got me.

• Check Average: Often refers to the total purchase for each transaction.  In this instance, however, we are referring primarily to per person check average – the amount each guest or customer spends at purchase.  Check averages can be built through price increases, suggestive selling programs, effective internal merchandizing, and through add-ons or upgrades to name but a few techniques.  You’ll want to make sure that the increase in check average remains consistent with your overall positioning strategy.

• Party Size: As the name would suggest, Party Size refers to the number of people in each party.  Do customers primarily visit alone, in groups of 2, groups of 5 or more?  Whatever the number, you’ll want to devise programs that encourage customers to bring more of their friends with them for each visit.  Examples of programs include bus drivers eat free, birthday clubs and refer-a-friend tactics.  Encouraging party size turns customers into advocates and enlists them as part of your sales-building team.

When asked what was the single most important event in helping him arrive at the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein was reported to have said, “Figuring out how to think about the problem.”  Use the above definitions help you better frame the challenge of growing your sales.