Once again we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. Looking over last year’s figures does anything jump out? Was 2014 a bang or a bust?
The longer you’ve been in business the easier it is to find the “red flags.” These are the speed bumps that slowed your growth and hampered your bottom line.
What I see when looking at end of year figures are four opportunities to increase business in the coming twelve months.

What’s The Big Hurdle?
Most business owners just look at one aspect of their business and that one aspect is sales. How many sales? What was the average amount of each sale? Average profit on each sale? Once you have those numbers what do they mean?
I would suggest that there might be some areas about sales that you are missing and will actually help your business grow in four different ways with four different kinds of marketing. Let’s examine four strategies and put each one to work.

Four Kinds of Sales
We often look at customers framed in certain demographics. Age, income, education, etc. What we are missing is there are actually at least four areas of the business we can use to build a stronger business.

Strategy One: You need to acquire more customers. We are fortunate to be in a growing area. New people are coming and many of them are going to need your goods and services. Where are the new subdivisions? Where is the valley expanding and how can you reach those new prospects and turn them into paying customers?

Strategy Two: Stop selling and help customers buy. Be their advocate and help them buy products. In addition, help them buy companion products by showing them a need for those products they didn’t realize they had. How many people knew they needed a Hula Hoop the day before they went on the market?

Strategy Three: Show your customers the value and savings to them of buying a better product or an additional beneficial product. Show benefits not features. Every benefit is one more reason for that customer to buy.

Strategy Four: If you’ve held your price for a couple of years then it’s time to raise your prices. If I sold 100 widgets in the past for $15, I grossed $1,500. If I increase the price to $25 now I only have to sell 60 to make the same $1,500. I can lose 40 percent of my customers and still make the same money. If I sell 90 customers, losing 10 percent, I still make $2,250 with no real increase in work output.

Some Final Thoughts
Communication is the key to growing a business. The customer communicates his or her needs to you and you fill that need by showing the value and benefits of your products and services.

The oldest sales rule in the book is, “Find a Need and Fill It.” The key word in that phrase is “Find.”

That means asking questions of your customers. Are they gourmet cooks? If so, they need a high end stove. Selling them anything less would be doing them a disservice.

Customers are looking for your products and services each and every day.
The more customers you can attract and service, with the best possible products, the more loyal they will be to your business. And that’s what will make 2015 a black year instead of a red one. Happy New Year.