As we enter the New Year, many individuals reflect on the past 12 months and plan how they can improve in the year ahead.
Although there are plenty of ways to improve your business, these 10 tips will make a difference for your company’s bottom line in 2022:
1. Make it easy to buy/Make it memorable
Making your customers want to buy is a must. When they can buy with a few simple clicks, repeat business is easy. The easier you make it to buy, the more likely they will keep coming back. The easier you make it to buy, the more likely they are to share their good experience with their social circle and the more likely they are to refer others. A few ways you can make it easy to buy include:
- Use a single-page checkout form.
- Assign thank you pages.
- Keep the shopping cart on one page throughout the entire buying experience.
- Create your invite list by having an attractive landing page.
- Invite them to an upcoming webinar, demo, or event with a catchy title that’s enticing enough to click on.
- Send out an email inviting them to join and check out the landing page, which will be automatically routed to that event.
- Make sure you build your email list with a tool like Aweber or Mailchimp or risk getting blacklisted by web hosts and email servers.
- Add new leads from various sources and follow up on them consistently with a series of emails that they can opt-in on, but if they don’t, then it’s no big deal because you’re just following up anyway.
2. Keep your prices low and straightforward.
It will be very hard to increase your profits if your prices are too high. In most cases, you want to make sure you have a minimum of 10% profit margin or better on all your products. People will not pay more for convenience for something they can get for less money someplace else.
3. Cut out expenses that are not bringing in results.
There are many ways you can cut down expenses in your small business. The first place to start is by looking at your overhead expenses and things like utilities, rent, phone and credit card fees. You also need to look closely at things like luxury items like cars, furniture, travel and memberships that are not bringing in a direct profit to your business. Just because you have these things does not mean you need them. Stop paying for extras that aren’t necessary to the growth of your business.
4. Make it easy to sell
No matter your business, you have to have the gift of gab and be able to put your prospect at ease the moment they arrive in the building. If you are not good at selling, you will need help from a salesperson or perhaps a marketing campaign to do the selling for you.
5. Dig into your expertise.
Suppose you have been in business for a while and have been successful, then it is time to use that expertise to make more money. So instead of just selling something because you think it will work, dig deep into your business history and uncover the patterns that lead to your success. Determine what works and what does not. Then build on the successful ideas.
6.Increase your sales volume.
While it sounds simple, increasing your sales volume is one of the easiest ways to boost profits. After all, you can’t make $1,000 if you don’t sell anything for $1,000. Here are a few tips to help you increase your sales volume in 2022:
- Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. If a marketing campaign had a positive ROI, spend more on it. If it didn’t work out, cut it from your budget.
- Make the most out of social media. Social media can be highly effective when used correctly. While you may try your hand at some paid ads, focus on creating great content that attracts people to your page.
7. Raise your quality standards.
Add these to your current selling standards to raise your quality and grow your profits:
- Use a printed return policy to reduce returns. The cost of returns management can be a massive headache for online businesses. For example, an online shoe retailer could be losing $4 for every $100 spent on returns. This is why it is essential to start with the correct returns policy and customer service strategy. Many customers are willing to stay loyal to your brand if you have quality products at reasonable prices and a clear, fair returns policy. It would help if you also give your customers a way to contact you via phone or email as they may need guidance when making returns. Creating a significant, helpful returns page is the first step towards improving your customer satisfaction rates and lowering your return rates.: Rakuten’s return management has an excellent guide on how to handle this.
- Accept returns for up to three months after the order date.
- Require buyer feedback for returns for more than $50 and fewer than 10.
- Deny refunds for incorrect shipping addresses unless the buyer can prove they provided accurate shipping info (i.e., it’s scanned into their shipping software).
- Deny refunds within 14 days of the order date, except in California & New York, where you can deny within 30 days as long as you have an explicit shipping/delivery confirmation on record.
- Require a buyer’s signature for items above $500 and no delivery confirmation. Require USPS Signature Confirmation on items above $100 and no delivery confirmation.
- Require proof of delivery on all high-value or high-risk items, and verify this proof with the carrier (nail it down with tracking number, signature confirmation, or other proof).
8. Track everything
Is Tracking Your Business’s Margin a Top Priority?
Margin. It’s a dirty word in business and yet one of the critical indicators for profitability. The margin is the difference between what something costs you to make and sell and the price you charge your customers.
Quantifying your margins helps you quantify your profitability, which every small business owner should be tracking. It would help to track your costs on an item or product level basis and use that data to decide whether to keep selling a particular product at the same price point or raise or lower the price. In addition, you should also be tracking the overall profit percentage of your different sales channels (e.g., online vs. in-store vs. wholesale).
9. Hire A Bookkeeper
We love bookkeepers and believe they’re essential to the success of any business. This is especially true for solo entrepreneurs, as they have no one else to mind the books.
10. Adopt The “No Excuses” Attitude.
You will never become successful if you make excuses for failures. You must be focused and diligent in your work to understand where your weaknesses stand to quickly fix them early on. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you don’t have the time to be plagued with constant setbacks.
These are all things you can do to increase your profits in 2022 and beyond. Everyone can increase profits, and it’s just getting started. You spend so much time and money on other things; why wouldn’t you spend time and money on increasing your profits?