Congratulations on finally choosing to start your home-based business! It’s a big step to take, but with that excitement comes the challenge of standing out in a crowded market. Knowing that more than half of new businesses fail in the first year is not easy, but whether you’re offering handmade products or a consulting service, you can stand out at the same time. Sales in your business are essential if you want to thrive. The good news is that there are plenty of effective strategies that you can use to improve your sales and grow your business at the same time. Perhaps at some stage you can get out of your spare bedroom office and move into a real one!
Get comfortable with technology
One of the best ways that you can boost sales for your home-
based business is by using sales intelligence tools. This technology can help you to gather valuable data about your customers, market trends, and competition. It’s with this information that you can make more informed decisions, target your audience, and improve your chances of closing your deals. With the right sales intelligence tools you’ll be able to identify potential customers and track leads. When you know who your customers are and what they want, you can tailor your marketing and your business to better meet their needs.
Make yourself irresistible online
A business cannot be successful these days without a strong online presence. This means that your website has to be easy to navigate and your social media accounts have to be up-to-date. You can hire somebody to come in and help you with your strategy here, and outsourcing this is a good idea if you are brand new to the business world. Your website is the first impression that potential customers are going to have of your business, so you have to make sure that it is user friendly and professional. Take the time to really showcase your services and then use high quality imagery to make it more appealing. If you can make your website irresistible, people won’t be able to prevent themselves from shopping with you.
Work on building trust
Making sales is much easier when people trust you. To be able to win your customers over, you have to gain their trust. People will trust reviews and testimonials. As a consumer, you may look for reviews of a product that you’ve been looking at so that you can gain an understanding of how it works for the customer. It’s going to be the same for your business too.
Encourage anybody who buys from you to leave a positive review on your website or social media page or both. Having this social proof is really going to encourage other customers to improve their experience by using your product or service. If you’re just starting out and you don’t have any reviews just yet, you could offer a discount or incentive to the first customers in exchange for honesty. You can learn a lot about your business from the customers’ point of view doing this, too.
Add a little sprinkle of glitter!
You need something shiny to attract your customers and while you’re an online home-based business, you need to learn how to offer promotions and discounts online. Limited time offers, seasonal sales or discount codes can create a sense of urgency and excitement and it adds some glitter to a regular service.
People find it more enticing and exciting when they know they can get some money off. Promoting your discounts on all of your marketing channels is important and that should include your social media and your website. If you have people sign up to an Email newsletter, make sure that you have unique discount codes for them, too.
Rub shoulders with other small businesses
Collaboration is the key to success for a small and home-based business such as yours. Look for complementary businesses in your industry that don’t compete directly with yours but work alongside it. If you’re running a business selling lesson plans and creative tools for people to print and use online, you could partner with a business that offers stickers or stationery. Joint promotions by and cross promoting each other’s products or Co hosting events online can help you to gather an entirely new pool of customers.
Really focus on customer service
Good customer service can be a game changer. If you want to make more sales you need to provide exceptional service because people will talk about you, return to work with you and refer their friends to you, too.
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