Gerhard Vierthaler, president of the Value Strategy Group (http://www.valuestrategygroup.com , email info@valuestrategygroup.com ) and partner with the Value Forward Network, says that now is the time for businesses to look into strategies & tactics to successfully ride out a looming recession. He further elaborated - “We advise CEO’s and owners on action steps, aligning sales & marketing with business strategy and goals to increase each, maximize marketing ROI, shorten sales cycles and boost top-line revenues.” The Value Forward Network recommends the following 10 action-steps to ride out the current economic downturn:
10 EXECUTIVE RECESSION SUCCESS TIPS THAT YOU CAN
IMPLEMENT RIGHT NOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS!
1. Spend more on marketing for lead generation but force your team to quantify your ROI.
During a recession, many companies cut back on marketing expenditures. This is a strategic mistake. During a recession, marketing is cheaper to buy and lead generation becomes more important because you need to find buyers who are in a buying cycle now. But any investment, including marketing, must have a definable Return on Investment.
2. Don’t blame the sales team.
When sales are down, it is easy to blame the sales team because it’s their job to generate revenue. However, revenue capture is a company responsibility -- not just the sales team. During a stable recovery, there are always buyers who may buy anything because they are flush with cash -- even if they never use your offering in detail, but in an unstable economy, the true value of your product or service is tested and if there are no buyers, it may be that your offering strategy is wrong.
3. Hire slow, terminate fast.
Less professional salespeople move prospects freely between their sales pipeline and their sales forecasts co-mingling who is qualified and who is not qualified and inflate their sales revenue capture success. During a recession, you cannot afford to carry salespeople who are not hunters. During a recession, hire slow and terminate unproductive salespeople fast.
4. Don’t waste marketing expenditures on branding ads.
In the business to business marketplace, branding is hard to quantify. Focus your marketing budgets on tactical marketing programs that can create leads (direct mail, thought leadership educational events, email campaigns, etc.).
5. Make salespeople cold call.
To increase sales success and reduce sales capture costs -- salespeople must cold call new prospects. It is the cheapest and most direct way to find buying prospects.
6. Create new product or service offerings (and packaging) with recession pricing.
To help maintain cash flow, re-name, re-package and re-price your offerings to give your targeted prospects multiple price options to buy from you. Make your prospects choose between your options rather than seek an alternative vendor.
7. Use webinars to reduce travel costs -- and to cut sales steps.
Review your current sales cycle and marketing steps and use webinars on the Internet as a tool to communicate your value three dimensionally. To increase year webinar success, add audio testimonials and customer video to your presentation.
8. Cut travel expenses by having your prospects come to you.
To have your prospects prove to you they are qualified buyers and not professional lookers, make them come to your office to view your offerings. If they are traveling from out of state, reimburse them up to a fixed amount of their first invoice if they buy.
9. Focus on no more than three business industry verticals.
To succeed in a recession times, focus on less industries not more. Don’t chase rainbows, instead more opportunists. To increase your sales success and reduce your sales and marketing costs, verticalize your sales approaches and sell three business markets or less. Horizontal marketing is an antiquated approach to new business capture.
10. Train your sales team better -- invest in your sales team (and your business).
It is estimated that only 14% of companies invest in organized team sales training. Why? Do you believe that your team is too experienced that they cannot learn at least one new sales technique or marketing technique? Do you think that you pay your sales team so much money that they should just know how to sell? Your sales team is part of your company assets and intellectual property. Invest in your sales team and help them sell more.
"A recession is when your neighbor is out of work. A depression is when you are out of work."
