One of my biggest challenges as a salesperson for a small phone company is we can’t match the advertising budgets our larger competitors have. In fact, half the time, we don’t even have an advertising budget.
I still manage to bring in new customers. But, since I work on commission and need to get sales to pay my bills, I also spend a great deal of my time working with existing customers and finding ways to get new sales from them. In fact, there are many months when my commission is almost entirely from an existing customer base.
When I first started doing this, it wasn’t something I was overly thrilled about because, most of the time at least, the sales (and commission) weren’t very high. However, after some practice, I discovered a few sales tricks that have improved my success dramatically.
Trick 1 – I started doing my research. Most businesses have web sites and some even have newsletters. I make sure to check these out on a regular basis and search for potential sales opportunities. For example, a couple months ago, one of my customers started advertising a new product and, by taking a couple minutes to call them, I ended up selling them a couple new lines to help with the additional call volume.
Trick 2 – I tell the customer what they need instead of asking. This was actually something I needed to work at because I was never good at hard selling. However, once I started calling customers and telling them they needed a couple more lines for an advertising campaign or a new toll free number for call tracking purposes, I found many were willing to take my word for it or, at very least, give it consideration.
Trick 3 – I started contacting our customers whenever we got a new product. Not every customer needs every new thing we offer. In fact, 4 out of 5 don’t. But, by making the calls whenever we add something new, I do manage to find that fifth customer and close the sale. And, in the mean time, if, down the road, one of the other four customers ends up needing it, they know we have it.
As I said before, selling to existing customers isn’t likely going to earn you as much commission as new customers will. But, in a pinch, it’s a great way to supplement your income so you can pay your bills when new sales are slow.