Selling Strategies in a Weak Economy

Time to take the gloves off – this is no longer a gentleman's fight.

B to B or B to C, the story is the same – people are spending less in large part due to the economy, but also because they are not given enough reasons to spend. So, what's your new angle? What's your new strategy? What's your plan to keep the pipeline full?

If you're starting to feel like a dog chasing a parked car, here are a few ideas to help you win more business:
  1. Segment your customer and prospect database into two categories:
    • Tipping point – These are prospects and customers who are on the edge of making a purchase decision. Either they haven't been given a strong reason to buy from you, or they don't have the belief or confidence that what you are selling them will make their lives easier and/or improve their current situation. Buyers loathe the "Are you ready to buy yet?" calls, so if you posture your sales calls with insight on your prospects' industry or competitor(s) that sparks an engaging conversation, the transition into making a sale will become much easier.
    • Good fit – These are the prospects you genuinely believe would benefit from your products and/or services. Send them an email with a great reason to talk to you, and soon. Be prepared to tell them how you will make their lives easier, more enjoyable or more efficient, and then tell them again.
  2. Review and study how you acquired your last 10-12 customers. Look for patterns, what pushed them over the edge to buy, and document why they chose to do business with you. Take that intelligence and then define your renewed new business process.
  3. Become a source of information. Write a white paper or a blog. Update your website with rich content and make it interactive. Do surveys and post the results online. Offer insight on your prospect's industry and the trends that are affecting his or her industry. Host a webinar or offer a training program. Look for opportunities to become branded as an expert, and sales will be much easier to make. Need help? Contact us.
I think you’'ve picked up on a theme here – merely calling or emailing to "follow up" doesn't work anymore. People will call you and buy from you when they are good and ready, but until they are, you need to be in front of them building their confidence and giving them lots of reasons to buy. Tell them once, tell them again, and then tell them what you told them.

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Want to Sell More? Get to Know Your Competitors!

Have you ever really "stalked" your competition to see what they're up to? Discovered what they are selling, read their news releases, reviewed their annual reports, read any messages from the CEO, picked up on their key messages, followed their growth patterns or analyzed their unique brand proposition? Have you saved copies of ads they have run, announcements they have made or feature stories that have been published? Have you ever Googled them to find comments, reviews or blogs?

Which company or competitor do you envy because they seem to be winning a lot of business, or because they seem to have a great marketing and public relations machine that keeps them in the forefront? Or because they are the ones with the secret sauce?

If competitor stalking is something that you've wondered about doing, there may be no better time to do it than now. To make things really interesting, throw your own company into the mix and treat yourself as your own competitor. It will be a great way to see how and where you measure up. Remember that when you do this, what's not important is the destination; rather, it is the journey – you will start to think in ways you may not have thought in a while, and you will probably get some great ideas for yourself as you dig deeper and deeper. Write those thoughts and ideas down.

Next step? Organize the data you find and share the intelligence with key people in your organization. You may find that you're in a much better position than you originally thought, or you may find that you need to make some swift changes. You may discover that there is an opportunity to serve an underserved market, or that others' weaknesses could become your strengths. Let the information serve as a platform for positive change and then commit to it. Far too many company leaders get excited about making positive change, and then days later the enthusiasm fades as they get wrapped up in all these little day-to-day distractions. Don't let this happen to you.

One more thing – when you have all this information at your fingertips, make sure to appoint someone to keep it up to date. If you don't, much of what was once valuable becomes almost meaningless. A lot of things can happen in a month, three months, six months or a year.

Stay tight to your competition.

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Self Help or Business Help?

If you've ever read the book "Now, Discover Your Strengths," there was an opening thought which reads, "The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences. It must watch for clues to each employee's natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths."

I think there is a real parallel here to how companies should market and differentiate themselves. We must not forget that companies are made up of people, and within groups of people there are often times hidden and untapped strengths that could serve as a unique brand proposition, once discovered. Question: When was the last time you, or the leaders of your company, really, genuinely got to know what drives the key players in your organization? What motivates them? What are they passionate about, and how can this knowledge be leveraged to make you different from everyone else?

If you're struggling to discover what is really unique about your organization, and if you have difficulty answering the question "Why should we choose your company?" in a sales environment, look to the strengths of the people who work for you and with you. You're already investing in them in that they are on your payroll, so my challenge to you is to discover how you can increase your return on that investment. If you discover where people's innate strengths are, and then nurture them and develop those strengths, you will become a stronger company, you will create greater value for your customers, and there will be yet another reason to do business with you.

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