Find a New Way to Listen

When sales fall flat, it could be a sign that your customers aren’t feeling any urgency to buy. It could also mean that they aren’t finding what they need from you. Maybe it means that prices in your industry have fallen, and you haven’t kept pace. You could guess at any number of root causes for trailing sales, but there’s a better route than guesswork: listening to your customers. They’ll often tell you why they aren’t buying if you give them a chance, so make it easy for them to use those lines of communication.

Establish a stronger social media presence and ask for feedback regularly. Include polls in your newsletters, on your blog and on the front page of your static website. Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn are outstanding ways to listen to your customers; take the time to pay attention to what they’re pinning, and you’ll understand more about the forces moving your market.