With apologies to Richard Carlson who wrote Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff (and It’s All Small Stuff), we’d like to suggest that if you are a salesperson, small changes grow sales a lot!
Now to be fair, we do agree that we shouldn’t get hung up on things that we can’t change. There’s no use exploding over traffic gridlock, construction, or spilled milk. An article in Psychology Today provides great insights in ways to avoid overreacting to the small stuff. But sometimes, the small stuff results in bigger success..
Small Changes Grow Sales
The difference between successful and unsuccessful salespeople in the same office is often just the small stuff. With the same product information, similar territories and opportunities, their results can differ dramatically because of the little things.
What little things make a difference? Consider these small modifications:
- Increase your number of contacts with potential customers.
- Increase your average sale size per customer.
- Improve your ability to turn contacts into appointments.
- Improve your ability to qualify prospects so you aren’t wasting your time.
- Improve your ability to turn appointments into sales.
The Slight Edge
Small changes can make a big difference. You can increase your monthly business revenue significantly by making some small adjustments. Two extra phone calls per day to prospects can increase sales by double digits, even if your appointment ratio remains unchanged. Then, improving your ratio of phone calls to appointments by a small percentage will increases income by even more. More importantly, making more calls is working harder, but improving your call script is working smarter, not harder. Growing your ratio of appointments to sales is also working smarter, not harder. Pushing a few more deals across the finish line can have a massive impact in sales growth.
But here’s the really exciting part – where the small stuff really counts. Slight edge thinking works when you improve each step in the sales process by a small amount. By increasing everything by only 2%, salespeople, on average, can increase their revenue growth by as much as 15%, and a 5% improvement can increase their revenue by over 40%! Small changes grow sales.
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