Every business owner always wants to see an inclining sales graph. An inclining sales graph clearly shows the success of your business. But, it is a red flag for the business when sales either begin to slump or shows no signs of improvement. A declining sales graph is a sign that a business is not enjoying the success and probably suffering losses. Now you as a business owner or marketer now start to think about how to turn around dipping sales. How to sustain stiff competition in the marketplace? How to have an edge and what to do to boost my sales? These are some of the foremost questions in such a situation of dipping sales.
Answer to these questions is quite difficult to figure out at times. With my years of experience and helping a lot of companies turn around their dipping sales, I am writing my experience which would certainly help you turn around your dipping sales.
Sell Value, Not Product to Turn Around Dipping Sales
Most business owners focus on their products rather than finding the real values of their products.
And since they can’t focus on the values their product doesn’t get recognition and its right place in the market.
If you are experiencing dipping sales for your products it’s time you should start focusing on demonstrating the value of your product rather than wasting your efforts in convincing your customers about how good your product is.
You should shift your focus on marketing the values of your products i.e., how your product can change their life. You don’t have to convince them but just to make them realize how your products can benefit them.
How can they get benefit from your product in both real and practical terms? And if you are able to crack this you will start seeing a turnaround in your dipping sales.
Case Study of Starbucks Turn Around Dipping Sales
Starbucks is one of the greatest examples of the rewards of hearing the voice of the customer.
Launched in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker, Starbucks first became profitable in Seattle during the early 1980s.
In 1987 the original founders sold Starbucks to Howard Schultz for $3.8 million.
However, in the late 1980s, the company experienced a brief economic downturn after attempting to expand to the Midwest and British Columbia but made a comeback in the 1990s when it entered California.
By 2002, there were almost 6,000 stores worldwide, showing a 300% growth rate in 15 years.
But, when the financial crisis hit in 2008, Starbucks was forced to close almost 1,000 stores and experienced a 28% profit loss over the next two years.
During this time Schultz took back control of the company and sent out a message to all employees on his first day back: “The Company must shift its focus away from bureaucracy and back to its customers.”
Only two months later, the company implemented a new strategy based on technology, free-thinking, and community involvement.
In 2008, financial collapse and when cash-strapped Americans were viewing coffee more and more as a commodity, and increasingly turning to cheaper alternatives (e.g., McDonald’s), Starbucks needed a new game plan.
The only option was to convince folks that Starbucks was worth the extra cost.
Largest Marketing Campaign of Starbucks “Coffee Value and Values”
So Starbucks teamed up with ad agency BBDO to launch the multi-million dollar “Coffee value and values” campaign — the largest marketing campaign in Starbucks’ history.
The campaign made Starbucks coffee the star of the show once again.
Ad copy included lines like “If your coffee isn’t perfect, we’ll make it over. If it’s still not perfect, you must not be in a Starbucks,” as well as, “Beware of a cheaper cup of coffee. It comes with a price.”
Thanks in part to this massive campaign that focused on the quality of its core product, coffee, Starbucks was able to reinvigorate its brand as well as its business.
In the same year “My Starbucks Idea” was rolled out to give customers a chance to have a say in the direction Starbucks went as a company.
Over 90,000 ideas were shared via social media and raise page views per month to over 5 million.
Through this campaign, Starbucks implemented over 100 ideas and developed a community of like-minded baristas and coffee lovers.
In 2014, the company reported more than $16 billion in annual revenue.
Today, the company is present in 6 continents and 78 countries at 27,340 locations with over 300,000 employees, owns several successful subsidiaries, and continues to grow into new markets.
Don’t Be a Seller, Be a Problem Solver
People don’t like to interact with a pushy salesman, because they only want to sell their products without realizing whether the product would help the buyer or not.
Hence, if you want to turn around your slumping sales you need to project your company as a helper and a solution provider, not just a seller. It is good to conduct market research before you launch a product or service.
Focusing on the problems of your customers and coming up with the idea that can solve their problems effectively is a sure-shot way to be a success in business.
This will help you boost up your sales and grow your customer base. The key is to showing the utility of your item before you expect people to buy.
Case Study
Grammarly and Dropbox are good examples of this strategy. They identified the problems of the customer and projected them as a problem solver, not as a seller.
Grammarly is used by over 7 million people daily. It helps users type correct words and sentences whether they are writing a letter, an email, or anything.
The free extension of Grammarly which can be installed in chrome browser highlights any major spelling mistakes you make when you type anywhere on the web.
Upgrading to the paid plan gives you access to a deeper feature set including grammar and plagiarism checks, as well as contextual advice to improve your writing.
The core grammar-checking and writing product is the same service that Grammarly has offered for years.
What’s interesting is that unlike most companies, Grammarly didn’t begin as a freemium business. It actually monetized backward.
As a self-funded company, Grammarly began by selling to the enterprise. They used revenue from universities to improve the core product, before expanding into the consumer market.
By the time Grammarly transitioned to freemium, it was already profitable with millions of users—and could fund a freemium plan to drive even more new user acquisition.
Then, the company expanded its product so subscribers could use the tool directly in Microsoft Office, and then with web applications via a Google Chrome extension.
That’s when their user growth really took off. To date, they have no close competition.
Dropbox Case Study
Let’s take the example of Dropbox.
Dropbox is an online document storage and file sharing system which allows users to store and share their documents through it. The company is valued at $11 billion.
They have over 500 million registered users. Amazingly it is accepted as the most successful referral program anywhere in the world.
They simply focused on a simple problem of data storage and accessibility, security, and portability of the data. In the digitally growing world, everyone has the need for data storage in a way that is secure, remotely accessible, shareable with control.
The founders saw the opportunity to solve the people’s problems by creating an application and they did very well. The product was so useful that people referred their friends to use it.
Even to date, Dropbox is the top file sharing and online file storage service.
Develop Competitive Advantage
Once you have figured out the needs of the public you need to develop a competitive advantage.
Because several other companies in the market would offer a similar product or service so why would people purchase from you.
Developing a competitive advantage works here.
What extra you offer, does your product stands out in the market in terms of value?
A classic example of developing Competitive advantage is Apple Inc.
They created a clear competitive advantage from Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc., and offered completely different computers to the public in which the software and the hardware was integrated in such a way that the devices were ready to use just out of the box.
Whereas, Microsoft, Dell, HP use to sell different components that people bought to put together to work as a computer.
Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy when Steve Jobs rejoined the company in 1997 and restructured the company and the product line to turn around its dipping sales.
In one and half years apple became the most profitable company with great sales.
Take Advantage of Festive Time to Turn Around Dipping Sales
People tend to buy during the festive time because that’s the season when people want to buy new things.
They consider it to be auspicious. It’s a great idea if you have to launch a new product or offer discounts, etc., for turning around your dipping sales.
Christmas, Diwali, Holi, Eid, Thanks Giving, Dhanteras, etc., are popular festive days when people buy new products because of the happiness and the rituals sometimes.
For instance, people who believe in Hinduism buy new utensils, jewelry, etc., on Dhanteras because of the ritual.
Similarly, sales of sweets, crackers, clothes, electronic items, etc., goes up during Diwali and Christmas. You can take advantage of this public psychology of spending during festivals and turn around your dipping sales.
You can read the case study of Dell computers when they took advantage of the festive season to turn around their dipping sales.
Track the Productivity of Your Sales Team
Many a time the root cause of the problem of dipping sales is the unproductive sales team.
Undoubtedly, a productive sales team is no lesser than a boon to your business.
You should choose your sales team carefully, and keep a track on their productivity. I have seen in three of my client’s companies that despite generating quality leads the sales were not moving up.
After doing the root cause analysis and fish-bone exercise we discovered that the sales team was not attending to those leads and were just marking them as not interested.
We have to change the unproductive members of the team with productive and motivated people and in the next one and half months, their sales number just doubled. Even we discovered the sales team selling the hot leads to competition for more commission.
Consider Hiring a Sales Expert to Turn Around Dipping Sales
Many a time it happens that the sales team keeps selling their old ways whereas market shifts differently. This causes dwindling sales and the sales team couldn’t understand what went wrong.
If that’s the case you should consider hiring a sales expert.
A sales expert can give a new perspective to your sales team. Or probably train them on the new sales strategy which helps them turn around dipping sales.
Re-look at Your Marketing Strategy
A dipping sales curve can also be a cause of the wrong marketing strategy. Back in 2017 one of my friends called me to discuss how to improve his sales.
He uses to run a travel company and advertise on Facebook, Google, and newspapers.
Though he was spending a good amount of money on advertising, his inquiries and sales were not improving.
After doing a lot of research and data analysis we found that he was targeting the wrong people with his ads.
Data analysis showed that over 72% of his customers were elderly people.
They took his services in the last 5 years for visiting a religious place in groups.
Only 6% were newlywed couples who took his services to book a honeymoon trip.
9% were nearby schools who hired his services for organizing local sight-seeing for their students.
Considering the above statistics, we devised a new marketing strategy and targeted mostly elderly people. Because those elderly people were not using the internet, social media, etc.
So we started advertising in old-age clubs, public parks, local temples, hospitals, notice boards of the societies, Banks where they visited to withdraw their pensions, and local cable TV.
We carefully chose the festive seasons like Kumbh, Kedarnath Yatras, Ganga Snan, Shradhs, Navratras, Makar Sankranti, etc.
And amazingly, by doing this his sales turned around. In 2019 he organized over 362 group tours of these elderly people comprising over 6247 people during Maha Kumbh to take bath in holy Ganga at Prayagraj.
His sales went up by over 734% in just the last quarter of 2018-2019.
Conclusion
Sales is no more art of selling, rather it is psychological science. In modern-day, sales strategy creativity and connectivity with the customers are essential.
One should understand the psychology of the people, customers, team members, etc., to carve out a great sales strategy.
I hope that these tips would help you turn around dipping sales if you are experiencing it in your business.
