Sales flattening out when you need them to be soaring? It’s not always possible to increase sales–sometimes, you just hit the wall and that’s that. You’ve peaked. But if you’re reading this, you probably know better–know you still have room to increase sales. You just need a few hints at how to do it. Well, you’re in luck. Today, we’ll cover three secret recipes all but guaranteed to increase sales. It’s up to you to get them just right, to make everything work the way it should–but if you do, you’ll wonder how you ever sold anything before.

#1: Know Everything about Everything

This might sound a bit goofy, but it gets the point across: the more you know about everything that might even possibly relate to your sales, the more you’ll increase sales.  

That means knowing about your prospects before you talk to them: Who the decision makers are, what their problems are, who their competitors are, who they’ve bought from before. Age, name, sex, location, marital status, all of it can give an edge whether you’re selling to an individual on the consumer level or the head of a multinational corporation. 

That means knowing about your own company and products: What can you do for prospects, what do customers complain about, what are some off-label or unexpected ways customers use your product? If you are ever asked a question about your product or your company and you don’t have an answer ready, that’s a failure–one that’s going to prevent any attempt to increase sales.

That means knowing about your industry. How are people buying, how are competitors innovating, what’s on the horizon? If you don’t know the industry, and the prospect realizes it, you’re going to lose face, lose the sale. Know your industry->increase sales. 

You get the idea yet?

#2: Think ‘Building a Relationship’ Instead of ‘Closing a Sale’

Closing a sale isn’t the end of the sales process, so making it your goal is shortsighted and will limit your ability to increase sales in the long term. Why? Because the last stage of the sales process involves regret–all customers regret all purchases at least a little, it’s just how things go. The goal’s to establish a connection and a confidence in the purchase that overwhelms that regret, so that the customer buys from you instead of a competitor (or no one) next time. 

Screw this up? Rush a sale and forgo the relationship building? You get returns, you get ex-customers flocking to competitors, and you get negative word-of-mouth. All of these things impede your ability to increase sales. Nevermind the fact that taking the time to build a connection with a customer results in faster and more effective sales to begin with.

So change your perspective and act accordingly–it pays off.

#3: Constant, Rigorous Self-Analysis

The best sales people, according to studies, are goal-oriented individuals who stay humble and always take responsibility for the outcomes of their actions. Why? Probably because those people see themselves accurately and work to improve themselves the most. If you want to increase sales, you have to be able and willing to look at what you’re doing–the hard data from your analytics software, the soft data from your coworkers, customers, and other reports–and work to improve on your weaknesses.

Many sales people fail at the very first step of self-analysis–they don’t even collect the data they need, they don’t organize their process into something that they can analyze, tinker with, adjust precisely. Sales is a science and an art, but many salespeople forgo the precision of the science. Unfortunately, eventually you hit a limit to art–and to increase sales past that point, you need the science.

Organize your methods. Collect data. Learn to understand what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong. And work to improve. That’s how you increase sales.