Plan Your Sales Day 3

The Resilient Retail Club Members Podcast

Catherine Erdly [00:00:00]:

Welcome back to the plan. Your sales 2024 challenge. Today is all about narrowing down your list of ideas. Of course, yesterday was fabulous, and I love the process of coming up with all of those different ideas, but it can feel overwhelming and intimidating when you think about trying to squeeze all of those into 2024. What I'd love you to do is instead focus in on five tasks or five ideas that you're going to explore in detail in 2024. The next question you might have is, well, where do I even start? How do I pick which five of these 25 that I should really be going for? Well, I usually suggest looking at things in two different ways. The first thing is, what did you feel really excited about when you wrote on this list? Did you look at it and think, wow, yes, I've always wanted to do more PR. I would love to see my products in the press.

Catherine Erdly [00:00:52]:

This is definitely one I'm going to feel excited about, or maybe wholesale. You think to yourself, I can't wait to walk into my local store and see my products sitting there on the shelf. That would be a real plus for this year. Or maybe if you're a bricks and mortar owner, you think, actually, is this the year? I go for a second or a third or a fourth store? So start there. Look at what you're drawn towards, and it will be different things for different people, but make sure you've got at least one or two things that are in there just purely based on excitement. And that's really key for me. The key to running your own business is keep doing things that you enjoy and that you get too excited about because it's going to be really hard, and very soon you'll stop enjoying running a business at all if you end up doing lots of things that you don't enjoy. So, number one, things that you're really drawn to, number two, what's going to really move the needle in your business? Now, of course, it's not always easy to know that until you get started, but there are probably some tasks in there which are, for example, redoing your website that you know are in fact going to have a significant impact on your sales.

Catherine Erdly [00:01:59]:

For example, if you could improve your conversion rate from one to 2%, you could be effectively doubling your sales. So you know, that's going to be a really big project. Might take you all year, but it should definitely be on your list of things to focus on. You probably want a little bit of a mix, fun ones. Then these bigger, longer weightier tasks that are really going to push your business forward. Once you've done that, take your time and whittle them down. Once you've got your final five, the next thing I'd like you to do is try and put a sales number against that idea. Now, this is often where people get really stumped or they feel overwhelmed.

Catherine Erdly [00:02:34]:

The idea of trying to figure out how much money is going to generate is really tricky. My best advice is don't overthink it. As long as you come up with a logical answer, that's the best any of us can do. None of us can see the future. But again, if you're talking about improving your website conversion from one to 2%, you know, that's doubling your web sales. So you could put a number on that. If you want to start wholesale, you might tell yourself, right, for me, I'd love to get five stockists by the end of the year. Let's say each one of those places, three orders each.

Catherine Erdly [00:03:07]:

And I'm going to guess that my average order on wholesale might be 100 pounds or 200 pounds. Whatever it is, as long as you've got some kind of logic where you can see how you built that number up, that's the most important thing. So those are your tasks for today. Whittle down your list of 25 to your top five. And once you've looked at those top five, put a number against it. Now, if you do this and you think, actually, that really isn't generating much cash, I think I might have accidentally just picked things that are fun and interesting, but maybe won't move things forward, then feel free to go back and pick something else that you think will make more of a difference. But really, today is all about selecting your five and putting a number against it. Ready for us to come up with your sales plan tomorrow.

Catherine Erdly [00:03:52]:

And of course, once you've completed this exercise, do come back into the group and comment on today's post. Let us know how it went for you. Let us know if you feel like sharing which ones you've selected. Please do. I'd love to hear them. And just tell us how you found today's task. If you're struggling with this, you're wondering how to put numbers us on certain things, then do please ask a question on the Ask Me Anything post or come join us at twelve when I'll be going live to talk through all of your questions in more detail. See you then.

Catherine Erdly [00:04:22]:

Bye.