Seven Strategies to Fire Up Your Fall Sales
The fall months are a great time to rev up your business revenue. Many business owners are freshly back from retreat or vacation, and they’ve had time to refresh and rejuvenate themselves and their staff. Now it’s time to benefit from all that creativity that’s been unleashed and put those ideas to work.
If you’re ready to rev it up for the fall of 2011, here are some fresh ideas to help you invigorate your fall sales.
1.  Conduct a Client Survey
If you’re wondering how to discover the next big revenue blockbuster for your business, go to a wise source: your clients. Send a survey asking them what their current challenges are, what keeps them up at night, and what they could use help with. Tools such as Constant Contact surveys or SurveyMonkey make sending surveys a snap these days. You’ll gain valuable intelligence on where to focus your revenue development efforts so that you can serve your clients even better while increasing your income.
2.  Ask for Referrals
The fastest and most cost-effective way to find new clients is by tapping into the network of current clients who are pleased with your work and know others who could use your services. To make sure your clients know you are looking for more clients just like them, you might have to tell them! They may not put two and two together like you think they should. Prime the pump by creating a referral program and making it known you’re in the market for new clients.
3.  Make Yourself Skillful
There’s nothing like adding new skills to your tool belt to help you increase your value in your client’s eyes.  Learn a new software package, design a new procedure, read a book, or take a training class that will give you ideas on how you can add value to and extend your current service or product line. Once you’ve mastered it, you can train your team on what you’ve learned and make it a new offering which brings in more revenue.
4.  Collect Testimonials
Collecting testimonials has multiple benefits. First, you can use them on your promotional material so that new prospects can read about what it’s like to do business with you. Second, you’ll learn something about what the client values by reading them. And third, every communication you have with your clients increases “top-of-mind” awareness, making it more likely for the client to use more services or refer you. That’s a triple win.
5.  Change Up a Current Service or Product
Add a whole new service by changing something about your current service or product. If you offer products or services a la carte, bundle some together and make a package offering. Correspondingly, if you offer a package, break it down into smaller offerings. If you offer services via the phone, offer them in person as well. Join with a trusted partner to offer your products and theirs together in one packet.  Or subcontract with a vendor you trust to expand your offerings even more. When you offer three options, a discount, regular, and premium version, your clients will have more choices to fit their changing budget. You can also change up the packaging, add extras, subtract items, change the color, change the timing, and much more.
6. Upgrade Your Marketing
Invest in your marketing skills and materials so that your company is more appealing to prospects. Redo your website if you need to, or perhaps there’s a flyer you can design that you can hand out at networking meetings. Learn how to write a great proposal and how to communicate well during a sales call. Or learn how to use social media to engage and educate your prospects on what you do. When your marketing materials are a notch higher, your business will be more attractive to higher quality prospects.
7.  Cross-Sell and Upsell to Current Clients
Your current client base is a gold mine of potential. They already trust you and know you through the services you are currently offering. It’s possible they may not know everything you do. It’s your job to let them know about all the other services you offer. When you do, you’re highly likely to do more business with them.
Try these seven ideas to fire up your fall sales.