#3 Tips to Increase Sales for Bootstrapped Startups in 2017 One of the most challenging parts of building a company is closing the initial sales and keeping the momentum going.

Bootstrap startups are primarily funded from the entrepreneur's private finances or from the operating revenues of the company. Therefore for scaling up or for diversifying, it is very important to continue a steady flow of revenue. Sales is as important for a bootstrap startup as innovation in products and services. Without a venture capitalist to back them, they have to rely on ingenious ways to sell and market their products or services with affordability in their minds.

One of the most challenging parts of building a company is closing the initial sales and keeping the momentum going. Bootstrap startup cannot afford ebb in their sales as the entire operations of the company are dependent on the revenue generated from it.

Therefore with a goal of easing tensions and maintaining a steady increase in sales, here are the top 3 tips to increase sales for bootstrapped startups:

1)Getting Inside Customer's Head

For a successful sales strategy to work seamlessly, it is important to get into your customer's head. What kind of features will they like? What conferences would they go to? How much will they be willing to pay for your product or services? Will they recommend you to others?

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal. By understanding their thought process and innovating and renovating keeping them in mind will make the sales process a hell lot easier. If your product or services already satisfy a need among the customers, you will have to use less energy in convincing them to buy from you. Treat your customer like Client. When your customer becomes your client, there is a trusted partnership established. You always think about how you can add value to them via your product or services.

Therefore many companies first understand the need and then go forward with new designs or upgrades in their product rather than taking the opposite approach. It has been seen that the former kind is more popular and successful than the latter.

2) Stop Selling: Start Engaging

We always love to talk about our company and our product and services in the hope of increasing sales. But instead of always talking about us, if we focus on engaging with the clients, it will give rich dividends in the end. Remember, you are there to solve THEIR problems. So, start an interactive session with potential clients, listen to their problems and then subtly put forward how you and your startup can help them.

Also, it is critical to focus on the buyer especially with enterprise sales, as the buyer will be different from the user. CRMs are a perfect example to explain this point further. Suppose a product is sold to the Vice president of sales which will be used by the sales team. Now instead of making high level dashboards that will be used by the VP of sales to see how the sales team is doing, you focus totally on making an amazing experience for the sales team, you will find it difficult to find buyers for your product.

3) Create Affiliate partners

A business or a startup cannot grow in isolation. You need stable and dependable partnership to grow to the next level. In order to maintain your customer base and increase it, you need to find a business that helps you with cross promotions,sales and other joint ventures.You should enter into a partnership only if it's mutually beneficial, so make sure you can bring as much to the table as they can.

Find out companies that offer complementary solutions to your prospective clients. Create affiliate partnerships with those companies and provide complete solutions to their clients. So, their clients become your clients and your client becomes their client too. It will be WIN-WIN situation for both of you.