Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. –Mark Twain
Are you sitting around saying ‘poor is me’… the sky is falling? Are your sales down as a salesperson or is your company missing their corporate revenue forecasts?
If so, what are you going to do about it?
As a CEO, you can blame the sales or marketing team or say it’s just the economy. As a salesperson, you can hang-out in your home office waiting for inbound buyer calls or leads from the marketing department.
Or you can do something different. You can take action. You can adjust or change your business model to meet the demands of our fluctuating worldwide economy.
7 Action Steps You Can Take Right Now to Increase Your Business Success During a COVID19 Economy
- Don’t Discount… Add Value. Often during a difficult revenue capture time, companies start discounting their suggested retail price to increase sales. This is mistake. Don’t discount… instead add value. Take existing products and services you sell or create something new and add it to your current offering as a package. Why? Because when you add a new offering to your prospect’s existing offer — the value to the buyer is at retail, yet your expense is lower because you only absorb the cost of goods. When you discount dollars off the top, this is true net-net discount in dollars off your bottom line.
- Hunt Now or Be Eaten Later! Are you having a problem finding prospects to sell? Stop waiting for them. Start cold calling, going to virtual network events and asking for more referrals from your existing clients. The world is full of placid management teams who live off of their recurring revenue streams, investor’s cash or one large client that generates 20% or more of their annual revenue. If you wait in a slow economy, you will be eaten.
- Repackage, Rename and Resell. To create new prospect interest in what you sell, develop new products and services or repackage what you sell and give it a new name or a new price. Create a combo package or product or service offering that is delivered over a longer time period making it easier for your prospect to buy. Be different.
- Enter a New Business Vertical. If the current business vertical (industry) you sell is not buying, find another business vertical to sell. Don’t hang on to industries that don’t generate revenue. Even in bad economies, there are always industries that are growing. Find them and survive.
- Offer Cash-Flow Investment Options. If buyers can’t afford what you sell, change your pricing approach — develop alternative pricing options. Create a light version that is less money. Develop a monthly program and call it a cash-flow investment plan.
- Stop Being Cheap. When revenue capture gets difficult, management teams (and salespeople) sometimes get cheap. This makes no sense. If you need more business and what you are doing is not working, stop being cheap and invest in ways to change that outcome. Does your business need more leads? Then spend more money on marketing. Does your senior management team need a new business success direction? Then invest in CEO coaching. Are you a salesperson who is struggling with sales? Then spend money on some sales education and training. In a bad economy, if you don’t change the action steps you do now, you are going to get the same results. Even the best professional athletes have coaches — how come you don’t?
- Take Action. Stressing about the economy is waste of time. Action is the key word in managing a slowing buyer market. Those who wait will think too much about their current situation, stress more and get stuck in a canyon of non-activity.
Strategy is important;
But action is better!
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