Seven Ways to Increase Revenues

shutterstock_40657561In the highly competitive environment in which business operate today, there is no such thing as standing still or maintaining the status quo.  You are always moving.  The only question is:  In What Direction are you moving – Forward or Backward?

The prime determinant of your direction will be your ability to increase your business revenues.  Sales Revenue is the engine that drives your business.  To grow your business, you must continually seek ways to turbo charge its engine.  You MUST develop strategies that will drive higher levels of sales, while ensuring that your growth in revenues translate into higher cash flows and profits.

Basically there are seven ways to increase revenues.  Mastering any one of the seven will produce significant results.  If you develop strategies, plans and actions in all seven you will dramatically grow your business.

  1. Make More Sales
    • The first and perhaps most obvious way to increase revenue is to simply make more sales.  You can do this by expanding your customer base.  How can you attract more customers – selling through channels?  Selling Direct?  As yourself the question:  What new strategies will enable you to attract more customers?
  2. Sell more often to the same customer
    • One of the best and easiest strategy to implement is to sell more to your present customer base.  With a database of customers in your CRM (Customer Relationship Management system), determine to develop and implement plans / actions to a targeted marketing campaign aiming at increasing the number of times each of customer purchases from you.  So ask yourself the question:  How might I increase the frequency of purchase by my existing customers?
  3. Sell something else
    • in addition to selling more to the same customer another valuable strategy is to sell additional products or services.  Think about what else would someone who is purchasing your product or service be interested in acquiring?  What ancillary products or services can you deliver quickly?  To find those “something else” product or services, ask yourself the question:  Does the opportunity exist to sell additional products or services to your existing customers?
  4. Make larger sales
    • A significant method to increase your revenues per customer is to make larger sales.  An Example of this is a Restaurant that trains the servers to emphasize more expensive dishes or higher priced wines.   So ask yourself the question:  How might I increase the dollar size of your average sale?
  5. Increase your prices
    • Perhaps the quickest way to increase revenues is to increase the price of your product or service.  You can do this if you have positioned your business, your brand, and your value based on benefits received, ROI, etc.  Remember your competition dictates your price.  Find out what the competition charges, understand their value and then ensure your value / benefit to the customer has a strong differentiation.  So ask yourself the question:  How do I justify the higher price to my customers?
  6. Make more profitable sales
    • So far you have read five ways to increase revenues.  Remember of paramount importance in business is cash flow and profits.  You can increase cash flow and profits with increasing profitable sales.  To achieve this you need to examine the profitability of each of your customers and profitability of each of your product and services.  With that knowledge you will now be able to which customers and which products to develop strategies to sell more of.  You see focusing on the selling your most profitable products or services or more to your profitable customers will definitely grow your business.  So ask yourself the question:  What is the profitability of my individual customers and products / services?
  7. Reduce your selling costs
    • Lastly, the way to increase your revenue and grow your business is to decrease the cost to sell the product or service.  Do you know how much it cost your business to sell your product or service?   Examine your sales process.  What are your marketing costs?  Do you have systems, process in place to track your selling costs?  If no, how can you reduce what you do not know?  So ask yourself the above questions and determine your selling costs.

To grow your business seek ways to increase your revenues.  Are you moving forward or backwards?  There is no standing still concept in business.  So develop a specific G.O.S.P.A. (Goal, Objective, Strategy, Plans and Actions) to increase revenues and implement.

by Mark R. Steinke, Elite Business Coach Focal Point Business Coaching of Pennsylvania