By Tricia Ikponmwonba

As we usher in the new year, the business landscape is presently littered with strategy and annual planning sessions. As you plan strategy for the year, ensure to plan for sales as well. While it is true that “Sales is the lifeblood of a business”, the current times require a tougher set of rules for businesses that intend to last. Needless to say, there’s a global economic downturn worldwide. To stand a chance, businesses need better sales techniques to get their customers/prospects to give them money speedily and repeatedly. Over the years, I’ve taught a lot of businesses how to transform their fortunes by adopting these strategies:

The SCARCITY or URGENCY Technique 

The word “scarcity” probably brings to mind fuel scarcity with crowds and long queues and waking up insanely early to queue up at the filling station. It’s human behavior. Buyers act faster when they see or know there’s a limited number of items for a particular thing. If a fabric is no longer available in the market for example, the want and rush for it increases because of the lack of continued availability in the market. 

Urgency on the other hand is an important technique to engage with when selling because of procrastination. Many individuals procrastinate and due to the hassles of day-to-day living they forget the purchase. Urgency helps businesses close the sales more promptly. While running a sales campaign for instance, it is highly recommended that it be time bound so that buyers are aware they have to act fast or lose any discount, offers etc the business has going on. 

Upselling, Cross Selling, and Down Selling Technique

As a business owner, consider these a dynamic trio that gets customers to buy MORE than they wanted to. When upselling, a business gets customers to buy more expensive things than they originally planned to. When cross selling, customers buy similar things that are complementary to what they came to buy. For example: If a person walks into a phone shop to get a power bank, an original, fast charger complements that power bank perfectly. Offering it to them instead of being a hit and run business owner is called cross selling. Food business owners do a lot of cross selling. When selling that steaming plate of Jollof, they ask what brand of soda the customer wants with their food. Why? It’s complementary to the plate of Jollof Rice. They go together. 

When down selling, a business gets their customers to buy something cheaper than what they intended to in the case where it’s beyond their budget rather than just letting them go without buying. A good knowledge of inventory is useful here. Knowing the cheaper alternatives to what they came to buy makes it easy to offer it to a prospective customer. 

Increased Frequency Technique 

The average business owner is always looking for a new customer. What most business owners do not know however, is that it’s cheaper and easier to repeatedly sell to existing customers. They’ve tasted of the business and it’s easier to convince them to buy than to try and convince a new buyer. 

How can a business increase frequency with their existing customers?

I) Communicating with them often will help stay top of mind. 

Recently, while I was at the salon, they told me, “Tricia, some of our nice hairs are currently on sale. Check them out.” 

What this means that if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have known the salon was running any sales. The kicker is that they had all my contact information. This salon’s case is not unique. A lot of business owners take all these details from customers but do not use them. Frequent communication with prospective buyers is a sure fire way to increase sales. Customers cannot buy what they do not know about. 

II) Having a loyalty program. 

People always love it when they are rewarded in some shape or form for doing business with a business. This can be loyalty points or accumulated discounts.

III) Reward higher purchases.

When a business creates their discount promos, e.g. Valentine Promo, Christmas Promo, Sallah Promo, etc offering MORE to people who buy MORE is a tried and true technique to increase sales.  For example: Seeing an offer that states “If you buy goods worth ₦50,000 and above, you get XYZ” stirs up a customer who planned to buy goods worth ₦40,000 to seriously consider buying more just to benefit from the stated reward. Hence, the value of your average orders in that promo will most likely increase.

As Nigeria’s business landscape evolves, embracing these proven sales techniques is no longer optional—it’s imperative. Sales is learned as no one is born a perfect salesman. Finally, success in sales isn’t just about closing sales; it’s about building relationships, satisfying your customers’ needs, and consistently delivering value. Your success story awaits.