Is your business struggling to increase its sales totals? If so, then welcome to the real world!
Increasing organic sales is a key recycling business strategy designed to take your business to the next level. Here are some tips for helping increase sales of your existing operation. While there are other ways to increase sales of your recycling business such as through geographic expansion and acquisition, it has been said that organic growth is one of the easiest ways to expand your sales, as opposed to other growth strategies such as diversification, acquisition, and geographic expansion.
Know Your Customers
A key to increasing your sales in an existing market, according to Susan Ward, is to know your customers’ buying histories, both generally and individually.
Case in point, I used to have a salesman who would phone me like clockwork before the beginning of my business’ annual busy season, as a courtesy call, to make sure that I had all of the packaging supplies I needed to weather the storm. He called me because he understood the seasonality of our business, and as a result he was very convenient to give the business. There are other boundless examples. If you pay attention to the timing of customer orders, and they haven’t ordered, leading companies will give them a call to see whether they should be delivering.
Sales Incentive Program
Incentives can be a very effective tool if they resonate with your sales people. Be sure to check out Paul Shearstone’s Creating Sales Incentive Programs That Work for ideas on how to improve your sales incentive program.
Volume or Term Discounts
The goal of the relationship with existing customers is to have them buy more products. Volume-related discounts can also serve as an incentive. This may make sense where a particular customer is not giving your company all of their business for a particular offering, or to tie up the business relationship for a longer period of time. A contract for a 6 month or year period, for example, should help squeeze better pricing for facility management team.
Complementary Products
I know that McDonalds has made billions of dollars on the offer of fries to go along with your meal choice, but the same kernel of truth holds true no matter what line of business in which you are engaged. The opportunity to up-sell is always important. Case in point is the offering of shipping supplies from a recycled pallet supplier, or dock sweep services. An e-waste recycler may offer pickup of obsolete computers from businesses while ensuring data destruction.
Know Your Customers and Their Buying Patterns
Given that you understand the individual customer’s buying histories and use the information to customize your sales appeals. For example, a recycled pallet sales person might also be selling pallets, but utilize the relationship to offer more durable plastic pallets that they broker, or other opportunities such as dock sweeps.
Some recyclers have made a point of offering complementary offerings. For example, some pallet companies such as Millwood or presswood pallet manufacturer Litco now have a host of complementary shipping supplies that they can offer to customers.
When sales people are solution oriented rather than just selling a product, this mind set naturally lends itself to a diversification of offerings to best meet customer needs. And that, ultimately, is why any entity is in business.
