How to drastically increase your sales

Top Stories

»	49% Indian startups now from tier 2, 3 cities: Jitendra Singh
»	'India ranks 3rd in global startup ecosystem & number of unicorns'
»	Tripura exported over 9K tonnes of pineapples in 2 years
»	CPI inflation eases to 6.71% in July, IIP falls to 12.3%
»	Rupee depreciates 12 paise to close at 79.64 against US dollar

Stephanie Gibbs | 18 Aug, 2008
You can drastically increase your new customers just by doing demonstrations and giving away free samples. Many times that is the only difference between closing a sale and being rejected.

Did everybody immediately throw away their electric typewriters, white out and their erasable paper when computers first came onto the market?

How many people were using the internet during the early to mid 1990's? Compare that number to how many people use it today? Why didn't everybody go online as soon as they started seeing the big huge http://www.com signs up all over the place?

The answer is simple. It is because no commercial, no display or text advertisement and no sign will convince people to buy something if they do not know what it is, or what it can do, or how it will benefit them by saving them time, money or make their life easier or better.

Even if it is a product or service that they are familiar with, they still may not know all of the features and benefits. There are many people who have television sets with remote controls but do not know what every button on it can do. They might be missing out on something they could use. Also, they do not know why your product or service is better than your competition.

You need to let people personally experience your products and services with their own senses.
Let them FEEL the relaxing massage you want to give them.
Let them HEAR your music playing on a CD.
Let them TASTE the food and beverages you prepare.
Let them SMELL your fragrances.
Let them SEE your product make the purple grape juice stain instantly disappear from the pure white table cloth.

You can call around chasing behind over used cold call leads trying to set up appointments to give individual demonstrations and free samples at businesses and family homes, but that could be a very tedious process. You will run into alot of resistance just to get an appointment. In many cases you will not even get in the door.

If you do get in a make the sale, that's great. However, if you get an appointment but do not succeed in closing the sale, then you just wasted all of your time on only one prospect.

There is a solution. A much better way is for you to participate in Trade Shows, Expos, Festivals, Seminars, Exhibitions, Conventions, Conferences, Fairs and Swap Meets. The key to your success is to concentrate on established, credible events with a few thousand people attending who are in your target market. If the attendance is too low, the whole thing may end up being a complete waste of your time, money and effort.

Instead of chasing down cold leads, you now have a large number of interested people coming up to you. You are not chasing behind them.

Most events charge some type of an entrance admission fee and usually a parking fee. So you have people who willingly and voluntarily paid good money to attend. In many cases they gave up their entire day, or their morning, or evening or possibly their whole weekend because they want to be there.

It is very important that you Brand your business for success so that people will remember your company over your competition. Another important aspect of closing a sale is building a relationship with your customers which you will be able to do.

This is your very rare chance to meet with the decision makers like the president, vice-president, CEO, executives of a corporation, or it could be the two spouses in a family.

You will also get high quality referrals. People will refer you to their friends, relatives and business associates who they think would be interested. They might even recommend you. It is more likely that these people will be willing to do business with your company through a friend's referral than by you trying to cold call them.

When you give attendees your marketing materials at an Expo, especially after seeing your demonstration and trying your samples, there is a better chance that they will actually read it, or at least spend some time looking it over, unlike them getting junk mail and standing over the trash can immediately throwing it away.

You have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, demonstrations and giving away free samples are worth a million.