www.paygateway.org.uk

How to reduce costs, gain customers & improve sales

Sunny Thakkar

Sales is about adding value rather than selling on price alone as people buy on emotion and justify it with logic afterwards, make your product so good that they must buy from you and you only because they love you. People don’t really buy into your product first but they buy into you first.

Gain New Customers

FA

B

eature's

dvantages

enefits

To sell your product/service well you need to identify two or three key features of what you have to offer and then to or three key advantages (that is linked to the features) of using those features. What you then need to do is then give the two or three benefits of using your product/service and how it will really benefit them, so they key here is to tell them that without these benefits they will really be missing out.

Sell the Value

You need to sell the value in buying from you rather than your competitors:

• Your outstanding customer service

• Personal approach

• Sell yourself

• Go the extra mile

• Always be available

• Always respond promptly

you are passionate about what you do and really believe in your product and you are talking to your clients they will pick this up from you very quickly weather on the phone or face to face….if your product is not right tell them and say why it is not right and you will find your customer is likely to sell it to themselves, making your job so much easier.

Lead Generation & Strategic Partnerships

• Meridian Delta

• Thomson Local

• Credit Safe

• Free Index

• Yell

• BT

Lead Generation is a lot easier than you think, there are many companies that can provide you with data including contact names, telephone numbers, email addresses and postal addresses etc and they can do email campaigns for you. Above are just a few examples of the companies you can use to help you get the type of data you need that is right for you and your business.

Networking

• Research

• Business card

• Let them talk

• Email follow up

• Social Media: LinkedIn

Networking for your business is key especially in the early days of your business. Anyone can go to networking meetings, but was is important is going to these meetings and being well prepared for them. Adding all your contacts on linkedin irrespective of them being a good contact or not is a good idea as they could be of use to you at some point in the future. Always remember to email your contacts you met at the networking meeting 24 to 48 hours after the meeting…

Keep Existing Customers

paramount for any business – Create loyalty rather than churning and burning as eventually you will get to the point of critical mass and you will end up burning yourself out. Always look for ways you can cross sell – upsell or even down-sell to your customers with your own products or products via your own strategic partners

Customer Retention

• Listen to your customer

• Learn from feedback, respond and grow

• Meaningful and relevant marketing

• Keep your online presence updated

• Make yourself available

The Art of communication is to listen to what’s not been said – this can be very powerful to you when talking to your clients and if you use this you will find that you can sell so much easier as you can sell them things that they have not spoken about….

Control CostsWith regards to costs to your business its about saving money and every penny saved is a penny earned…

Have you thought about…

• Cost of renting?• Business rates?• Staffing costs/payroll?• Office equipment?• Cost of your time?• Petrol/travel cost?• Phone bill?• Electricity?• Cost of billing/invoicing/chasing for payment?• Marketing costs?• Technology…laptops? Mobile phones?

…These are all costs eating into your bottom line.

you sell a product a £x but what is the basis of that cost – Have you thought about any of the above?……..Once you have taken into account all your costs you know the numbers you need to sell…..once you have done that look at your competitors and tweak the cost and then work out how many you need to sell a year, month, week and day as that will keep you really focussed.

Additional Costs

• 3% per transaction (average)

• Merchant account fee

• Setup fees

• On-boarding

• Settlement

• PCI compliance

• VT (Virtual Terminal)

• MOTO (Mail Order Telephone Order)

…all adds up!

So many of my clients I have spoken to not really thought about this when taking payments by card from clients. All these costs at the end of the day eat into your bottom line and need to be taken into account…

Receiving Payments

Invoicing + posting + chasing for

payment + late payments =

• Standing orders: puts customers in control

• Direct Debits: puts you in control

All the methods of payments from customers impact a business in different

ways…

Thank you!

Tel:0800 012 6046Email: info@paygateway.org.uk

Website: www.paygateway.org.ukTwitter:@paymentgateway1

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