When times get tough and sales slow down, people start scrambling around trying to force things to happen.  I'd like to suggest another way to handle tough situations that can indeed help in the short-term, but create lasting rewards in the long-term.

First of all, take a deep breath and relax.  No matter what you do, you can't really force a prospect to buy your product or service.  Yeah, you could slash your prices in hopes of making a quick sale, but you've just destroyed your profit at the same time.  You can't do that very often or you won't be in business for long.

There are four areas where you can make incremental changes that can help improve your business today and set you up for lasting success.

Leads

Leads are at the very top of the Marketing Hourglass, or what many people refer to as the Marketing Funnel.  Bottom line, the more leads you get, the more sales you'll make.  So, what can you do TODAY to generate more leads?

Remember, you don't have to knock it out of the park here.  Just get on first base.  If you improve your leads generated by just 10% and everything else remains the same, you should see a 10% increase in sales.
But let's take this a step further.

Conversions

Now that you have increased the number of leads you are getting, how can you convert more of those leads into paying clients?  I have a one word answer, testing.  Test your headlines, test copy, test your offer, test your call to action, test everything.  Find the combination that works the best for your target market and continue to improve over time.

Pricing

It seems that everyone is hyper-sensitive about price these days.  The way to get around that is to offer a package of products and/or services that can't be found anywhere else.  This one thing can differentiate you from all your competitors and make it virtually impossible for people to beat you up and compare your pricing to others.

Now that you have a unique product/service offering you can effectively increase your average sales price.

Transactions

Now that you are generating more leads, converting more of those leads into sales and selling at an effectively higher price, what can you do to sell more to your existing clients?

Offer a premium package and/or create a training or coaching program that turns those one-time sales into recurring sales.  The key here is to offer a tremendous amount of value for the price so that your clients will continue working with you for months and years to come.

By making small improvements in each of these areas, you will see a drastic improvement in bottom line profits.  If you'll take the time today to make these changes, you'll be poised for remarkable sales and long-lasting success when the economy turns back around.

Ken Partain is an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach who specializes in search engine marketing and search engine optimization.