It's A Numbers Game


In the past few weeks, I've had a lot of conversations about sales that all pretty much boil down to, "How do I get more people onto my list so I can get more sales?"

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with assessing your awareness-building tactics and honing your methods of attracting your ideal customers.

I've touched on this before and recently wrote about how to borrow audiences.

But, I'd like to challenge you to consider a different question that might be more beneficial to your end goal of increased sales in the short and long term:

How can I increase my Sales Conversion Rate with the prospects I already have?

Here's a process you can follow to figure out the impact that even a small increase in your sales conversion rate can have on your revenue:

  • First, determine your existing sales conversion rate.
    To do this:
  1. Figure out your Total Sales Opportunity (per offer) by taking the total number of sales calls, click-throughs to sales pages, or any other metric that tells you how many people in total are interested in your offer within a given time period (per month, quarter, or year).
  2. Determine your Total Sales per offer over the same time period.
  3. Calculate your sales conversion rate using this formula:
    (Total Sales x 100) ÷ Total Sales Opportunity = Sales Conversion Rate (%)
    [In other words, divide the product of Total Sales times 100 by your Total Sales Opportunity to get your Sales Conversion Rate.]

Your sales conversion rate tells you the percentage of people that express interest in your offer who complete their purchase.

  • Example of the Sales Conversion Rate calculation described above:
    • 200 people indicated they were interested in my offer by visiting my sales page during the 4th quarter of last year.
      [Total Sales Opportunity = 200].
    • 20 of those people ended up purchasing my offer
      [Total Sales = 20].
    • My Sales Conversion Rate equation looks like this:
      (20 x 100) ÷ 200 = 10 [or 2,000 divided by 200 equals 10]
    • My Sales Conversion Rate is 10%
  1. Now, calculate the impact of increasing your sales conversation rate by 2-5%.
  2. Determine how many more sales you need to make to hit each of those sales conversion rates (i.e., 12-15% in our example above).
  3. Calculate how much more income each increase in your sales conversion rate brings into your business.
  4. Set an appropriate target to increase your sales conversion rate based on your analysis and needs.
    If you think you can achieve more than a 5% increase in your sales conversion rate, do it.
  5. Finally, figure out where and/or why your prospects abandon your sales process and make the necessary tweaks to address those issues.

Often, we think that the only way to achieve more revenue in our business is to expand our reach. But, that can actually be the long road to our sales goals.

Plus, by improving the buying journey for our existing prospects, we not only support our current revenue goals but pave the way to better sales results in the future.

Until next week, I hope this helps get you where you want to go!

P.S. Want support improving your sales results? Let's talk about it.

Sharing is caring. Pass this along to someone who could use it, too :-).

Your success is our strategy!

Easily Said & Done

I help entrepreneurs leapfrog over the typical potholes that derail most small businesses with inspiration, motivation, education, and support across a wide range of business topics drawn from over a decade of running my own business, teaching entrepreneurship for the City of New York, and coaching and consulting privately with dozens of women and minority small business owners. Honestly, why go it alone when help is an email away?

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