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Expansion Plans

Written by: Gary Silverman

Article Overview: If you have a service or product based business you have the opportunity to expand sales within your customer base without adding new customers. Many times customers seek a supplier for a specific product or service and are completely unaware of other offerings from your company. There is also a chance that your customers are buying products from your competitors that you can provide them.

Expansion Plans

Does your sales organization present all of your products or just a select few that they feel your customer would need? Obviously if you have a catalog or an effective web site you are communicating all of your offerings. Case in point: While running a car dealership I came across one of our salespeople who was frustrated with one of his customers. This was a loyal customer who bought many NEW cars over the years from this particular salesperson. The salesperson was “whining” that his loyal customer just purchased a USED car from our dealership but from another salesperson. When approached, the customer said that he was not aware that the salesperson also sold used cars. It was my opinion that the first salesperson did not make it clear to the customer all of the products and services he could provide. This was clearly a lack of communication that could be happening in your sales force. Perhaps you have expanded your business over time and became more diversified. Did your customers get the message or did they continue to buy from your competition? Did you just assume that your customers had no need for your expanded services or products? Did you take that for granted? Most people and businesses would prefer to have a minimum number of suppliers. They feel that their business may be valued more, it simplifies their payable process, and it takes less time when you have less salespeople calling on you. If you use this approach to increase the revenues generated from your existing customer base than your business will grow faster. It is expensive to develop new business and land new accounts and it takes a lot of time.

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Article Tags: car dealership, case in point, customer base, expanded services, lack of communication, loyal customer, new accounts, new business, new cars, offerings, sales organization, salespeople, salesperson



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