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20 Entrepreneurs Share How to Increase Small Business Sales

Twenty of the nation's most successful young entrepreneurs share their best tips for finding more customers and increasing sales.

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Are you looking for new ways to acquire and retain customers?

We asked twenty of the nation’s most successful young entrepreneurs to share their best tip for finding more customers and increasing sales, and here’s what they had to say:

1. Communicate value

“Remember to let your audience know “what’s in it for them?” It’s important in sales to show the value of your service or product to the user. No one has time or energy to hear about how great you think your product is unless they see value in it for themselves.”

Robert Niznik, Founder and CEO at Shpoonkle, @Shpoonkle

2. Never turn down PR

“Don’t ever turn down a PR opportunity because you think it is too small. Ninety-five percent of my biggest sales, came from what others would  have considered, small opportunities.”

Maryam Faresh, Founder and CEO at What about Daisy?, @whataboutdaisy

3. Get personal

“Get on the phone or in person with your client. Keep it personal and on a human level and you will create customer loyalty which will lead to repeat business.”

Jennifer Scully, President at ReDesign for a Dime, @jenniferscully1

4. Remember the big picture

“Don’t be afraid to step away from a particular sale for a little while and make sure you always have more in the pipeline to work on. You cannot rely on one sale to radically increase your business. And if the person you’re selling to isn’t being as responsive as you’d like or moving as quickly as you’d like, put them on the side, explore your other potential sales and come back to that sale in a month. More often than not, just waiting and not pushing things too far works.”

Stacey Ferreira, Co-Founder & VP at Social Cloud Inc., @staceyferreira

5. Keep it brief

“If you can’t intrigue someone in the first 10 seconds of talking to them, trying to sell them for another 10 minutes will do no good. If you had to sum up what you offer in a short, sweet sentence of no more than say 5-10 words, what would it be? Doing that helps focus your message and makes it easier for the customer to understand. It’ll also help you when explaining to potential customers.”

Shaun Walker (Creative Director) & Reid Stone (Brand Strategy Director) at HERO|farm, @herofarm

6. Pick up the phone

“If you want to actually sell your product you need to reach a wide audience while also having a high conversion rate.  And although social media and the internet are all the rage, actually speaking with potential buyers gives you the opportunity to connect on a personal level and find out what they need.”

Brendan Quigley and Christina Quigley, Co-Owners at Quigley Fine Wines, @quigleywines

7. Be patiently persistent

“Every salesperson knows to be persistent but as an entrepreneur, the key is to be patient while picking your times to be persistent.  Exercising the right amount of patience, as you determine when to follow up and when to lay low, is the difference between being annoying and being professional.  As an entrepreneur, inherently your product is new and probably not a priority for your customers – so being patient and biding your time for the right opportunity is key to success as an entrepreneur salesperson.”

Douglas Allan, Co-founder and VP, Sales at Stacked Wines, @STACKEDwines

8. Sell more by selling less.

“How do you do that? Personal branding and storytelling. With a genuine, attractive, and charismatic personal brand, you eliminate the need for traditional sales techniques. Strong personal brands are tied to a story. Approach each sales interaction with a story, whether it be yours or how your business changed the life of a previous client, and you’ll not only close the sale, you’ll acquire a new brand evangelist.”

Shauna Mackenzie, Owner at Mark’d – Personal Branding Studio, @msshaunamack

9. Ask questions and listen

“Too many salespeople talk and offer solutions without knowing  what problem they need to help solve.  In addition, the best people to sell your product or service is your current customer base.  Call them and ask for introductions and you will be amazed at how quickly you can grow.”

Jeff Ellman, Co-Founder at UrbanBound, @urbanbound

10. If you sell online, A/B test everything

“So many sales are left on the table when you don’t put into place a proper conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy. Now that there are a ton of different tools to help you with this, there’s no excuse to not be testing. Remember, even the smallest changes to things you wouldn’t normally notice can make a huge difference.”

Jon Cooper, Founder at Point Blank SEO, @pointblankseo

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