54 ways to increase sales like a rock star

54 Ways
to Increase
Sales
Like a
Rock Star
By Gary Sanchez
www.garyasanchez.com

Who the HECK
is Gary Sanchez?
I’m a veteran consumer products and retail
marketing leader, cover rock-band drummer and
outdoor enthusiast. After almost 20 years of
working for large companies, I remembered that
the long term professional goal I stated in my
business school application was to help small
business owners grow companies. I do that by
helping them increase sales with decisive marketing
programs. Building new programs and seeing them
come to life and work magic is what I love most
about marketing. Being of service to small business
owners is what I love most about working.
My nickname is “Cheese” (a derivative of San-
cheeeeese) and that’s what my friends call me. I
share that because my goal is to help people have
more fun getting their marketing created. As I
like to say,“If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it
wrong.” And if you can’t have fun with a guy
named Cheese who writes about marketing in the
context of rock and roll, then when are you going
to have fun?
54 Ways to Increase Saleswww.garyasanchez.com415 407-8345

Legalese
Disclaimer
The author of 54Ways to Increase Sales Like a Rock Star cannot be held responsible for
business, personal or emotional losses achieved by following any advice within this e-book.
While I am sharing my best advice, I am doing so without explicit knowledge of your business or your
business circumstances. As always, you should take responsibility for your own choices before starting
any new business program, digital or otherwise.
Copyright
I am sharing this 54Ways to Increase Sales Like a Rock Star under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. Feel free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work but
please give me credit as the person who made you feel it was worthwhile enough to share. My social
media handle for twitter, facebook and LinkedIn is “garyasanchez.” Also, please don’t sell this book
and don’t alter, transform or build upon the work without my permission.
Affiliate Links
I do not have any recommendations to other providers, be them information, software or affiliate
links in this document.
Photo Attributions
I’m providing attributions to all photos I’ve used (all but one from Flickr) on the last slide. Thank you
photographers for allowing your work to be shared!
54 Ways to Increase Saleswww.garyasanchez.com415 407-8345

54 Ways to Increase Sales
CONTENTS
ROLL
Customer Acquisition Ideas / 22
RATTLE
Loyalty Building Ideas / 13
SHAKE
Upsell / Cross-Sell Ideas / 6
BACK STAGE
Warming Up / 1
PHOTO CREDITS / 36
ENCORE
Closing Notes / 35
www.garyasanchez.com415 407-8345

BACK STAGE
www.garyasanchez.com 54 Ways to Increase Sales - 1415 407-8345
“Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans
Get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans
Well, roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man
I said shake, rattle and roll
Well, you never do nothin' to save your doggone soul”
~ Bill Haley AndThe Comets
How cool is it that a band is named “The Comets?” To me, the word “comet” conjures up a body
racing across the sky that is emitting a visible and beautiful display of light. And in their classic
song, Shake, Rattle and Roll, Bill Haley says “get out from that kitchen and rattle those pots and
pans.” Both of these ideas are about taking action to create change and a desirable outcome.
That’s the essence of good marketing.
But Bill Haley and the Comets didn’t write the song. It was originally recorded by Big Joe Turner.
That’s one reason I like to frame marketing in terms of music. None of the ideas I’m about to
share are originally my own. But like Bill Haley, I hope I can help you identify the ones you can
“cover” to make your signature song on your way to increasing sales.
Click to Listen

BACK STAGE
54 Ways to Increase Sales - 2www.garyasanchez.com415 407-8345
There’s a big difference, however, between
merely covering a song and turning that song
into a hit that makes you a rock star.
So how do you become a rock star? Aside
from the most common advice of “practice,
practice, practice,” there are a few skills,
behaviors and attitudes that can help you along
the way. My suggestion is to focus on
developing five of these, at least to start:
 Learn to sing or play an instrument –
How do you learn to sing or play an
instrument? You take lessons from somebody
more advanced than you are.
It’s the same with marketing. Find an
advisor, a coach or consultant and commit to
weekly conversations about marketing. Read
about marketing, such as this eBook. At the
very least, find yourself a peer to “practice”
with and discuss marketing news and how it
could relate to each of your businesses.You
can’t get better at anything without learning the
fundamentals,exploring new techniques and
practicing them.
 Play some local shows – No band is ever
booked as a headliner at Madison Square
Garden without having first paid its dues and
proven it can attract an audience. Performing at
small venues, testing a variety of songs and song
arrangements, learning how to create crowd
excitement are all skills learned by rock bands
coming up the ranks.
It’s the same with marketing. Early on, try
some new marketing ideas and test them. If
they don’t increase sales, rework them until
they do, or scrap them and pick a different one
until you’ve worked out a program that’s a hit
with your customers.

BACK STAGE
 Love it! – Jimi Hendrix is quoted as having
said “Music is my religion.” U2’s front man
Bono has said “As a rock star, I have two
instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to
change the world. I have a chance to do both.”
Passion, an ability to connect through the
emotions of music, and the exhilaration of
performing to audiences often drive rock stars
to share their craft and talents.
It’s the same with marketing. Sell
something you love. When you’re proud of
your products or services, you will understand
the benefits they give you, and in return, the
benefits they offer your customers. When this
is the case, you’ll be able to communicate the
benefits more effectively and with passion. It
will come naturally to you to want to share it,
to offer it, to sell it, heck, even sing about it.
 Be unique –Whether it’s the voice, the
wardrobe, the hair style, the makeup (a la KISS),
the dance moves, or the message, all rock stars
are unique. They’re different. They’re
memorable. As with the Sex Pistols, they may
not be enjoyable to all audiences, but they’ve
found a way to be viewed as special to their
core, rabid, money paying fans.
It’s the same with marketing. Your
products or services need to be different AND
desirable in order to gain rock star status. It
could be your communicated benefits, your
packaging, your customer service, your follow
up, or your ability to teach, train and inspire in
your category that sets you apart from your
competition. However you do it, you should be
striving to answer the question, “Why should
somebody buy from me?”

BACK STAGE
 Always be creating, promoting and performing –The rock stars who have endured the
longest have also created an extensive library of music and albums. Often, in the early days, they
embarked on multi-year tours to connect with their fans and reach as many people as possible.
When they are between tours or recording new music, they find ways to stay connected to their
fans through news, special appearances, and promotions.
It’s the same with marketing. Once your business has gained traction and a loyal group of
customers, you should seek to maximize your stardom. Do this by continuing to connect with
them with new products that meet their needs, with incredible “performances” and customer
service they remember and want to share with their friends, and with new promotions and
marketing programs that solidify your relationship with them.
While these are five behaviors and attitudes that help you become closer to being a rock star,
what are some more practical ideas? “How do I increase my sales, Gary?”
Whether you have a commodity product in a highly competitive industry, or are fortunate enough
to have a highly differentiated product with little competition,I believe there are always ways to
increase your sales.

BACK STAGE
You see, ideas are never the bottleneck. Making choices, developing a plan and taking action are
the bottlenecks.
To hammer this point home, I’ve compiled this list of 54Ways to Increase Sales. Not all of the
ideas will work for your business (since I don’t know what your business is yet), but I hope that
after reviewing the list, they will inspire you to take the steps needed to select one or two, and at
the very least, test them or “practice” them.
Now on to a few house rules.
First, some of the ideas I share will seem similar to other ideas. That’s because they are. Don’t
freak out. Don’t email me and claim that I cheated you out of a handful of ideas or accuse me of
taking the lazy way out. The goal of this book is to help you explore how to identify new ways to
grow your sales. Sometimes learning about an idea that has been explained slightly differently will
make all the difference in your ability to learn it.

BACK STAGE
Second, these ideas were compiled based on my
experience as a B2C / consumer marketing
manager. The majority of my marketing
experience is in consumer products (picture
Kingsford Charcoal, Pine-Sol household cleaner,
Formula 409 spray cleaner or Del Monte
canned tomato sauce) and in retail (picture
Peet’s Coffee & Tea or CocoaBella Chocolates).
Having said that, I do believe that many of these
ideas are applicable to B2B as well.
For instance, a professional services firm like a
dentist or accounting office could follow idea
#50. A solo-preneur such as a coach or
consultant could use idea #49. A B2B firm
could easily use idea #54. And there are more
ideas that cut across different business types.
54 Ways to Increase Sales - 6
These ideas are meant to be transferable to
many different types of businesses because the
principles of customer acquisition,of building
customer loyalty, and of cross selling and
upselling are generally the same.
That’s why I’m categorizing each idea into one
of three buckets. I find these buckets to be
helpful ways for me to think about growth
strategies, with each having slightly different
economics. If this is slightly confusing, I
apologize. Read my blog post titled “There are
only three ways to grow sales” in the shaded
box on the next page This book is my follow
up to that post with less theoretical concepts
and more practical examples.
Share This Ebook

BACK STAGE
FromThere Are Only 3Ways to Grow sales
“From a mathematical point of view, there are only
three ways to grow sales:
1) Increase customer count
2) Increase purchase frequency
3) Increase average purchase price
This falls out from the basic equation of:
# customers X purchase frequency X average purchase
price = TOTAL sales
If you start with any one of these three goals in mind, it
will help you more clearly establish strategies to help
you grow, rather than chasing the latest trend or tactics
which may or may not lead to growth. Always
remember to start with a strategy before choosing your
tools or tactics to achieve it, rather than the other way
around. It will force you to be more rigorous around
your planning, more efficient with your limited
resources, and more effective when you implement
your programs.”
So what I’ve done for this eBook is to take the
three ways of growing revenue, and translated
them into more common and familiar marketing
terms. I’ve also reordered them going forward
to fit within the rock and roll theme:
3) = Shake: Increasing average purchase price.
This works when you upsell to larger or more
expensive items, or cross-sell more than one
item.
2) = Rattle: Increasing purchase frequency
which is similar to increasing loyalty.
1) = Roll: Increasing customer count is the
same as acquiring new customers or
growing traffic.

BACK STAGE
If you pick one of these strategies, it often forces you to think of who you are selling to (your
target market) in very different terms. When you think of your customer differently, you can
usually start to see that they have different beliefs about your products and this will affect how you
communicate with them, what benefits matter most to them, and where you reach them.
Third, I’ll try to give you specific examples of how the idea would work. Some ideas will be drawn
from my own personal experience, some will be drawn from case studies I have observed. A very
small number will be drawn from my imagination of how I think it could work.
Fourth, if you read an idea and need to understand more about it, by all means, send me an email
and ask [gary at garyasanchez dot com]. My goal is to help you create a thriving and rocking
business. Building new programs and seeing them come to life and work magic is what I love most
about marketing.
Ultimately, the goal of this book is to help you see new paths to success and to help you
implement change. After all, if you don’t change your behavior, you’re never going to change your
results.
OK, enough of the house rules, and brown M&Ms.
ARE YOU READY TO INCREASE SALES LIKE A ROCK STAR!!?
Share This Ebook

SHAKE
“Oh shake shake shake, shake shake shake,
Shake your booty! Shake your booty!”
-- K.C. & the Sunshine Band
Your customer has found the perfect purchase and is ready to pay you. Now’s the time for you to
focus on increasing the purchase amount through upselling and cross-selling techniques.
Upselling is convincing your customer to spend more money than they were originally considering.
It can be accomplished by persuading her to buy a more expensive option.
Cross-selling is convincing your customer to buy something in addition to what they originally
came to you to buy, such as accessories or add-on / related product sales.
In both cases, you are attempting to increase the total value of the purchase transaction. If you only
take one idea away from this section, it should be “sell a party instead of a cake.”
The following ideas are meant to help you identify ways to be shaking your booty all the way to the
bank.
Click to Listen

SHAKE
Bundle pricing - also known as “The Happy Meal” approach. Assemble a
collection of products and offer it as a bundle and at a price that would be 10-25%
less than if they had bought each item separately. Perhaps its shoes and six pair of
socks. Maybe it’s a gift box or gift basket of three different flavored chocolate bars,
a tin of cocoa and a bag of chocolate covered raisins. Maybe it’s a night at your
hotel plus a day pass to the local ski resort. Offer a package of products that will
entice your customers to spend more.
Sell accessories - If you’re a retailer selling running shoes, you probably already
sell items that are useful when used along with your shoes, such as socks, and
colored shoe strings, but what other products could you sell that would make
running more enjoyable? Perhaps headlamps for nighttime runners? If you
wholesale to retailers, what could you co-promote in the store to add to the
purchase bundle? When I was at Kingsford Charcoal, we promoted meat sales,
BBQ sauce sales and even beer sales via cross-ruff coupons.
1
2
Cross-promote -This is identical to #2, selling accessories, it’s just being
proactive about it rather than waiting for them to buy it. Again, using my
Kingsford example, when somebody is having a barbeque, they need more than
charcoal. They need lighter fluid, they need meat, they need buns and condiments,
they need beverages. Promote all of these items together and you’ll sell more. Sell
a party rather than just selling a cake.
3
Share This Ebook

SHAKE
Raise your prices - Most people fear raising their prices because of concerns
that their customers will complain and stop buying from them. But there are two
magical ways to approach this. 1) Restate the value proposition: At Peet’s Coffee,
I was able to charge more for Holiday Blend coffee by putting it in a special red,
decorative holiday bag. I was also able to raise prices of pastries by relaunching
the segment as Artisan Baked Goods and better communicating that the items
were baked hours before delivery to the stores. If you manufacture a product,
better packaging, a new flavor or communicating more important benefits can
allow you to achieve higher prices. 2) Implement line pricing: At Del Monte Foods,
sweet pickles were priced differently than dill pickles or pickle chips. By working
out the math based on average unit sales, I was able to move all the same sizes to
the same price point in a way that delivered higher sales to the entire line of
pickles. .
4
New products - As alluded to in #4, new products are a great way to “hide” price
increases. Deliver greater value or stronger benefits than existing items and
charge for the added benefits. If you run a restaurant, introduce a new line of
desserts and take a higher margin on them than other desserts. If you have a
special Holiday product or service that will only be available for 2 months, charge
more for it being special. At CocoaBella Chocolates, I was able to charge $85 for a
collection made up of only Bay Area chocolate makers when the same sized
collection of European chocolates sells for $60.
5
Share This Ebook

SHAKE
Larger sizes - In some product categories, all you have to do is replace one size
with a larger size. When I worked on Pine-Sol, our largest customer,Wal-Mart,
wanted us to lower the price of our 28 oz. product. Rather than do that, we
showed them that the biggest users of the product used a TON of the product (I
guess they really did love that pine scent) and we convinced them to replace 28 oz.
with our higher priced 40 oz. bottles. At Christopher Elbow Chocolates, I wanted
to offer a sleeve of 10 chocolate bars.
6
Volume discounts – Often you can encourage customers to buy larger sizes, or
more units (e.g., ounces, hours, widgets) if you give them a discount on the per unit
price. More realistically, however, is that you will probably be rewarding your best
customers, those who buy lots of what you sell. High volume customers aren’t
likely to be a large percentage of your customers, but following the Pareto
Principle,* they are often your most profitable customers.
7
Pareto Principle
Also known as the 80 / 20 rule, this rule “states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects
come from 20% of the causes.” When applied to your business, this often means that only 20% of
your customers generate 80% of your sales or profits. If this is the case in your business, chances
are that they are customers who are high volume purchasers.
Share This Ebook

SHAKE
Subscription service – Subscriptions were pioneered by magazines and
newspapers and have become a popular way for software companies to sell access
to their programs. Do you have a product that people buy throughout the year? If
you’re a restaurant, you could presell 12 dinners for the price of 10, redeemable
once a month. This is different than a punch card program where you give
somebody a free meal after purchasing 10 in that you get all the sales now instead
of waiting for later, and your customer gets the benefit now. Subscription services
not only give you more sales sooner, but it helps forecasting, cash flow and
inventory management. Dollar Shave Club (dollarshaveclub.com) has built its
entire business on selling a tangible product via subscriptions. Selling a pre-loaded
debit card at a retailer is another example.
Sell related services –This could be a service that works with your physical
product and isn’t the focus of where you started your business. There’s an
engagement ring jeweler in Dallas that sells marriage proposal consulting to the
men who are buying engagement rings. What man wouldn’t like to find a creative
way to ask the most important, nerve-wracking question of his life and have an
expert guide him through the process? A simple related service could just be
delivery. Florists often make money with delivery services, could you? A gym
could sell outdoor boot camps, a running shoe store could sell a marathon training
course.
8
9
Share This Ebook

SHAKE
Sell information with your products - Do you sell something that people
could use some training in learning how to use? If you sold high end women’s
scarves, you could write a guide of “101Ways to CreativelyTie a Scarf,” and sell it
for $15. If you operated a tea or coffee house, could you sell a class on how to
learn about proper brewing techniques or how to explore varieties from around
theWorld? Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco (a grocery store) wrote a book called
“Eat Good Food:A Grocer's Guide to Shopping, Cooking & Creating Community
Through Food” that sells for $32.50. I’ve been trying to get an heirloom tomato
farmer to create a recipe book to sell. He sells to some of the finest San Francisco
Bay Area restaurants and his chef / customers would love to promote their recipes
and restaurants.
Displays - Sometimes if you want your customers to buy higher priced items, you
merely need to present it to them in a display. Did you know that at most grocery
stores, the items that sell the best are the ones that get stacked up on an end cap
display? Can you create a display in your store, or a display of your product to go
into other stores that will capture the attention of customers walking by? Heck,
even if you sell pastries to a coffee shop, I bet you could get the owner to stack
your items up nice and high if you give them a creative idea to work from. Then of
course, the owner will have to buy more product from you to keep up with
demand.
10
11
End cap display

SHAKE
Change menu board - Do you have a physical menu hanging inside your store?
If you do, you need to change it more often than you already are. Use it to
promote featured items. Give customers who are used to staring at the same old
message a reason to get disrupted and to take notice of items that can be cross-
sold or upsold. At Peet’s Coffee, I promoted adding flavored syrups to a latte and
guess what, we sold more flavored lattes. There’s a company calledYum Brands
which owns KFC,Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. These businesses change their menus
ALL THE TIME because it changes behavior.
Staff training / contests - Giving your first line of sales people the training they
need to ask for an upsell or to offer a cross-sell is extremely important. For every
promotion I ever launched at Peet’s Coffee, at CartridgeWorld, at CocoaBella
Chocolates, I created a launch document that taught our sales people what was
being promoted, how to sell the benefits of the featured items and how to upsell
and cross-sell. If you don’t do much regular training, kick it off with a sales contest.
Find a way to track individual sales of featured products and reward the winners
with a gift certificate or dinner or larger than normal employee discount. Ongoing
sales training is critical to helping you shake shake shake your booty to growing
sales.
12
13
Share This Ebook

RATTLE
“I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire,
I got a cobra snake for a necktie
A brand new house on the road side,
and it's a-made out of rattlesnake hide
Got a band new chimney put on top,
and it's a-made out of human skull
Come on take a little walk with me baby, and
tell me who do you love?
Who do you love?”
-- GeorgeThorogood
Sorry, but I had a heck of a time finding a familiar song that uses the word “rattle” in it. Hopefully
I’ll make up for it with a 6 minute version ofWho DoYou Love. :)
“Who do you love” is an apt way of thinking about customer loyalty. Does your customer think of
your business and only your business every time they want what you sell? If they do, then you’ve
achieved loyalty. While it’s not a perfect definition, I like to teach loyalty in terms of increasing
customer purchase frequency. The more times they buy from you, the more loyal they are.
Click to Listen

RATTLE
How do you get customers to return to you every time they want to buy what you
sell?
How do you become their preferred store / brand / vendor of choice?
Ultimately, the million dollar question is how do you get your existing customers to
love your business more than all of the alternatives she has to buy from?
Rewards are traditionally the most common answer, but rewards can take a variety of
forms. Great customer service also helps. But how is this defined?
I’d also like to propose a concept for you, as the business owner or manager to
consider and that is “Who do YOU love?” as your best customers. When you think
in these terms, you’ll want to create new products and solutions for your very, very
best customers. Loyalty works both ways, baby!
Let’s explore some examples of how to provide rewards and service that increase
purchase frequency.
Share This Ebook

Promotions –This is about creating a planned and coordinated event meant to
sell a specific product or service for a limited time and that meets a seasonally
relevant consumer need. I like to explain a promotion as throwing a party for your
customers. You’ll schedule the dates, create a theme, send out invitations and offer
gifts (your promoted offer) to your guests of honor. As a program to increase
purchase frequency, bringing back a familiar but limited availability customer
favorite is a powerful tactic. McDonald’s does this with its McRib sandwich and
with Shamrock Shakes during St. Patrick’s day.
Rewards /VIP program - A formal program where you issue a card, collect
email addresses and birthdates, track spending and issue points in return for
offering benefits to your most active shoppers is a great way to show your love.
You can provide free product upon achieving specified point levels, you can invite
the best customers to special events or deals only available to them, and you can
stay in communication with them via email newsletters. Many of the service
providers that administer rewards card programs can let you enter the customer’s
phone number instead of presenting a card which lets customers avoid having to
carry “yet one more card.”
RATTLE
14
15
Share This Ebook

Punch cards - Punch cards are a lower tech option to a rewards card program.
Typically you’d issue a paper card that gets punched each time a purchase is made
and the customer redeems the card after 8 or 10 purchases for a discount or free
item.
RATTLE
If you’re enjoying this book, would you share it
with your friends and followers? Thanks
16
Follow up with customers via email – After a customer makes a purchase
from you, why not send them an email that gives some helpful advice on how to
use what they just bought from you? If you’re not collecting email addresses from
all customers, then this will require you to start doing so. If you sold a bottle of
cabernet sauvignon, you could send an email the next day with three dinner
entrees that would pair well with the wine. Then a week later, ask if they enjoyed
the wine and suggest another varital that others who bought the same also enjoy.
It’s a step sequence of relationship building tips and advice sent via email. Derek
Halpern has an excellent blog post about how to use email, combined with a
loyalty program, to maximize repeat purchases and purchase frequency on his
SocialTriggers blog. You can read it here.
17
Share This Ebook

Charitable tie-ins - Does your business have a preferred charity that it supports?
Do you proactively promote this to your customers? You’ll often find that
customers will change their shopping behavior to buy from companies that
support charities they like. That’s exactly what General Mills does with BoxTops
For Education,and what programs like eScrip are that generate funds for school
programs. Also, if you do support a charity, ask them to promote your products to
their employees and donors. While this last point is technically helping increase
customer count rather than loyalty, it’s an important tactic to add to your plans.
RATTLE
20
Birthday offers –Whether part of your formal loyalty /VIP rewards program, or
a standalone option, this is a particularly strong option if you operate a restaurant,
because, let’s face it, who likes to eat alone? By giving customers a free meal on an
important day in their lives, you’ll probably pick up a group table that may have
gone elsewhere. One way to implement this is to collect birthdates during an
email newsletter sign up and send coupons just before the special day. Sometimes
just an acknowledgment works wonders. Southwest airlines merely sends a
birthday card (with no coupon or offer) to its rewards members.
Happy Hours – A classic tactic in expanding purchase frequency, bars have
enticed customers to stop in right after work (typically slow times of the day) for
years by offering free hors d'oeuvres, drink specials and live music.
19
18
Share This Ebook

VIP events - I touched upon this in idea #15 with the rewards program, but if you
have a store, what if you opened your doors only to your best customers, by
invitation only, and poured them champagne, served them food, hired some music
and let them shop leisurely without the chaos of large crowds during the Holiday
shopping season? What if you invited an expert in your industry to teach, or serve
(a guest chocolate maker) your best customers? Could this encourage customers
to purchase more frequently in order to be on the “VIP Guest List?”
RATTLE
23
Free Delivery – I mentioned delivery as a related service you could charge for in
idea #9, but what if you offered delivery free of charge? One of the reasons your
customers may not be buying from you more frequently is that they’re not near
your business at all hours of the day. If you made it easier to get your products by
delivering to her home or office, would she buy from you more often?
22
Value-added premium – The one marketing program I regret not pushing
harder for was when I worked on Pine-Sol. Even if you’re a die-hard, pine scent
loving woman, who really enjoys cleaning the house? Pine-Sol had the tagline “the
smell of clean” and my idea was to offer a CD called “the Sounds of Clean” that
would have upbeat, rhythm and blues, shake your booty type music that could be
played while cleaning the house. The CD would have been sent free with proof of
purchases, making it a value-added premium. See, even 15 years ago I was thinking
of ways to combine music and marketing.
21
Share This Ebook

RATTLE
Lay away – I grew up in a pretty poor family and I remember mom hauling me
and my brother down to Kmart (remember the blue light specials?) where she
would start Christmas shopping in October by using its layaway service. It’s
basically an installment plan and it helps customers who can’t always afford your
services to pay for them over time. Think of it this way, you’re helping to remove
one more barrier to purchase for your customers. Many people who sell
expensive online information products offer installment plans. And believe it or
not, it’s making a comeback at some major retailers, includingWal-Mart.
25
Thank you letters – I know, you’re probably raising your eyebrow at this one, in
this day and age of email, texting and social media, but what could be more
authentic, more heart-felt and meaningful than you taking the time out of your
busy day to write a letter (yes, with a pen) or card and send it to your customers
thanking them for shopping with you? Who do you love?.
24
Share This Ebook

RATTLE
A Note About Discounts
I believe that discounts should only be offered in one of four situations:
1) If you need to get rid of seasonal inventory that you will otherwise have to throw away due to obsolescence;
2) As a cost of new customer acquisition;
3) To encourage a more lucrative sell via upselling or cross-selling;
4) As a reward to your highest value customers.
There may be exceptions to the rule, but these are the guidelines I try to live by
Temporary price reductions – also known as discounting.I’m not a fan of
discounting products except for when you have seasonal inventory that you really
need to sell (or else give it away), when you’re encouraging a more lucrative
exchange for you (via upselling and cross-selling), when you’re rewarding a high
value customer or when you’re acquiring a new customer. IMHO, discounts
offered to the masses are basically a confession that your prices were too high to
begin with. Instead of discounting,think of how to raise the value of your
products.
27
Lowest price guarantee - Unless you’reWal-Mart, or a category
leader with significant influence over every single one of your
suppliers, I would never recommend this idea. I just have it here
to see if you’re still paying attention.
26

Bag stuffers – Bag stuffers are promotional materials that you place into
customer bags after they’ve made a purchase. You’re basically being proactive in
encouraging the next purchase. It could be to announce a new seasonal product
or line that’s coming out soon, or to announce an event at your store. Make sure
your sales staff explains what’s being promoted.
RATTLE
Flash sales – Flash sales originated from the ecommerce world in which the
company offers a larger than normal discount on a product for 24 hours or less.
Because it requires you to send the offer via email, this is mostly useful to target
your current customers and get them into the store one more time than usual.
Consider an offer that is an upsell even after the discount such as buy one, get 50%
off a second.
29
30
Fortune cookie discounts – I know, I know, I JUST said I don’t believe in
offering discounts. Having said that, some of you are going to keep offering
discounts,and if so, you may of well do it in a creative way that gets your
customers talking about you. This idea requires you to fill fortune cookies with a
range of discounts,and you let the customer pick a cookie to reveal how much
they save. I strongly recommend you don’t give out cookies until the customer is
at the cash register ready to pay.
28
Share This Ebook

ROLL
“It's been a long time since I rock-and-rolled
It's been a long time since I did the stroll
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back, let me get it back
mm-baby, where I come from
It's been a long time, been a long time
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time”
-- Led Zeppelin
I’m a drummer and one of my drumming superheroes is John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. Not to
get too technical, but while he played in a hard rocking band, he actually played drums with a funky
(as in R&B, we got the FUNK) style. Wikipedia says he “was esteemed for his speed, power, fast
right foot, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove.”
What I love about his role in the song Rock and Roll is his drum introduction. It screams “wake
up” and “I’ve got something amazing I’m about to share with you.”
When it comes time to talking about attracting new customers, you’ve got to wake them up and
somehow convince them you have something amazing to share. If they already knew your product
was amazing, they’d already be a customer.
Click to Listen

ROLL
*Guerrilla
Marketing
The term “guerrilla
marketing” was coined
and defined by Jay
Conrad Levinson in his
book Guerrilla Marketing
and has come to
represent low-cost
unconventional
advertising or
promotional activities
that are typically local in
nature, and that rely on
time, energy and
imagination rather than a
big marketing budget
So how do you do this?
Sometimes it’s as simple as communicating your benefits to a wider group of people.
You can get the word out to more people either through outbound marketing
(advertising, public relations, sampling, events, for instance) or through inbound
marketing where potential customers find you based on the online content (blogging,
videos, eBooks, webinars, social media, for instance) you create and share.
Another way to wake up new customers to your offerings is to start being different.
I’ll share some ideas on how you can use guerrilla marketing* to be different and to
stand out.
Still another way is to partner with other companies and to expand distribution to
sell your product in new channels, or in new ways.
The goals here are to get your product and your message out in new and different
ways. If you don’t, you might just be finding yourself having a “lonely, lonely, lonely,
lonely, lonely time.” And that’s the furthest thing we want for you and your business.
Let’s get the ball rolling.

New products - I talked about new products in idea #6 as it relates to selling
your existing customers something new, or as a way to take price increases. This
variation would have you create new products for a group of people who are not
currently shopping from you. A classic example is when McDonald’s added chicken
sandwiches to its menu when before it only sold hamburgers. Another example is
when Subway started selling breakfast items. Both of these were meant to attract
a new customer into their restaurants.
Advertise – traditional media – Not all budgets can afford it, but advertising
via television, radio, magazines or newspapers is a good way to expand your
message to a wider target market. As with all marketing communications, focus
your message on delivering a clear benefits to your target customer.
ROLL
Advertise – online – Google AdWords, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads are all ways
to deliver your advertising to a broader audience. Be sure that you set up split
tests of different messages and calls to action to determine which work more
effectively and always refine your ads to the best performing.
31
32
33
Share This Ebook

Direct mail - Direct mail has often been considered “junk mail” by many
recipients, but many a financial kingdom has been built on this practice. Buy a mail
list (or build your own if you have the time) and send an offer they can’t refuse. At
CocoaBella Chocolates, I acquired two sizeable business accounts who purchased
in excess of $7,000 of chocolates to send as client holiday gifts from an unsolicited
mailing with a list I built through internet searches. These new customers easily
generated a high Return-on-Investment.
ValPak –Valpak is a bundled direct mail marketing service that sends multiple
flyers or inserts to households. Consumers know that each blue envelope will
contain lots of coupons and it can be a more affordable way of distributing your
offer than with your own standalone mailing. As with most coupon offers, the risk
is that existing customers use the coupon which is a subsidized discount you
wouldn’t have had to make (since they are already a customer).
ROLL
New distribution channels – Can you sell your products through additional
retailers? Can you add online sales to what is currently only brick-and-mortar?
Can you find a vacant space and create a short term pop-up store? If you
currently only sell through grocery channels, can you create a food service option
that major suppliers like Sysco can distribute to restaurants and commissaries?
34
35
36
Share This Ebook

Private label - Do you make a product that another company wants to sell
under its own brand? Private labeling your product may bring you lower margins,
but you don’t have the sales and marketing expenses associated with developing
the business. Also, if you have excess production capacity, it could add significantly
to your bottom line.
Publish remarkable online content –There’s a phrase going around marketing
that all companies need to start acting like a publisher. You may have heard the
phrase “Content Is King.” Whether you deliver it through blog postings, white
papers, eBooks, infographics, videos, or industry charts, if you can help prospects
solve their problems or find answers to their questions, you’ll develop trust and
authority with them that you can turn into sales. This is true whether you sell B2B,
at retail, or wholesale. The bottom line is that consumers increasingly look to
their search engines to solve problems and find solutions before buying, and having
online content that does this will get you found.
ROLL
37
38
Share This Ebook

Teach – Instead of thinking like a publisher, I personally believe there’s more
power in thinking like a teacher. Whether you teach how to use your products
more effectively, how to solve problems, or how to save money, by creating online
classes, autoresponder* courses, or hold in-store seminars or webinars, people
who learn from you are more likely to buy from you. One of my favorite
autoresponder training courses was offered byThe Republic of Tea which delivered
6 lessons on tea.
Public Relations – A well written and well timed press release sent to magazine
and newspaper editors can bring your brand into the homes of thousands if it’s
picked up. If you’re writing the release yourself, always remember that you’re
helping writers and editors to do their jobs which is to create stories their readers
want to read. They’re job is not necessarily to publicize your business. One great
tip is to pitch a trend or human interest story in which your brand plays a role and
bring the story to life.
ROLL
*Autoresponders
Autoresponders are a series of emails that are sent to
subscribers over a period of time. They are effective means of
delivering training on a subject without being a “hard sell.”
39
40
Share This Ebook

Sampling - If you have a food or beverage product, there are lots of ways for you
to let prospects try your product. Many grocery stores will let you set up a table
and sample to their customers. If you have a retail store, get out on the sidewalk
and offer samples to passersby. You could hire a street team to take your product
to outlying locations such as college campuses. Or be creative and call a
neighborhood business office and tell them they’ve been selected as the business
of the week and that you’d like to bring by samples for their employees to enjoy in
their break room.
ROLL
Cash mobs – A cash mob is an organized group of people who join together to
shop at a specific business, often a struggling locally owned business, on a specific
day.An alternate version, led by organizations such as Carrotmob,organizes people
to shop at a store to help them make socially responsible changes to the business.
Getting sponsored by a cash mob group may take some lobbying on your part, but
when they come together, they are likely to bring you new sales and often media
coverage.
41
42
Share This Ebook

Grow email list - Make it as easy as possible for new visitors to your website to
sign up for your email news. Have clearly visible email sign up forms in your store
and near your cash register and actively encourage customers to sign up. If you’re
a service business, create a useful guide, report, eBook or other content that you
offer in exchange for an email address. If you blog, end your posts by asking
readers to sign up to your list. Rubio’s Restaurant in San Diego offers a coupon
for a free taco when people sign up.
ROLL
Street teams – Hire a group of people, dress them in hats and t-shirts with your
business name on them, and send them out to locations where there are lots of
“starving people”* to pass out flyers, coupons or samples.
*Starving People
Gary Halbert was a famed direct response copywriter who once posed a question to a
copywriting class that asked: "If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a
contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have
on your side to help you win?“ Some of the students say they would like to have the advantage of
having superior meat from which to make their burgers. Others say they want sesame seed buns.
Others mention location. Someone usually wants to be able to offer the lowest prices. In
response, Gary says “"The only advantage I want is A Starving Crowd!"
43
44

Picket yourself - Hire a group of people, dress them in hats and t-shirts with
your business name on them, and send them out to locations where there are lots
of “hungry people” to pass out flyers, coupons or samples.
ROLL
Offer consultations and advice –This is a tried and true tactic for consultants
but it can also be used for service businesses and to a lesser degree, for product
based businesses. A hair salon in Cambridge, MA offers in-home styling
consultations to prospects via skype. If you monitor twitter for key words in your
category, often people are asking for advice and you can provide it.
Host workshops, events,meetings, private parties – If you have the space to
accommodate groups, host workshops and events at your store or offices.
Publicize to your best customers or your neighborhood groups that you have
space for them to use for meetings. If you’re in the food business, let customers
know you can accommodate private parties. Getting groups of people into your
store is sure to include prospects.
45
46
47
Share This Ebook

Give lotto tickets away with purchase - When your state lottery jackpot
reaches the size where media coverage starts to happen, buy 50-100 $1 tickets and
offer to give one away with each purchase. Contact the media and let them know
you’re supporting“lotto fever” and people may go out of their way to buy from
you rather than from their regular business.
ROLL
Affiliate sales – Affiliate sales is a term more common in the online world where
a website sells a product from another site in exchange for a cut of the sales. But
it can also work in the offline world. Can you get the concierges from local hotels
to refer business to you (for a commission)? If you have products suited as gifts,
could you partner with a florist to refer business to each other? What other
businesses in your area can you trade referrals for as a “preferred” partner? If you
have a consulting business, offer a referral 10% of the sales you generate from the
new client forever.
48
49
Promotions –This is the same tactic as #14, but it’s offering a product to new
customers rather than existing customers. One of my favorite examples of this is
by the Oregon Urology Institute who sells vasectomies to men during the NCAA
basketball tournament. “Vas Madness” encourages men to get a vasectomy in
March so they can time their recovery to stay on the sofa and watch the first two
rounds of the tournament. Brilliant idea and it gets free media coverage every
year.
50

Group discounts – Do you offer products or services that customers can
persuade others to take advantage of? Tell your best customers that you will
create a group special or discount if they bring in their co-workers, neighbors or
friends. You could own a coffee shop and offer the discount if 3 or more
employees from neighboring businesses come in together for a coffee break. Or a
fitness boot camp could offer a group rate to these same employees if 5 or more
sign up together.
ROLL
Sweepstakes,contests – Create a high value prize that your target customer
would value to give them an incentive to visit your store to sign up. Peet’s Coffee
used to offer a trip to the San Francisco Bay Area and a private cupping with its
coffee bean buyer and a tour of its roasting facilities. Please note that there are
laws you must follow for most sweepstakes. Another idea is to have a photo
contest of people using your product. With platforms such as Instagram and
Pinterest, consumer interest in photography is at an all time high and you may be
able to get these hobbyists to contribute to portraying your products.
51
52
Share This Ebook

Co-marketing – If you wholesale, create a program whereby your retail
accounts feature your product. At Clorox, I created a program withWinn-Dixie in
Florida to create direct mail pieces FROMWinn-Dixie to promote Clorox cleaning
products to drive people into the store. In return for Clorox paying for the
mailings,Winn-Dixie built displays of the product. We sold more cases of product
toWinn-Dixie than ever before,Winn-Dixie sold more units than ever before, and
both companies benefitted from the partnership.
ROLL
Sponsor an event – Community events such as running events, street fairs,
parades, outdoor festivals and concerts are always looking for sponsors. You’ll
likely get media publicity, program and event signage and a booth to feature,
demonstrate or sample your products. At Peet’s Coffee, I sponsored a BART Rider
Appreciation Day and gave out $2 gift cards to 10,000 transit riders at San
Francisco stations. We had almost 20% redemption (and lines out the door) the
day of the event.
53
54
Share This Ebook

ENCORE
If you’ve gotten to this page, I want to thank you sincerely for reading my ideas.
Also, let me know if you want to learn more about any of the ideas I have. I’ll elaborate on them
and post them to my blog, or offer some training on them. We’re all in this challenge of building
our businesses, yours and mine, together. Let me know how I can help you, and in doing so, you
will help me.
Lastly, if you think I could help you create sales growth programs for your business, call me or email
me at gary at garyasanchez dot com.
“So let's dance, this last dance
Let's dance, this last dance
Let's dance' this last dance tonight”
-- Donna Summer
Click to Listen
If you enjoyed this book, would you share it
with your friends and followers? Thanks
Share This Ebook

PHOTO CREDITS
Photo by Johnny JetPhoto by John GulloPhoto by Anirudh Koul
Photo by philozei Photo by lschmoopie

54 ways to increase sales like a rock star

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (10)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

54 ways to increase sales like a rock star