Breaking Through Your Sales Plateau

Particularly in the early stages, breaking through your sales plateau may just mean doing more of what you’re doing. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can’t run any faster. We can’t do any more by ourselves. So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes, we need to get some help, or something needs to change fundamentally in the business in order to get us to that next level. Identifying the Real Causes of a Sales Plateau David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of breaking through your sales plateau. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It’s so good to be here again with you David, and as always, I’m very excited about this topic. I know businesses that hit these thresholds. Breaking through can be a monumental task to get to the next level and they’re not sure how to do it. Is it marketing? Is it adding new products? I think that’s what a lot of them try to do. They’re like, well, let’s add 10 more products to the lineup and then we’ll do it. And oftentimes that can just make the situation worse and not better. David: Yeah, it’s true. Most businesses, I think it’s safe to say, at some point run into a sales plateau. They hit a level of sales and they can’t get past it. I believe in small businesses this is particularly true, where you’re just working and pushing and you’re trying to get to that next benchmark. And you just can’t reach it. There are thresholds in small business, getting to your first hundred thousand in gross sales and then your first 250, and then you hit 500 and then a million and then 2 million and going from there. In the early stages, you can generally do pretty well, like to get from a hundred thousand to 250 is often easier than it is to get from a million to 2 million. But most of us, at some point, will encounter some sort of sales plateau. You get there, you see it, you’re targeting it, you’re working toward it and you just can’t seem to hit it. Breaking through becomes a challenge. You May Not Know How You Got Here And so it’s really just a matter of getting stuck. It’s like, I feel like I’m stuck. I’m here, I need to be there and I’m not sure what to do next. Jay: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is that they’re not really sure how they got to the first sales plateau. I mean, they may think that they know, David: That’s true. Jay: But it could be something completely different. And this could go back to something we talked about in a previous podcast: following up with your customers. Find out why they purchased, how they feel about their purchase. Are they returning customers? Are they not returning customers? So if you didn’t understand why they bought in the first place and how they felt about that purchase, it’s going to be hard breaking through that next sales plateau. David: It is, absolutely. And the biggest hangup that I see for most people is not knowing, “what do I do next?” And as you indicated, people get to a certain point in some cases, they’re not sure how they did it. What’s that referred to as? Unconscious competence? Jay: Mm-hmm, David: Where I’m doing things and it’s working, but I’m not even sure of what I’ve done. So I haven’t gotten around to building a system around it, to put that into place so I can replicate it. But there’s also the idea that what gets me to here will not necessarily get me to there. Right? So breaking through to level one won’t necessarily get me to level two. When Hard Work Doesn’t Result in Breaking Through That’s not always the case, particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you’re doing to get to a higher level. But generally, at some point, we hit a sales plateau that is created by the fact that we can’t run any faster. We can’t do any more by ourselves. So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes. Or we need to get some help. Something needs to change fundamentally in the business, in order to keep breaking through that sales plateau and get us to the next level. Jay: Yeah, something that can be very hard for people, delegation, right? Letting go of your baby, right? David: Yeah. Jay: That you worked so hard on. And now you’re going to trust some new employee with some new aspect. It’s not easy to hand those things over. But often, if you’re not willing to do it, you’re not going to grow through that next sales plateau. Refusing to Delegate Can Lead to a Sales Plateau David: That’s true. And some people don’t want to. Some people are like, okay, look, I don’t want to have employees. I’m comfortable with the way things are. And if they are, then that’s fine. If they want to get to another level of sales though, then it’s really going to be a lot more about processes. If you’re determined not to get additional help, at least in terms of human resources,...