As I speak to many of my colleagues around the country, they are all lamenting the softness in their sales “…cause the economy sucks.” Indeed, the news this week from Wall Street was precedent-setting: two giant brokerage firms and the largest insurance underwriter in the world “on the brink.” Despite the subsequent government bailout, the effects of these and similar economic issues will be felt by consumers and businesses in the US for many months to come.
During my foodservice career, I had to lead my organization thru several recessions and economic slowdowns. It always perturbed me when one of my sales people (or worse yet, a manager) would tell me his sales were off “because of the bad economy.” I always prided myself on being a compassionate manager, but using the economy over and over as an excuse just wouldn’t cut it with me. As one of my early mentors always used to say, “I didn’t ask you WHAT the problem was, I asked you WHAT you were going to do about it!”
In turbulent times, one needs to be even more proactive, focused, and targeted than normal. Tough times can even provide opportunity and advantage because customers will be looking for only the best suppliers. Suppliers that have a proven track record, suppliers that offer solid value propositions.
So if you’ve done your homework, built long lasting relationships with your customers, and have a clear view of your company’s value proposition, you will have a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Now is the time to leverage that advantage. There is a good possibility that your competitor’s sales organization will be nervous --- and perhaps easing off a little --- so your opportunities to obtain extra share is even better than normal.
Some basic principles to use to guide you might be:
- Remind your sales team of the basic “best practices” that served them in the past
- Discuss and understand your company’s role and value in the market place
- Develop or refine your individual territory action plans based on current conditions
- Renew some training and development exercises to keep everyone sharp and focused
- Create territory plans which target accounts based on potential for long-term growth
- Create your own change by being alert to market and industry trends
So it’s NOT the economy, stupid…it could be YOU! And that’s something you DO have control over…