5 Ways to Boost Revenue No Matter What the Economy Does

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Here are five ways to increase your revenue, no matter what the Economy does.

1. Sales Trainees For Prospecting: Hire a few entry-level salespeople to generate and qualify leads for your top people. Give the leads to your top people, who will do the actual selling. The cost (I like to call it an "investment") of hiring these people is offset by a couple of factors. More prospecting will lead to more leads, and your top people will close sales at a much higher ratio, improving your return on the time invested with your top people. You might want to do this even if we're not in a recession.

2. Pound The Pavement: Take your staff out in the streets as a group. Meet for breakfast, choose a high-business zone and drop everyone off. Hit office buildings loaded with nontraditional advertisers: i.e., plastic surgeons, optometrists, lawyers, doctors and real estate agents. Have lunch together and finish the afternoon. The leads you generate will more than offset any cost of the meals. Do this once a week for a month then monitor what percentage of these leads you close. You might want to make this a regular sales staff ritual. It also builds team unity.

3. Referrals: During the next month, set an individual and team goal for bringing in qualified referrals. The winner gets a dinner and limo on the town. The team reward is an afternoon at your local Disney Land.

4. Testimonials: None of your people should ever have to close an order. Your customers should. Create for your staff a campaign of recording testimonials from satisfied clients. Get at least two per rep during the next two weeks. Load everyone with a cassette recorder and record their clients? responses to: "What would you tell other people about XYZ Radio station(s)" What kind of specific increases or product movement have you experienced with our station(s)?"

Have your production department put together a three-minute slice of five of the best-recorded testimonials, including an introduction and fade. Nothing is more powerful in sales than having your customers tell other prospects why they should advertise on your station(s).

5. Self-Talk: No matter what happens with the economy, the one thing we can control is our thoughts. If you think the economy will affect you, it will. Leading scientists and neuroscientists say that every day, we have between 45,000 and 51,000 self-talk impressions. Your mind can't go more than 11 seconds without engaging in some form of self-talk. If it's negative, you won't be able to sell yourself out of a wet paper bag in the middle of a monsoon. If it's positive, nothing will stop you.