How do you grow when costs are this high? Business sentiment is better, but the post-inflationary hangover remains, making expansion and sales growth hard.
We spoke to a selection of Australian business leaders, accountants and experts, and their advice took a two-stream approach: Ruthless operational efficiency that cuts costs and saves time – then investing that time and money in targeted sales tactics.
Here’s a selection of their advice; you can download all of their growth tactics in this free report.
Focus on loyalty
It’s far easier and cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. That makes the art of building customer loyalty highly attractive – especially with digital advertising costs so elevated right now.
Sensible studies show the average small-medium B2B firm can find an extra $129,000 per year by engaging with existing customers in ways that drive repeat purchases and upsell. Tactics that work here include:
- VIP servicing, training or support – Even something as simple as offering to train your customers’ frontline sales staff in how to best pitch your products can be surprisingly welcome. Done well it creates a sales win-win for you both, and keeps your products front of mind.
- Create cross sell ‘buckets’ – rather than pitching your whole catalogue in your sales comms, group customers according to which items they buy in common, then offer them the most commonly purchased ‘also popular’ products. A good CRM will do this for you, but there’s no reason you can’t work it out manually.
- Tiered rewards & discounts – Offering discounts or rewards based on order volume or frequency is an efficient way to keep sales flowing.
- Automate standing orders – make it easy for regular customers to place repeat orders to save your sales staff chasing them up, or sales falling through the cracks. B2B sales portals help here.
Save $109k through inventory optimisation
Stocking just 5 or 10% more inventory than you need at any one time ties up a lot of cash and can lead to significant holding costs. On the other hand, understocking risks production downtime and being unable to fulfil orders, forcing customers to take their business elsewhere.
That’s why calculating your optimal inventory levels regularly is so important. We analysed businesses with $500k to $2 million in turnover that use an advanced inventory management system to automatically gauge the optimal stock position for every part and product in their portfolio. The findings? They cut excess stock by an average of $109,000 in their first six months, while increasing profitability by 8%.
De-cost waste streams
De-costing your waste starts with measuring it and assigning a cost. The next level is finding a way to remove the expense of disposal and compliance, perhaps by gifting it to a firm that can use it. While the holy grail is adding value / finding a market so that it adds to your bottom line.
Creativity is key here as solutions vary widely. But, for example, a food manufacturer that generates large amounts of organic waste, like fruit peel or pulp, might invest in equipment to dry and process these byproducts into animal feed or fertiliser.
Remember, if your own waste output isn’t substantial enough to be worth the effort, consider if it’s a problem your competitors have too – and whether together you have the scale. You might just solve an industry-wide issue, lift productivity, and bolster your environmental cred all at once.
Digitise your sales pipeline
Equipping your sales and business development teams with the right tools is essential to get the best from them and drive stronger numbers. Digitising the B2B order intake process is a good example of where technology can save a lot of admin time and internal resource every week, which can then be reinvested in other sales tactics and better customer relationship management.
Modern digital B2B sales systems enable best-practice tactics – like on-page cross-sell and up-sell prompts – plus the ability to create standing orders so regular sales aren’t missed, plus bespoke pricing structures per customer that ensure you get the most value from your different buyers.
When you consider that businesses using a reliable B2B eCommerce system receive 24.7% more sales orders per month than non-users and enjoy 20% more sales revenue, it’s a no-brainer.
Want more growth tactics from Australian business leaders and experts? Download our latest guide – Growth Tactics For a High-Cost Economy – for more practical guidance on growing your product business.
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