6 Reasons Your Small Business is Not Making Any Sales

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The whole point of starting a small business is to make sales so that you can make money and live your life on your own terms as your own boss, hopefully building something successful for the future, right? So, when you find yourself in the position of running a business that is not generating very many sales at all, it can be frustrating to say the least.

But, instead of ruminating on it and wondering whether you should throw in the towel, it is sensible to try and work out why you are not making any sales, so you can make the necessary changes and start generating those sales once and for all.

To help you with that, below you will find 6 of the most common reasons why businesses fail to make sales. Ask yourself if any of them apply to you, and if they do, make a real effort to improve things, and the scales should start appearing again.

1. Your staff don't know how to close sales
If you and any staff you have are not exactly experts when it comes to making sales calls, delivering persuasive pitches, and ultimately, closing sales, then of course, you are going to struggle to bring in any sales! There is a real art to making sales, and if you don't have it, you will be pleased to know it is something you can learn. Enrol yourself and your staff on this Sales Training course, and you should start to see a big difference once you have all completed your studies and put what you have learned into action.

Going forward, it would be good to hire staff who have more knowledge and experience in closing sales too, but you won't need to worry about that until your business starts to grow. For now, focus on improving the skills of the people already in the company.

2. Your marketing is not selling
Believe it or not, there is a difference between marketing and selling, and if you market your goods and/or services, but you do not sell them, well, then you are going to run into trouble sooner rather than later and struggle to make very many sales at all. 

So, what's the difference? It can be hard to quantify, but at the end of the day, if all you're doing is writing blog posts, making silly videos for social media and generally tweaking our content online, then although that is good for the future and will likely generate sales eventually, it's not selling. Selling is getting in touch with leads who have already expressed an interest in what you do, and convincing them to buy your product by telling them a bit more about them and selling them on the benefits.

Of course, ideally, you need to do both, but if you are focusing on the less tangible forms of marketing over direct selling, you are going to struggle to bring in nearly as many sales in the short term, at least.

3. You're targeting the wrong people
Another common mistake many businesses make is not really nailing down who their target audience is, which leads to them wasting time on targeting the wrong buyers for the products and services they offer. It doens't matter how much time and money you throw at trying to convince someone how great your business is, if they are not the kind of person who would naturally want to buy anyway, you are wasting your valuable resource and youre sales will continue to tank.

This is why it is so important to conduct market research to work out which demographics are most likely to be interested in your stuff, and to find out what kinds of language, color schemes, ethics, etc., they favor, so you can focus your pitches on them in a way that actually works.

4. Lack of authority
These days, you are much more likely to be able to make sales as a small emerging business if you have some authority within your niche. When you have authority and you are a known “face” on your industry, people are much more likely to trust you enough to take a chance only ru products and services.

How do you build this authority? You need to put yourself out there. You need to write articles for trade magazines, start your own blog where you answer people's questions about your niche, do Q and A's online and all that jazz, and you need to do so intelligently. Once you've done this for a while, people will get to associate you with your industry in a positive way, and they will come along to buy.

5. You're not giving the customers what they want
If you want to make sales, you need to meet your customers' needs. It really is that simple, but it is surprising how many businesses fail to do so in one way or another. Take a look at the competition and see what features their products have or what extras they are offering with their services that you are not, and see what you can do to bring your offerings more in line with theirs (ideally, you will want to surpass their offerings). Then, you need to go on a bit of a marketing spree, letting your audience know that you are now offering the things they need.

6. The price isn't right
You should never undersell yourself and price too low to make profit, but nor should you price so high that no one can afford to buy. You need to find that sweet spot where profit meets good customer value, or you will forever find that the sales just do not materialize.

It can be a difficult balance to strike, but if you monitor what your competitors are doing, and you keep a close eye on your overheads, you should be able to work it out.

Not making sales? It's time to change that, starting with these six common mistakes!