In 2017, Lisa Gapen had a conundrum she wanted to address, a common one among companies in all industries: finding a way to increase overall sales dollars while boosting productivity and efficiency. So the owner of AIA-affiliated Generate Sales & Marketing Solutions took advantage of the data available to her, tapping into the power of the AIA back office dashboard to track daily sales numbers and total gross profit percentages, with a particular focus on average order sizes.

“We believed that increasing the average order size would result in more overall sales dollars without giving ourselves an additional workload,” says Gapen.

Over a period of 12 months, the team looked at the numbers almost daily and then did deeper dives at monthly team meetings, using their findings to set new monthly goals. During that year, striving to meet those goals did in fact result in a steady increase in order size.

“Being aware of the data and accountable for the goals helped with add-on sales and the likelihood that we would pitch additional options, like full-color or packaging,” says Gapen. “The open discussion taught our whole team new and better ways to increase individual sales, and we became much more comfortable with presenting higher-cost items and add-ons.”

In the months following, the strategy has remained in place and Generate’s sales reps now always provide upgrades as client options.

“We reached our individual and team goals for increased sales last year and also managed to increase the size of our average order value by 10%,” says Gapen. “While our average order value has stabilized, we’re now seeing the revenue from repeat sales.”

They’ve also been better able to communicate to clients the worth of going with higher-end products and add-ons. “More clients now understand the value of moving up a class on products or asking about additional options,” she says. “The end result is not only in the numbers, but also in our clients seeing us as the source for better ideas and service, as opposed to simply price-shopping.”