How to Double Sales in 12 Months Flat

By Chet Holmes, President and CEO, Chet Holmes International

There are always a smaller number of ideal buyers, rather than all buyers, so ideal buyers are cheaper to market to and yet bring greater rewards. Who are your best buyers? If you sell B2C, chances are, your best buyers live in the best neighborhoods. Consistently go after the folks who live in the best neighborhoods. They are the wealthiest buyers who have the money and the greatest sphere of influence.

Here is the most powerful lesson you will ever learn for doubling sales in the next 12 months.

The Best Buyer Concept

Completely Grasp the Power of This:
There are always a smaller number of ideal buyers, rather than all buyers, so ideal buyers are cheaper to market to and yet bring greater rewards.

A magazine used this strategy to double sales in 15 months flat. Here’s what they did. They had a database of 2200 advertisers that they sent promo-pieces to each month. After learning this strategy, they did an analysis and found that 167 of those 2200 advertisers bought 95% of the advertising in the competitor’s magazine. This concept is called ‘The Dream 100 Sell,’ a concept where you go after your ‘Dream’ prospects with a vengeance. This magazine sent the 167 (best buyers) a letter every two weeks and called them four times per month.

Since these were the biggest buyers, the first four months of intensive marketing and selling brought no actual reward. In the fifth month, only ONE of these Dream client bought advertising in the magazine. In the sixth month, 28 of the 167 largest advertisers in the country came into the magazine all at once. And since these are the biggest advertisers, they don’t take quarter pages and fractional ads, they take full pages and full color spreads. These 28 advertisers alone were enough to double the sales over the previous year. The magazine went from number 15 in the industry to number one in just over a year.

Lessons for You:
Who are your best buyers? If you sell B2C, chances are, your best buyers live in the best neighborhoods. If you are a dentist, accountant, chiropractor, R. E. Broker, financial advisor, restaurant, or even an MLM’r, etc. Consistently go after the folks who live in the best neighborhoods. They are the wealthiest buyers who have the money and the greatest sphere of influence. If you send them an offer every single month without fail, within a year, you’ll have a great reputation among the very wealthy.

If you sell B2B, it’s usually fairly clear that your best buyers are the biggest companies. So what are you doing, every other week, no matter what, to let these companies know who you are? There’s no one you can’t get to as long as you constantly market to them, especially after they say they’re not interested. People will not only begin to respect your perseverance, they will actually begin to feel obligated.

This doesn’t happen right away, but even the most hard-bitten and cynical executive or prospect begins to respect you when you just will not give up. The publication I mentioned earlier went on to double sales two more years in a row. We constantly marketed to the best buyers and much more aggressively than we did to all buyers.

A company selling to manufacturer’s used this strategy to target the 100 biggest manufacturers in the country. For the first three months no one responded to any of the calling or phoning. But after three months executives started saying: “I just have to meet you. I’ve never had anyone continue to call me so many times after I said no.” Within 6 months they had gotten in to see 54% of those they targeted.

The secret is to NEVER give up. Just keep going after those companies again and again. Or if you sell to consumers, commit to sending a promotional piece every single month to those wealthy neighborhoods. Eventually, all the wealthy people in your area will know exactly who you are.

Who are your DREAM prospects? And how committed are you to getting them as clients?