How to sell over $150,000 of anything?

I sold over $150,000 of clothing in a one year period, when I was 18 years old working at a clothing store.I believe that you can sell $150,000 of just about anything in a one year period. How to sell over $150,000 of any product or service?

First, you need to determine price points.

If you are selling products calculate the price of all products. Let’s assume you are selling chairs and the price is $20 per chair. You would need to sell 7,500 chairs per year.

Second, you need to determine quantity of sales

As in the previous example, we calculated you would need to sell 7,500 chairs at $20 dollars to sell $150,000. This is just an example. If you are selling products you need to know if you can access that amount of inventory to sell that amount of quantity. If you are selling service you need to know price per service or average price per service. Let’s assume you sell web pages and your average cost is $1,000 dollars. You would need to acquire 150 customers per year paying you $1,000 to sell $150,000. I can do this math with any product or service. Many of you may think its impossible to sell that much, but it’s not. This leads into the next step.

Third, what is your customer acquisition strategy

How will you get that amount of customers? The amount of customers can vary in price points. If your price points are lower, you will need more customers. If your price points are higher, you will need less customers. Once you know how many customers you will need, you need to figure out how to get customers. There are many strategies. When I sold $150,000 worth of clothing we did not use Facebook, Instagram, or social media. The internet was not booming. Amazon.com was not what it was today. This was old school. People walked into the store and that was it. But, we had a strategy.

Basic strategies can lead to big results

When I was selling clothes we had basic strategies that lead to big results. Every time, we sold a piece of merchandise we wrote it down in a 4x4 card and stored it in a rolodex. We would write down the person’s name, home phone, beeper, home address, what they bought, their birth date, how much they spent and if they bought something for their family member, spouse, or lover. And, we would add more information. Also, we would ask for three referrals. Imagine, we did this without Whats App, without social media and no fancy technology or web platforms. This was all done on paper with a pen. Once we had that information every time a birthday came up we would mail a card or contact the customer. Every time, we received new merchandise we would call up the customer. Once we had over 100 people on that roledex card and we executed these simple strategies we saw major results. In the first two to four months it was tough. Thereafter, it was easy.

The power of data

Today, with the internet and social media it should be easier to generate potential customers, also referred to as leads and prospects. Your objective should be to obtain as much data as you can from leads and prospects and follow up. Once you convert prospects and leads into customers, obtain referrals. These simple strategies can help you sell over $150,000 with any product or service. In fact, I continue to use these strategies in my finance business. With technology and the internet you can manage more data. I would recommend using google drive or Microsoft one drive or some sort of CRM to store data. Also, update the data and market to the data continuously. The difference from what I did when I was 18 years old and today, is minimal in terms of the business activities. The only difference today is that we have more technology, more software, more platforms which we can use. That makes everything much easier. By: Gil Zapata #salestips, #salesmanagement, #salesstrategies