Tweet

Three Questions to Increase Sales to Improve Your Business Results and Business Success

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: If you could only ask 3 questions to improve your business results, what would they be?

Three Questions to Increase Sales to Improve Your Business Results and Business Success

Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story The Three Questions. These three questions were:

1. When is the best time to do things?
2. Who is the most important one?
3. What is the right thing to do?

As business owners look to increase sales to improve their businesses, these 3 simple questions may help them achieve better results. Each question can be asked from the perspective of the owner as well as from the customer whether external or internal.

When is the best time to do things? If your business has a strategic plan, this question is answered with far greater ease. If you are a salesperson who uses a proven sales process, again, you will be able to quickly answer this question. This question is really a question for proactive people. Reactive individuals never have the time to answer this question honestly because they are worrying about yesterday and tomorrow and not looking to the future.

Who is the most important one? Once again a strategic plan will help answer this question. A successful business is about profits and profits are made from loyal customers both external and internal. If you customers are not who are most important, then it is time to rethink why you are in business.

What is the right thing to do? Within the strategic plan lays the most important element to the success of any business – the values statement. The words within this statement are the non-negotiable behaviors that everyone will demonstrate to do the right thing. When these words are actively modeled from throughout the organization top down, this question is answered almost simultaneously as the right actions are executed.

Take the time to honestly answer these 3 questions and then make the necessary course corrections to improve your business results. Who knows, the answers may surprise you?

Related Articles
  Questions that Make Money
  How to Win More Sales
  WAY SMART Goals Expand into Social Media Marketing
  How By Answering These Three Questions Can Dramatically Improve Sales Training
  Want to increase sales? Think Halloween

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
Looking for creative ideas - I’m a student of Business management. I have been given a task by a local business to Improve there marketing to increase their sales, after a drop in interest in a certain service. The Business is a Local Health and leisure centre and is currently suffering from a drop in sales and interest in the adult swimming service. The Business have suffered from a drop in sales by nearly 50% in the past two years. They have asked me to create a business plan and an idea to how they can improve their marketing and increase their sales in adult swimming sessions. I am posting on here, to seek advice on any ideas that you may have about how a small leisure centre can increase sales in the adult swimming market. Any ideas would be welcome as I am currently struggling to come up with an idea that is very effective and cheap to carry out, so any ideas would be welcome. Hope I have given you enough basic info, don't hesitate to ask if you need more information. Again any ideas would be very welcome and I would appreciate your help. I will be looking forward to hearing some of your ideas. Looking for a quick reply as i have not got long to complete the task and organise my presentation to local businesses. Thanks for your time and interest.
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

An Intelligent Contact Sheet

A Guide to Franchise Financing

Angel Investors Where Are You?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.