Countdown to sales liftoff.
What can you be doing right now to make sure your sales soar when you reopen your business post coronavirus? It’s the same advice any good Scout will give you: “Be prepared”.
Being prepared is absolutely the first stage of any sale. And, for a large proportion of us, lockdown is perfect prepping time.
So, here’s Ketchup’s countdown to your post COVID sales launch. Prepare for liftoff...
10. Review
Take a close look at how you have made your sales to date. Review your business model and ask yourself does it still fit with what is going to be the ‘new normal’ and the intervening transition periods?
9. Decide
Look at how your industry is being affected and make some key decisions. What changes do you need to make to your existing business model? Have the routes to market changed? If yes, how are you going to reflect these changes and what resources do you have available to do this?
We’re offering three separate free business audits (focusing on your website, SEO and social media). Sign up today to take advantage of one, two or all three of these Ketchup audits to help formulate your decision-making processes.
8. Prioritise
What can be done in the short term, relatively quickly and easily versus what is more complex and will take a greater investment in time, energy and resources? What results can you achieve i.e. what is the return on investment?
7. Process
What infrastructure will you need and what marketing? How will you roll this out to the rest of the company - people/teams? How will you communicate these changes to your customers/potential customers?
6. Data
What information do you hold on past, current and future customers (ie leads) that you can use to deliver new messaging? If you don’t hold much data, do you need it? If yes, you’ll need to devise a way of collating data or consider buying it.
5. Aim
Sharpen up your knowledge of what your competitors are up to? Are they introducing new products or ways of delivering their services? What tone of voice do they use to talk to their customers? Do they make use of different platforms to promote their offering?
Check your brand values? Are you promoting the right messaging for your business? Consumer values are changing fast - make sure your messaging is up-to-date and takes into account the global effects that coronavirus is having on our psyches.
4. Plan
Make a challenging yet achievable plan involving people, teams, objectives, targets, timelines, communication channels, etc - and consider how you will measure these? What areas will have the most competition? Which products, services and opportunities are margin rich?
3. Check
Sense check and review everything so far. This is very much a case of measure twice and cut once and then either adjust or move to number 2 in the countdown.
2. Commit
Stay the course. Keep your goal in sight. Just because nothing works on day 1 or 2 - keep with it. Trust in your judgement - as long as you have done your due diligence in steps 10 to 3 - know you are travelling in the right direction. You will want to give it at least two weeks for short quick projects and a month for more complex longer-term streams.
1. Launch
Sit back and enjoy the ride!
Blast off to success. Be ready to tweak your plans and learn from the daily challenges that hurtle towards you. Regularly check goals, targets and forward trajectory.
If you’d rather hand over your sales management to the professionals or get some sales-based training, get in touch with our sales guru, Paul Jones, Operations and Sales Director on 0115 671 3868, or email paul@ketchup.marketing