How to increase sales: quick wins for small business

Published Saturday 28 February 2026

Table of contents

• Strategies to increase sales
• Quick wins to increase sales
• Increasing sales to existing customers
• Understand your competition
• Review your pricing strategy
• Finding new customers
• Measure and track your sales performance
• Turn sales strategies into results
• FAQs on increasing sales

Key takeaways

• Prioritise selling more to existing customers first, as they cost less to serve and are easier to convert than finding new ones, making each pound spent on customer acquisition deliver bigger returns once you maximise current relationships.
• Remove barriers that make purchasing difficult by streamlining your ordering process, offering multiple payment options, responding to enquiries within hours, and providing flexible billing arrangements like instalments or flat monthly fees.
• Implement strategic pricing based on customer value rather than just cost-plus calculations, as research shows a 5% increase in average selling price can boost earnings by 22% without needing more customers.
• Focus on quick wins like reaching out to dormant customers, optimising website call-to-action buttons, and asking satisfied customers directly for referrals, as these low-cost actions can generate immediate sales results within days or weeks.

Strategies to increase sales

To increase sales, focus on two core strategies: sell more to existing customers, or attract new ones.

Start with existing customers. It's more affordable than finding new ones, and it makes strategic sense, as research shows loyal customers are often less price-sensitive and easier to service. Once you're good at maximising sales to current customers, each new customer becomes worth more. The money you spend on acquisition will deliver a bigger payback.

Quick wins to increase sales

Win quickly with low-effort actions that can boost sales within days or weeks. Start here before investing in longer-term strategies.

Five things you can do this week:

• Review customer feedback: Check recent reviews and respond to any concerns. Addressing issues quickly can recover at-risk customers.
• Reach out to dormant customers: Contact customers who haven't purchased recently with a personalised message or exclusive offer.
• Optimise your website's call-to-action: Make sure visitors know exactly what to do next. Test clearer buttons, simpler forms, or more prominent contact details.
• Email your best customers: Send a targeted message to your top spenders with early access to new products or a loyalty discount.
• Update your Google Business profile: Add recent photos, respond to reviews, and ensure your hours and contact details are accurate.

These actions require minimal investment but can generate immediate results.

Increasing sales to existing customers

Sell more to existing customers as the most cost-effective way to grow revenue. These customers already trust you, so the barrier to purchase is lower.

Focus on two things: make it easy for them to buy, and build deeper relationships that encourage repeat business.

Reduce barriers to buying

Reduce barriers to buy by removing anything that makes it difficult for customers to purchase. Look at your process from the customer's perspective and identify friction points.

Make ordering easier:

• Answer calls and return messages promptly.
• Send quotes within 24 hours.
• Offer online ordering for convenience.
• Set up standing orders for customers with recurring needs.
• Provide multiple payment options at checkout.

Make billing friendlier:

• Offer flat monthly fees for customers who prefer cost certainty.
• Allow instalment payments for big-ticket items.
• Use Xero's invoicing software to automate flexible billing options.

Sales promotions

Sales promotions are short-term incentives designed to encourage purchases. Use them strategically, as simply discounting cuts into your margins and can threaten how much profit you make. For a product with a 30% margin, a 10% discount requires you to increase sales by 50% just to maintain the same level of profit.

Smarter promotion types include:

• Bundle: Offer "buy this, get that for half price" deals. The discount applies only to part of the bundle, so you attract higher spend while protecting margins.
• Loyalty discounts: Reward repeat customers with exclusive pricing. The ongoing sales these generate offset the discount cost.

Cross-selling and upselling

Cross-sell by promoting related products alongside what customers are already buying. Upsell by promoting upgraded or premium versions of the same product.

Ways to cross-sell effectively:

• Place related items together on shelves or displays.
• Add "frequently bought together" suggestions on your website.
• Build recommendations into your sales scripts.
• Offer bundle discounts on complementary items.

Learn more in our guide Upselling techniques to increase revenue.

Expand your range of products or services

Expand your range to give customers more reasons to buy from you. Here's how to identify opportunities:

Research what to add:

• Ask customers what else they need from you.
• Study competitors to find gaps in your offering.
• Consult suppliers about complementary products.

Consider both goods and services:

• Add services to products: offer installation, training, or maintenance.
• Add products to services: a hairdresser sells haircare products; a web agency sells analytics tools.

Repackage your existing offer:

• Rename or reframe products for different customer segments.
• Target new markets with the same offering (a chocolate maker becomes a restaurant supplier).

Learn more in our guide Launching new products.

Improve customer service and experience

Excellent customer service drives customers to purchase again and refer others. Customers who feel valued spend more and recommend you to others.

Ways to improve customer experience:

• Respond quickly: Answer enquiries within hours, not days. Speed signals that you value their business.
• Make it easy to get help: Provide multiple contact options and clear information about how to reach you. A 2024 survey found that for nearly one in five customer contacts, finding the right contact information was difficult or impossible.
• Ask for feedback: Regularly check in with customers about their experience and act on what you learn.
• Fix problems fast: When things go wrong, resolve issues quickly and generously. A well-handled complaint can create a more loyal customer than no problem at all.
• Remember details: Track customer preferences and purchase history to personalise future interactions.

Good service costs less than acquiring new customers and delivers compounding returns through loyalty and word-of-mouth.

Build stronger customer relationships

Market through relationships to build long-term customer connections that drive repeat business. Instead of one-off transactions, you create ongoing engagement that keeps customers coming back.

Effective relationship-building tactics include:

• Build mailing lists: Create email lists or social media groups for regular communication.
• Send newsletters: Share useful tips, news, and occasional promotions weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
• Run loyalty programmes: Offer members advance access, exclusive discounts, or rewards.
• Host events: Organise product launches, information evenings, or exhibitions to deepen connections.

Understand your competition

Analyse your competition to identify opportunities, refine your pricing, and communicate what makes your business different. When you know what competitors offer, you can position your unique value.

Research your competitors

Start by understanding what you're up against:

• Visit competitor websites and note their pricing, products, and messaging.
• Read their customer reviews to identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Sign up for their emails to see how they communicate with customers.
• Ask your customers why they chose you over alternatives.

Identify your competitive advantage

Your competitive advantage is what you do better or differently than others. It might be:

• Price: You offer better value or premium quality at a higher price point.
• Service: You provide faster delivery, better support, or more personalised attention.
• Specialisation: You focus on a specific niche that generalists don't serve well.
• Convenience: You make buying easier through location, hours, or online options.

Use insights to refine your strategies

Apply what you learn about competitors to sharpen your approach:

• Adjust pricing based on market positioning.
• Emphasise your advantages in marketing messages.
• Fill gaps that competitors leave unaddressed.
• Track competitor changes and respond strategically.

Xero's analytics and reporting help you benchmark your performance and spot trends in your own data.

Review your pricing strategy

Price strategically to directly impact both sales volume and how much profit you make. Research shows that increasing your average selling price by 5% increases earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) by 22% on average, highlighting how getting pricing right can increase revenue without requiring more customers.

When to adjust your prices

Consider raising prices when:

• Your costs have increased significantly.
• Demand exceeds your capacity to deliver.
• Competitors charge more for similar offerings.
• You've added value through improved products or service.

Consider lowering prices when:

• You need to increase volume to cover fixed costs.
• You're entering a new market and need to build share.
• Competitors have undercut you significantly.

Value-based pricing vs. cost-plus pricing

Two common approaches to setting prices:

• Cost-plus pricing: Calculate your costs and add a markup percentage. This is simple but ignores what customers are willing to pay.
• Value-based pricing: Set prices based on the value customers receive. This approach often supports higher margins, but research shows only a minority of companies (between 15%–20%) actually base their prices on customer value, suggesting you need to deeply understand how customers perceive value.

Most businesses benefit from value-based thinking, even if they start with cost-plus calculations.

Pricing psychology

Small changes to how you present prices can influence buying decisions:

• Prices ending in .99 or .97 appear lower than round numbers.
• Showing the original price alongside a discount emphasises value.
• Offering three options (basic, standard, premium) guides customers toward the middle choice.
• Bundling items together can make the total feel like better value.

Test different approaches to see what works for your customers.

Finding new customers

Find new customers to expand your revenue beyond your current base. Once you've maximised sales to existing customers, attracting new ones becomes the next growth lever.

This typically requires you to invest more than strategies to retain customers, so prioritise it after you've optimised your existing customer relationships.

Expand your presence online and offline

Expand your presence to put your business in front of new audiences. You can grow physically, digitally, or both.

Grow your physical presence:

Expanding physically requires capital but exposes your brand to new local markets. Start small to manage costs:

• Share workshop or office space with another business.
• Open a pop-up shop to test demand.
• Partner with a complementary business in a new area.

Grow your online presence:

Expanding digitally typically costs less and removes geographic limits:

• Open an e-commerce store to reach customers anywhere.
• Set up remote service delivery for professional services.
• Optimise your website for conversions with clear calls-to-action.
• Build an email list to nurture potential customers.
• Collect and display customer reviews for social proof.

Broaden your marketing

Broaden your marketing to reach potential customers through new channels and messages.

Experiment with digital marketing:

Test low-cost digital channels to see what works for your business:

• Try social media advertising with a small budget.
• Experiment with search marketing to capture active buyers.
• Track results to identify which channels deliver the best return.

Tap into word-of-mouth:

Getting customers to refer others is one of the most effective and affordable marketing channels. For example, a 2022 survey of professional services buyers found that 48% cited word of mouth as the reason they first instructed their current adviser.

• Ask satisfied customers directly to recommend you.
• For business-to-business (B2B) services, tell clients you're looking for more customers like them.
• Build requests for referrals into your standard sales process.
• Consider offering incentives for referrals once you've tested the free approach.

Test new audiences:

Expand your target market by reaching adjacent customer groups:

• A web services provider for small businesses might target sports clubs or charities.
• A commercial kitchen supplier might open sales to households.

Expand your product or service range

Expand your product or service range to attract entirely new customer segments, not just increase sales to existing ones.

Before expanding:

• Identify where your existing skills could serve new markets.
• Calculate the true cost of development, production, and marketing.
• Pilot new offerings before committing to permanent changes.

For detailed guidance on researching and launching new products, see the section above on expanding your range.

Measure and track your sales performance

Measure and track sales performance to ensure your strategies deliver real results. You can't improve what you don't measure.

Calculate the cost of sales strategies:

Every sales initiative has costs. Track both types:

• Capital expenses: New equipment, physical locations, website development.
• Operating expenses: Additional inventory, freight, marketing spend, sales commissions.

Monitor your profit margins:

To increase sales means nothing if you lose money on each sale. Watch your margins closely:

• Calculate how pricing changes affect your margin.
• Ensure any discounting generates enough extra volume to offset the lower margin.
• Track whether increased costs are eating into how much profit you make.

Track key sales metrics:

Monitor these figures to understand what's working:

• Revenue growth rate: Are sales actually increasing?
• Customer acquisition cost: How much does each new customer cost you?
• Customer lifetime value: How much does each customer spend over time?
• Conversion rates: What percentage of leads become customers?
• Sales by channel: Which channels deliver the best results?

Xero's analytics makes tracking these metrics straightforward.

Turn sales strategies into results

To increase sales, treat it as an ongoing process, not a one-time fix. The most effective approach combines multiple strategies:

• Start with existing customers: Lower cost, faster results.
• Understand your competition: Position your unique value.
• Expand to new customers: Scale what's already working.
• Measure everything: Track what delivers results and refine your approach.

The key is to free up enough time to focus on growing rather than day-to-day admin. Xero automates how you invoice, reconcile, and report so you can spend more time on strategies that drive sales.

Get one month free and see how much simpler managing your business can be.

FAQs on increasing sales

Small business owners often have practical questions about implementing sales strategies. Here are answers to some of the most common ones.

Which sales strategy should I focus on first?

Start with strategies for existing customers. They cost less to implement and deliver faster results than acquiring new customers.

How long does it take to see results from sales strategies?

Quick wins like reaching out to customers and adjusting pricing can show results within days or weeks. Longer-term strategies like expanding into markets or developing products typically take several months.

What are the 7 steps of selling skills?

The seven steps are: prospect, qualify leads, present your offer, handle objections, close the sale, follow up, and ask for referrals. Master this process to convert more leads into customers.

How can I increase sales with a limited budget?

Focus on low-cost tactics: improve customer service, ask for referrals, optimise your website, send targeted emails to existing customers, and build your social media presence organically.

How do I know if my sales strategies are working?

Track metrics like revenue growth, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost, and customer lifetime value. Use software like Xero to monitor performance in real time and adjust your approach based on data.