With the new year just around the corner, savvy sales people should be on the lookout for new sales strategies to capture customers’ attention, new sales strategies to improve their efficiency, and new sales strategies to bring happy customers back for more. There’s never been a more exciting time to be in sales, as the playing field evolves and shifts at an ever-increasing pace. If you’re lacking in sales strategies for the new year of selling, don’t despair—we have 5 sales strategies for you to try that should see you in a much stronger position this time next year.

Step Up Your Analysis. 

Rigorous analysis has always been important to top sales companies, but as we move into the future such analysis is becoming mandatory. Why? Because with so many solutions available to make the process easy, your competitors will be checking their metrics, refining their processes, and edging you out if you do not step up your game in turn. There are several levels of analysis to encourage—analysis of the team by hard metrics and soft, personal analysis of performance metrics and sales process, etc. The better your sales people know themselves, the better they can perform. This also benefits any and all other sales strategies you put into motion.

Focus on Customers. 

One of the strongest sales strategies of 2015 continues to be a strong emphasis on customer service. Word of mouth, already a contender for the most important factor in sales, continues to grow stronger with each passing year. A single dissatisfied customer with no publication apparatus can reach millions of potential customers with their complaints. No company can afford a model that sells hard and disregards the Buyer’s Remorse phase of the sales process today. Your team should focus on sales methods that leave customers glad they bought, because positive word of mouth works just as potently today as negative. If your buyers are happy, you’ll have more buyers (and those buyers will buy again). Simple, effective, efficient. 

Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up. 

We’ve discussed the importance of satisfying customers, now let’s discuss another of those staple sales strategies that few pay attention to: the follow up. Getting your sales team to follow up consistently can be a real chore, but when done properly—and paired with proper customer-satisfying behavior—few things can result in better sales numbers. A customer who has bought from you before should be considered the most eminently qualified lead imaginable. If you have something they want, and you satisfied them before, they’ll almost certainly buy again. This is one of those sales strategies we all know works, but many avoid for nebulous reasons. Tell your team to get over it and follow up.

The Right Man for the Right Job. 

Not all sales people fit every sales task, and making sure everyone’s performing at their personal peak efficiency should be a high priority—especially as the pace of sales and customer demands increases with each coming year. Putting a person with the wrong instincts in the wrong sales position will have increasingly deleterious effects on your company’s bottom line, as situations that test their instincts and leave little room for consultation become ever more common. Matching personnel also becomes easier with each passing year, as you have endless supplies of data to consider–make your other sales strategies count!

Delivering Custom Service. 

The nature of modern businesses makes customized solutions mandatory for anyone looking to surpass their competitors. That means that to whatever degree is within your power, you should endeavor to offer options, choices, decisions that allow your customers to better serve their own customers. Of course, this isn’t a strategy solely suited to B2B transactions—consumers enjoy choice as well. This may be somewhat beyond your control, depending on the nature of your company, but insofar as you can provide choice, do so—this will only be more important moving forward!