I loved what Chip Connelly, author of the book "Peak", said, "Markets will always be changing. We cannot survive just by taking orders and riding the wave of market growth." In today's market conditions, we have to "identify needs, work with our partners and customers, and solve real problems that give our customers an exceptional value in the offers we make them. We have to give them peak experiences that make them want to come back for more. After all, isn't that why we are in business?"

Here are 10 proven methods for increasing your revenues this year.

1. Know where your revenues are coming from today. Analyze your revenue inflow by market sector, product line, industry, sales area, age group, or gender. Determine the comparative strengths of your product across different market niches.
2. Know your competition and their weaknesses.  Have a compelling differentiator that provides your customers more value.
3. Explore new opportunities, whether new markets or new products or repositioning new brands to serve new voids in the market
4. Choose the customers you want to do business with and make sure they are a profitable segment and not just an easy target to reach.
5. Increase, not decrease your marketing efforts. Never has there been a time when marketing was more important. Businesses have the ability to more easily reach their customers with today's technology and they should be taking advantage of it, whether with social media, online marketing, TV/radio, direct mail, email marketing, advertising, etc.
6. Nurture and motivate your existing customers to give you additional business and referrals.
7. Using all of the above create a marketing plan that can affect and even feed sales. 
8. Develop marketing & sales processes to substantially build your customer base and generate repeat business
9. Make use of every technological advantage possible (marketing automation systems, sales force management/Automation systems, tracking metrics, etc.)
10. Strengthen your sales team.  Hire strong and experienced salespeople, train them well, hold them accountable to their goals and have a compensation plan in place that keeps them motivated.

If you are not doing these things this year, then you are most certainly missing opportunities. See all possibilities as alive. Be proactive by planning and anticipating the needs of your customers, then start executing and moving towards your goals. 

"A sale is not something you pursue; it is what happens to you when you are truly immersed in serving your customer."