4 Easy Questions Guaranteed (almost) to Boost Sales

4 Easy Questions Guaranteed (almost) to Boost Sales

Keep your marketing simple and straightforward with these four easy questions that are almost guaranteed to boost sales for your business. The reason why this method works so well is that you are going to focus entirely on people who already know about you or your business. The most productive area will most likely be those people who have done business with you at some point, even if they currently do not.  Please try this out for at least three consecutive weeks in your business and let me know via email at [email protected] how it works for you:

First, we need to do some “digging”. This preparation step is crucial, so please do your best to get this done according to the “recipe”. I am asking you here to do a bit of database work, which depending on the level of sophistication you have in the software that contains your customer list, could be rather quick or could take a little more time. Some of you are now using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application that either sits in the cloud hosted by one of the many CRM vendors out there these days, or perhaps you have such a program loaded on a computer at your business. If you fit this profile, your digging will definitely be easier. Some of you may have your customer data in your accounting software, or maybe it’s just in a spreadsheet program like Excel.   Every now and then, I encounter a business where their customer lists are still in a metal file cabinet in hard copy. You hard copy folks will be best served if you or somebody you hire enters this information into Excel or a CRM program.

 Next, you separate your customer list into four categories or groups:

• Active Customers (typically those accounts which have given you business during the past 12 months, but each business is different, so customize the time factor as appropriate).
• Inactive Customers (those accounts who gave you some business at some time in the past, but now do not).
• Never Active Customers (those folks who contacted you at some point in the past and you might have discussed some business, given them a bid, or just met them somewhere like a trade show).
• Pure Prospects (these are your potential customers who might be on a list for your marketing or sales people to solicit business, but you have not yet had any contact with them). We will ignore this category for this particular marketing and sales technique. 

Finally, you reach out to each category, preferably by telephone, and seek responses to the following similar 4 questions, which you “capture” into your customer database (customize these questions of course as appropriate for your particular situation. My comments are in parenthesis):

Active Customer Questions:

• Please tell me how our last order worked for you.
• Could we have done anything better?
• What’s coming “down the pike”; is there anything on the horizon we might work on for you?
• Some folks may be pulling back in this economy, but we are not, and we are growing our business to serve more customers. Is there anybody you know who could benefit from what we do? (Yes, I suggest you consistently ASK for referrals)

Inactive Customer Questions:

• Please tell me how our last order worked for you (on these folks especially you may hear some complaints…it’s important to know why they stopped giving you business, though, isn’t it?).
• Could we have done anything better? (This also could spark some hard to hear feedback).
• What’s coming “down the pike”; is there anything on the horizon we might work on for you? (Yes, you still ask for another chance).
• Some folks may be pulling back in this economy, but we are not, and we are growing our business to serve more customers. Is there anybody you know who could benefit from what we do? (Yes, I suggest you consistently ASK for referrals, even from inactive customers)

Never Active Customer Questions:

• Please tell me what happened with that project we discussed?
• Could we have done anything better to secure this business from you? (You may also hear some harsh feedback, and of course price objections frequently come up here. Look out for an upcoming piece from me on dealing with price issues).
• What’s coming “down the pike”; is there anything on the horizon we might work on for you?
• Some folks may be pulling back in this economy, but we are not, and we are growing our business to serve more customers. Is there anybody you know who could benefit from what we do? (Yes, I suggest you consistently ASK for referrals, even from never actives.)

As I suggested above, try this out for at least three consecutive weeks in your business and let me know via email at [email protected] how it works for you. This type of activity using this technique seems to work for most folks like magic to generate business simply as a result of making this kind of contact. You may try to obtain this information electronically via email, for example, but I have found that phone calls work the best. Of course if you need any additional help with marketing strategy or tactics, I am always happy to kick around some ideas with you. My experience tells me that you will find some “gold nuggets” if you systematically “mine” your customer list in the way I describe here.

Good marketing! -Professor Ira