Planning in an economic downturn
7 Oct 2008
I just received a printed Newsletter from a large firm of accountants. The headline was: ‘Planning in an economic downturn.’ Here is a summary of their words of wisdom which I put into the category of SOBS (statements of the bloody obvious).
1 – Ensure people pay on time
2 – Maintain customer loyalty with selected discounts and loyalty cards
3 – Beware of cutting prices ( a contradiction to 2)
4 - Don’t skimp on marketing – you may have to do more.
5 – Look after your employees and try to retain the key ones.
6 – Plan ahead.
If you needed to be told that, you probably shouldn’t be in business and wouldn’t be in business anyway, irrespective of an economic downturn.
I’m currently working with a brilliant man who I have worked with in the past and we are creating a new workshop which will REALLY help salespeople and business owners – irrespective of size, to capitalise on this economic downturn. We’ll be sending out details of this later in the year. In the meantime, here’s a brief summary of just a few of the many ideas that we shall be working with the delegates on. Start thinking about how you could develop these now.
Develop your ‘You’ll never guess what they did’ strategy – see last week’s BLOG.
Get as much PR as you can. In good times it’s not so easy to get your ‘good news’ in the press. In tough times the press are looking for some good news. So no matter how tough things might be for you, send out press releases announcing every piece of good news you can dream up. So, for example, even if you did make several staff redundant but you hired in one more person with some new expertise – tell the world your company is still recruiting! Your potential customers want to deal with successful businesses who they think are going to be around in the future.
Put yourself ruthlessly in your customer’s shoes. Now is the time to really understand their PAIN and demonstrate the ways you may be able to solve it for them. A catchphrase springs to mind – ‘bring us your problems and we’ll deliver you the solutions’.
Go after the BIG FISH. Now is the time to target the largest companies that have the biggest budgets and could me the most profitable for you. Most of your competitors are going to be sitting around brainstorming excuses for why they can’t make sales.
Have FUN with your customers and potential customers. Cheer them up! Just imagine you were in the market for a piece of equipment or a specific service and you had two potential suppliers, each with the identical product or service and at the identical price. One of the reps is cheerful, makes you laugh and is pleasant to be around. The other is dull – even miserable, and boring to deal with. Which one would you buy from?
Finally - help your salespeople to sell more. Yes – I’m talking about sales training. If you need help with this, you know where to come.