If you want your business to make more profit this year than it did the last, you need strategies in place that boost sales. At its core, sales is all about building relationships with people, whereby you solve a problem or fulfil a need of theirs. This relationship requires trust, communication and the ability to relate to others easily.

You can build more relationships and strengthen existing ones by demonstrating your expertise, asking your customers questions and telling the story that makes your company unique and trustworthy. By expanding your online reach and offline network, you attract more paying customers. And, those people will recommend your product or service, and even draw in potential partners that can provide more lucrative opportunities.

1. Create Useful Content that Demonstrates Your Expertise

Whether you’re offering a product or providing a service, you need to show potential customers that you’re more knowledgeable than they are about the problem you’re solving and the solution you’re providing. Creating helpful, educational content for potential customers to consume proves to them you have the expertise required to meet their needs. If you’ve been able to help someone through an instructional how-to article or video, they know you’ll be able to help them when they buy your product or pay for your service.

2. Engage with Customers and Ask Questions

Making sales shouldn’t be a one-way transaction. In order to supercharge your sales, you need to build a 2-way relationship with your customer base. Communication is key in any relationship. Ask questions to understand their needs so you can better serve them and pitch sales that reflect their specific problems. Maintain the relationship by following up with customers and asking how your product or service worked out for them. This relationship provides you a feedback loop you can use to consistently improve your products and refine your marketing strategies.

3. Build Your Online Community

More than ever, people make buying decisions based on what they see online. It’s important you’re present on social media, as it’s a great platform to build your relationship with your customer base. However, email marketing can solidify that relationship by making your messages feel more personal to your audience. You can use social media to drive people onto your email list, where you can build trust by providing helpful content and pitch sales in a cost-effective way.+

4. Expand Your Offline Network

Relationships are critical for building a stronger customer base, but they tend to be stronger when they’re built face to face instead of via email or social media. Though online networks are imperative, even in the current age of the Internet every business owner and salesperson must gain a sense for offline relationship building. Best-selling author of “The Seventh Sense”—a business book about networking and building relationships—Joshua Cooper Ramo builds buzz around his books and personal brand by providing his expertise at conferences and doing speaking engagements around the globe. You can grow your network at every function you attend by following up with the connections you make and getting people on your email list.

Bottom Line

The key to growing your sales is growing your reputation. For lasting success, building strong relationships with your customer base is more important than making an easy sale. The more you invest in engaging with your target customer and existing ones, the better you can serve them. You can maximise this engagement by growing your online and offline networks, demonstrating your expertise through helpful web and mobile content and asking your audience questions.