As a new business owner, your success depends on finding clients who will buy what you are selling, so it’s important to have an effective sales strategy in place. But before devising a strategy, it’s important to recognize your strengths and weaknesses since you can’t tackle everything simultaneously. This blog post will tell you everything you need to know about what to do first when trying to get more clients for a new business.

Is this you?

You’re committed to your business, and you work on it 12 hours per day. You’re clear on your vision. You’re good at what you do, and your business solves a problem. You have a vision that far exceeds where you are now. You sometimes get new clients, but it’s random—more a matter of luck than of any particular deliberate effort.

Your sales methods are not predictable, and they’re not consistent. Let’s be honest; you’re throwing things at the wall.

If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels and you’re frustrated seeing other founders break through to the next level, you might wonder why you can’t do the same.

It’s hard to keep growing when you don’t have a roadmap, but don’t worry, this blog post is going to help you figure that out and get past your biggest hurdle, so read on to find out what you need to fix first and stop leaving money on the table.

Why are you not getting more sales?

You may feel overwhelmed when trying to know what to do next to get more sales, and when you’re feeling desperate for money, it’s tough to get creative. But the exercise that I’m going to teach you in this blog post will help to remove the vagueness that you may be experiencing about your sales process.

Before you start freaking out about posting (or not posting) on social media, panicking about sales funnels, or trying to hire your first salesperson, take a step back because this is going to change your life.

Gaining clarity on what you need to do next is the number one thing that you need to do right now, but you can’t get clear when you’re paralyzed by confusion and fear. Performing this exercise will help you overcome confusion and fear and enable you to focus on your goals. By doing so, you will be able to plan your next steps more effectively and start increasing your sales immediately.

Check out more about the Startup Sales Strategy.

What’s your missing piece?

First, take out a piece of paper and a pen and draw this, or download and print this graphic.

You will need

Next, use a pen or a marker to rate your business in each of the following areas from 1 to 4, where 1 means very bad and 4 means excellent.

A= Attract

Are you consistently getting enough leads? Most founders struggle to get steady leads. First, you need to know your sales goal and how many leads you need each month in order to reach it. For example, if your goal is to acquire 4 new clients per month and your closing rate is 10%, or 1 out of 10, then you’ll need to have 40 sales calls booked each month. If you are not getting enough leads, then you have an attraction problem. Now you know how to rate yourself. With this example, 1–10 calls per month would be one, 40–plus a four, and between those two or three. Stable leads flow from steady action. If you have an attraction problem, you need to fix the actions (or lack thereof) that you are taking to get more leads.

Read How to Generate Leads Online for Free

N = Nurture

Now you need to rank how you’re doing to keep your prospects engaged with you. This is where you create trust between you and your target clients. If you show up reliably, they will trust you more. If you are not doing anything to nurture your prospects, give your business a one. But if you have an automated system in place that regularly sends out emails, offers webinars, or invites people to attend events, then this would be a four.

C = Convert

This is where you rank yourself based on how well you convert leads into sales once they are ready. Are you closing enough deals? Once you have an interested lead, do you know how to convert them into a customer? Do you feel confident about your sales process, or do you find yourself bumbling through each call, hoping for the best? A good way to measure this is by asking yourself how many people who accept your call become customers. 10–20% is about the average closing rate. If your percentage of prospects that book calls become customers is low, then you need to take a closer look at your closing process.

T = Timing

Do you have the right timing in the market? Is your product in line with the trends that customers are looking for? Are there people who need your service or product now, or will it take them some time to realize they need it? Timing is essential and can make or break a business in terms of sales. It’s important to identify if you have the right timing in order to make sure you’re not spinning your wheels by offering the wrong product or service.

Once you’ve rated yourself in all four areas, connect the dots and look at which area scored the lowest. That is your missing piece, and that is where you should start working first. If Attract got a low score, then focus on getting more leads into your pipeline before moving on to anything else. If Nurture got a low score, then work on creating an automated system and emails to keep your prospects engaged. And so on.

By focusing on the area that got the lowest rating, you will be able to start improving your sales process in a targeted way, rather than just randomly trying things out, and start getting more sales quickly. So take some time today to rank yourself in each of the four areas and identify the missing piece in your sales process. For example, in this example, you would need to work on figuring out why you’re having trouble closing sales. Once you’ve figured that out, you can start taking actionable steps to improve your sales process.

Now that you know what your missing piece is, it’s time for you to take action. Create a plan of action and start implementing it today! Taking consistent and focused action will enable you to reach your sales goals faster than ever before. You’ll also have the confidence to move forward with your goals, knowing that you are taking the right steps to success.

Check more info about the 16 Best Social Media Pitch Deck Examples From Well-Known Startups.

Remember: good things don’t come easy, but they are well worth the effort in the end! So go ahead, get started today!