To start a new business is a very difficult job, growing your business is even harder. Whether your business focuses on poor customer data, broken and manual process, minimal operations visibility to make decisions or creating a winning team, there are always some problems that arise in the path of growth.
These barriers to growth affect the sales and create risk. It can cost you upto four times more to win a new customer than to hold on to an existing one. The amount you are paying OUT, long before they start paying YOU, can be scary.
Don’t make excuses while making sales. Your company needs sales to survive. It’s always a challenge to do sales and keep the customers for a long time. But don’t let those challenges stop you.
Below are 3 of the most common sales challenges every business faces and how to work around them.
#1. Difficulty In Prospecting & Qualifying Leads:
More than 37% of sales folks find it hard to build a connection with prospects.
Most salespeople say, “Get me in front of the client and I will close!” but how does one get this opportunity if they haven’t prospected properly and filled their pipeline with qualified leads in the first place? Is it possible to get new clients without having qualified leads and proper prospecting?
Well, it doesn’t happen. In order to find new prospects, the easiest and most effective way is to obtain referrals from your existing clientele. If you have already exploited your existing network for new business referrals, you need to start cold calling. By avoiding and handling the business barriers will help in achieving big growth in small businesses.
Once you have filled your pipeline with new prospects, the next step is to qualify those leads in order to ensure you are effectively utilizing your resources & time.
Even many businesses prefer to use the CRM tools that help to tackle the barriers in your business and helps in generating qualifying leads.
For some tips on how to qualify leads, be sure to read “How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline w/ Hot Leads”.
#2. Your Clients Don’t Have Time:
A client’s hectic schedule and lack of availability might cause you to resort to a simple sales pitch instead of the kinds of meaningful conversations you know you should be having to make that sale.
Don’t fall for it. Potential clients and customers will always have time for meaningful conversations. Take some time to engage with your prospects on the issues that are really bothering them and try to offer solutions.
#3. Disorganized & Inefficient Work Process:
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” by William Penn
Poor time management can be detrimental to your success. Every day, salespeople are bombarded with multiple emails, phone calls, meetings, reports, follow-up requests, and if these tasks are not organized efficiently, most of it will never be completed.
In spite of how amazing your memory might be, be sure to always carry a “to-do list” and block off areas in your calendar to complete all of your tasks.
#4. Lack Of Strategy Planning And Vision:
Before growing your business, you need to understand where you want to reach your business. Whether you want your business for a long term, short term or for a medium term.
Having a proper strategic plan and vision is important to grow your business and avoid any kind of growth barrier.
#5 Opposing Risk:
Every business comes across some kind of risk. There needs to maintain some balance in business to find the appropriate level of risk that is acceptable for the management and the shareholders.
If your business is too risk averse then it might hamper the growth of your business which result in business failure.
Wrapping Up:
The key to success in business always depends on your ability to market and sell to your clients while creating relationships that will help them stay loyal to your business and products.
I was able to work with it from day 1 as it was pretty easy to get started with. Within a week I experienced a net increase of around 23% in my sales activities, which is good compared to my past 6 months story.
Ajay P.S, Co-founder & CEO,
India
If you’re struggling with any of the above barriers, it may be time to sign-up for a CRM.
Start your FREE trial today and learn how we can help you improve your sales game!
Which of these barriers do you find the most challenging? Please share your opinions below.