How to Keep Sales Strong in a Tough Economy

Right now, a lot of people are really concerned about what’s happening in the economy and how it’s going to affect their business and the truth is, they have a right to be concerned but we want to do with sales people is we want to make sure we’re ahead of the game, not behind the game. So we’re going to talk about some proactive strategies that you can do to make sure that your sales stay up even though the economy is tanking.

Number one, first thing I want you to do is look at your client base. If you have too many eggs in one basket, you may be in for trouble. So diversify your client base. It’s really important. I personally have had that problem myself when I had two large corporate clients and Wall Street spoke to them and said, “Thou shalt cut your expenditures.” And suddenly, I was out of work. So I’m recommending that number one and foremost.

Number two, I want you to sharpen your value proposition. If you can’t clearly articulate the business difference that you’re making for a client, they have no reason to move ahead. And remember, during this time when the economy’s in turmoil, what you need to do is have a strong business reason, a business justification about why they should spend money today versus putting it in some other part of their business.

Number three, go look after lost prospects, the ones that have disappeared into the black hole. People you haven’t heard from for a while. Those are people who are interested in your product or your service at one point and probably still have some reason to talk with you again. So pull them out of the black hole; give them some reason to talk with you; share some more good informational content about how you could make a difference in their organization and they’ll be interested again. I know they’ll be interested again.