Don’t Cut Prices

So we are still in a down turned economy. Did you think that we would just bounce back out of this thing and go on our merry way? The world has changed. Some for the good, some for the bad. But it has changed, forever.

If you have been reading this blog you might has seen a trend about not worrying about sales but more about market share. I still hold true to that idea.

Some of the most effective sales departments are now adjusting there approaches with solid (collected) data, disciplined analysis and systematic selling to focus their selling efforts and keep more of the customers they want. The key is a numbers driven approach to boosting up the effectiveness of your sales organization.

So what do you do?

1) Target Your Offerings. Which customers are the strong ones and will keep buying even in a recession? Which prospects should you be focusing on to get and go after. Once you identify those highly desirable prospects you can create a map for your success to use as a guide for your sales efforts.

2) Optimized tools and your procedures. Recession cycles are always longer than you want or expect. But with discipline and an ever increasing pipeline you can improve your win rations. Using systemic channeling of leads funneled down to your sales reps with detailed account information and solid tracking CRM tools you can predict a customer’s readiness to purchase even in this current recession.

3) Performance management. Territories and quotas that might have made since last year might not be realistic today. Maybe you need to redesign your territories and reset your quotas in today’s world.

4) Sales resource deployment. Measure the time your reps spend in front of customers. It is less than it should be consider channeling some of the functions your sales staff is doing to support staff. They only sell when they are in front of a customer not doing reposts or paper work.

Larson Notes & Satire: If you don’t have the staff maybe you need a virtual secretary to do the job. A recession is a real opportunity for you; it is a real time to change everything for the good. A downturn also offers you opportunities to beef up sales channels such as telesales or a sales network, Think outside the box. If you want to do something but can’t or don’t want to take it internal, outsource it.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. If you wish to explore if outsourcing is an option for you, Call me and I'll go over the cost factors, both pro and con.