Picture this: your company just launched a brand new product that is supposed to be a game-changer for your business. Not only is the product innovative, but it answers a direct need your customers have and your company is planning for it to be a hit with buyers and stakeholders.
But how do you know how well your product is performing? Chances are, you have a set of sales metrics and KPIs that you review on a regular basis to track business performance. However, just looking at dollars coming in from sales revenue may not tell you the whole story about how your products are truly performing in the market.
That’s where measuring sales volume comes in.
Sales volume measures how many units of a product your company sells during a specific reporting period. On its own, sales volume doesn’t break down how much revenue your company is bringing in from product sales. However, understanding your sales volume can tell you what products are and aren’t selling, which is valuable information for business growth.
Let’s discuss how to measure this important metric.
How to Measure Sales Volume
As I said earlier, sales volume does not account for the monetary value sales brings into the company. It is solely a measure of how many units your company was able to move during a given time period.
For example, if you work for a supplement company that sells 1,000 units of multivitamins during Q2, your sales volume of multivitamins for that period would be 1,000. If during Q3 your company sells 1,250 units of multivitamins, you could then report a sales volume increase of 25% for this product.
Continuing this example, if your company’s total sales volume for all products during Q2 was 5,000 total units, then your multivitamins would account for 20% of your overall sales volume because multivitamin sales account for 1,000 out of the total 5,000 units sold.
If during Q3 your company experienced slightly lower overall sales and only moved 4,500 total units across product lines, your multivitamins would account for 28% of your total sales volume. This information is beneficial because it shows buyers are interested in purchasing your multivitamins even when other product sales are down — which could help drive future strategy.
Your company can choose to measure sales volume by individual product units, or entire cases of product. The time period can vary as well, and can be measured on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis.
Now that you understand what sales volume is and why it matters, let’s discuss strategies to increase sales volume for your business.
1. Know the key qualities and differentiators of your product.
When you’re looking to increase sales volume, you’re essentially looking to move more units of your product off of your shelf. To do this, you need to have a rock-solid understanding of your product’s key features and differentiating properties. Questions to consider:
- What separates your product from the competition?
- If a customer sees your product on a shelf next to several others that serve a similar purpose, what does your product provide that the others don’t?
- If you only had 60 seconds to convince someone to buy your product, what would you say? What main features would you highlight?
Let the answers to those questions guide how you describe your product to prospective customers.
2. Keep customer benefits front-and-center.
Anyone in the buyer’s seat of a transaction has one main question — "what’s in it for me?" When someone is looking to make a purchase, they want to know what they are receiving in exchange for their time and money.
Above, we broke down why you need to understand the key qualities and differentiators of your product. Once that is done, identify ways you can present those qualities to speak to how the customer will directly benefit. Ultimately, customers want to make purchases that will save them time, or improve their quality of life in some way. When you present your products from this perspective, you can provide a more compelling case to the customer as to why they need to buy your product.
3. Thoroughly qualify your prospects.
Are you sure you’re selling to the right prospects to begin with? If you notice your sales volume is declining or seems sluggish, it could be a good indication that you need to refresh key aspects of your sales process — and ensuring you’re selling to the right people is a good place to start.
When qualifying prospects, you want to reach those who are the best fit for your product, and are most likely to make a purchase. Pushing for the sale from the wrong people can be a frustrating endeavor that can hurt your sales efforts.
As you go through the qualification process, ask insightful, pointed questions to determine if that particular prospect is a good fit. Check out this post for top-notch sales qualification questions.
4. Understand your customer’s pain points.
When you’re working towards the sale, you’re ultimately looking to pair your customers with products that can act as a solution to a problem they’re experiencing.
However, to be successful at this, you have to know what problem the customer is experiencing. When you understand what pain points your customer is experiencing, you can draw parallels between their challenges and why your product is the right solution.
5. Work closely with your marketing team.
In addition to thoroughly qualifying your prospects and making sure you understand their pain points, maintaining alignment with your marketing team to ensure the right leads are being brought into the pipeline is also essential.
Additionally, if you have specific sales volume goals, make sure you share them with your marketing team. When your marketing team knows what products you want to focus on selling and why, they are able to create content and relevant material to support your goals.
6. Focus on improving sales velocity.
Insert cringeworthy-but-true phrase here: time is money. I know, I cringe every time I hear it. But in sales, this phrase rings true.
Sales velocity is the measurement of how fast you can move prospects through your sales pipeline to generate revenue. The faster you are able to do this, the more potential customers you can reach. By increasing sales velocity, you can potentially reach more customers which can positively impact your sales volume.
7. Re-assign your sales territories.
If your sales team relies on territory management as part of your strategy, you may want to take a look at how your territories are assigned to ensure you have your strongest sellers assigned to territories or accounts that have the most sales potential.
8. Motivate and incentivize your sales reps.
Depending on your organization’s compensation structure, providing monetary incentives to sales reps can inspire them to move more product. If revising your compensation structure isn’t an option at the moment, you can consider other ways to boost sales rep morale such as creating a sales volume leaderboard and recognizing top-performers through friendly competition.
9. Implement customer rewards.
While we’re on the topic of incentives, seeking ways to incentivize your customers can also be worthwhile. Whether you offer discounts for customers who purchase multiple products at once, or reward customers who refer other buyers with affiliate commission or other incentives, your existing customers can be a fantastic resource for driving sales volume.
10. Focus on top buyers.
When it comes to driving sales, prioritization is everything. Take a look at how you and your reps are spending their time. Are the top accounts — those that are likely to buy in greater amounts or on a repeated basis — being made a priority?
Identify those who are more likely to make larger or repeat purchases and keep efforts to convert and retain these customers a priority for your team.
Understanding how your products are performing can provide valuable insight that can ultimately create more sales for your company. Head to this post for a list of essential sales metrics to measure the health of your business.
