It’s hard to look at this week and to not worry about the impact that current events might have on sales. Many of you may be reading this and thinking, “They already have”. Every media outlet, every paper, every radio station and (seemingly) everybody is talking about events. Even people whom I have never heard talk about economics or the economy have had something to say – usually negative!

I was listening to the radio on the way home from my Close the Sale seminar last night and they spoke to someone who said that he was going to put his money under the bed because he didn’t trust banks. You know the kind of person; one of those “random” types that the research crew see wandering down the street with a can of beer and a kebab in their hand and looking out of their BMWs they deem him to be Mr Average. Anyway, what interested me was not his advice (!) but that he knew what they were talking about at all. I think it’s fair to say that normally, Mr. Average would have little or no awareness of these things.

The message is clear… many people are starting to panic.

Now I am not going to advocate gung-ho tactics. Nor am I going to wax lyrical about how you get what you focus on. Nor am I going to blow hot air up your ass (where did that phrase come from!). You don’t need that.

What we all need is straight talking. What we need is ideas and tactics. What we need are strategies to help us to navigate this choppy water so here is my sales kick up the ass approach to selling in a downturn.

1.  Stay positive!

Your attitude determines your altitude. Your attitude determines your ability to access your skill. Your attitude determines your success of failure. If you don’t know that, you should go do something else instead of sales!

Many individuals and companies are starting to droop at the moment like little flowers in the sunshine. They need to give themselves a good dousing with common sense and motivation. Success in every market is totally dependant on attitude. This is even more the case in tough markets.

If you want to fail, get a negative attitude and I can pretty much guarantee you failure. Clients buy on emotion and you’ll never create emotion by going through the motions. Work on staying upbeat and positive. Clients have enough doom and gloom thrown at them from the media and their colleagues, they don’t want it from you too!

2. Believe you can!

I know of one large company who have just laid off their sales training department seeing it as a luxury! This is sheer fool’s folly and the directors need their heads banging together. What’s worse is that they aren’t even suffering any negative affects in their business at the moment. They soon will. Sales training and development is essential in any market, particularly tough ones. Sales training teaches your staff the skills that they require to do the job properly. Tough markets require top skills.Changing markets require changing sales skills. Sharpening your sales skills requires sales training and development.

What’s more, investing in your staff builds the belief that you believe in them and that your company is going to thrive. Cutting training teaches the exact opposite. Staff who believed that their company was “rock solid” won’t now. They’ll question, worry and share their fears and soon feelings will become beliefs and beliefs will affect their activity and their results. They will achieve what you believe. Imagination will become reality.

What you believe about this market is going to determine what you get. There’s plenty of negativity out there, don’t let you, your team and your business be a victim of this. What are you going to do to build, support and nurture positive beliefs about your company, sales and success?

3. Prospect! Prospect! Prospect!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the lifeblood of salespeople is prospecting. No matter how good a salesperson you are, prospecting is critical for your success. The more clients you call, the more chance you have of closing more sales. This is not a case of quantity or quality because quantity and quality are not mutually exclusive.

You need quantity and quality. If your conversion ratio is down, up your activity. If your existing clients are pulling in their belts, ring some more. When everyone else is sitting on their arses, get out there and meet people. Selling is not complicated, are you up for it?

4. Visit more clients!

In the busy times we often neglect some of our clients. Maybe we take on a new piece of business with a client but we don’t get chance to meet them as often as we’d like (or at all!). Maybe we have existing clients that we’d like to see but we don’t have to, so we do something else instead.

In a downturn clients want reassurance that they are working with the best, that their suppliers are thriving and that their supply lines are rock solid. Take some time out to plan which clients of yours would benefit from a face to face visit, a lunch or a coffee and make that call!

5. Check commitments!

Salespeople who learn to sell in easy markets cut corners. Not because they’re lazy but because they don’t know any better. Dotting the “I”s and crossing the “t”s is not so essential in booming markets because busy markets are sellers markets. Busy markets pick up the slack. Qualifying properly is still important but it is possible to succeed by doing a reasonable job rather than a perfect job.

Tough markets are not like this. In tough markets you need to check commitments. You cannot afford to be working on client opportunities where you end up giving “free consultancy” or where your client is just on a “shopping comparison trip”. The key to gaining commitments is asking the right questions and this is something that I teach in both my Close the Deal seminar and my Professional Selling Skills seminar.

6. Ask for referrals!

Few salespeople ever ask for referrals. Fewer still always ask for referrals. Most never ask for referrals. This is because clients can and do say “No” so it is often easier to just not ask than to risk yet another rejection.

Asking for referrals should be built into what you do. Asking for referrals should be mandatory for you, your sales colleagues and your sales team. Sure, you’ll get some refusals but if you ask at the right time and in the right way you will get some fantastic leads and introductions and you will grow your business with quality prospects.

Know a salesperson, sales manager, director, entrepreneur or business owner who would benefit from reading my blog and newsletter? It’ll take you two minutes to send them a quick email telling them to have a look at www.GavinIngham.com.

7. Strengthen relationships!

Most salespeople do not spend enough time thinking about the quality of the relationships that they hold with their clients. There are many aspects of your relationship with your clients and spending time strengthening and improving those relationships will encourage loyalty, openness and partnership in all markets not just tough ones.

Think about the various aspects of your relationships with individual clients (for example the awareness they have your company, how they view your business, how they view you, your personal relationship, your business conversations…) and devise a plan of action for improving and strengthening those. Start with your key target clients now.

So there wer are, 7 tips for selling in tough markets. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee, give yourself a talking to and plan what you’re going to do to make the rest of the year and 2009 a great time for you and for your business.

Related posts:

1. Selling In A Recession – Why Some People Are Going To Crash And Others Are Going To Fly
2. If Selling Is So Simple Why Can’t Everyone Do it?
3. Selling Pies Should Be Easy

Over the last few months there has been a lot of talk of recession. Wherever you look and whatever you read, ever since the American subprime crisis, talk of a recession seems to be bombarding us from every possible media.

Every expert there is seems to have something to say about whether there will or whether there won’t be a serious recession and if there is, how long will it last and just how severe will it be?

If there is a serious recession, learning how to keep on selling in a recession will be vital. Sales training could well be the key.

I have clients from one man bands to multi-national corporates and from entrepreneurs to professionals and I see and hear a lot of people starting to worry a little. People are batoning down the hatches and getting ready for trouble.

I have worked with many clients who have weathered recessions, grown their businesses through recessions and even set up and started successful businesses in recessions. Now is not the time to be panicking. Now is the time to be checking your sales activities, sharpening your sales training activities and applying solid sales principles.

Here are my top 5 tips for selling in a recession.

1. Believe you can and stay positive!

One of the problems with all of this talk about recession is that once people believe there is going to be a recession they start to feel negative about their business prospects. The nature of belief is that people only tend to see what they believe rather than believing what they see. Once you believe that there is going to be a recession you tend to only notice articles, comments and statistics that support your beliefs.

What’s more, your negative beliefs quickly affect your outlook and the way that you feel about your business prospects. Think about it for a second…

If you thought 2008 was going to be a great year for business, your best year yet; how would you feel?

Conversely, if you thought 2008 was going to see a major recession and that it was going to hit you and your business hard; how would you feel?

Mighty different huh? And remember, nothing’s changed here other than your belief. Having a positive and supportive belief structure is essential if you want to succeed in any market but it is vitally essential if you want to keep on selling in a tough one.

Having a winning belief system does not mean that you need to be deluded however! In the middle of the darkest recession you don’t want to have your eyes shut! But you do need to realise that in a recession people want to work with the best suppliers. Suppliers that they can rely on. Suppliers that support them. Suppliers who are going to be around tomorrow. And if your competitors struggle, that means more sales and more business for you.

2. Get proactive

If this year is going to be tough then you need to be more proactive. Much more proactive. You need to do more marketing and more selling. You need to attend more events and do more networking. You need to do more promotion and more canvassing. Bottom line, you need to increase your sales activities, maybe dramatically.

In a recession many companies cut their sales activites. They figure, “If we’re not going to sell anything, what’s the point?” Many individual salespeople do this too. Perhaps it’s not a conscious choice but it’s what they do.

Touche. Cut your activity, cut your sales. You’re a living, breathing, self-fulfilling prophecy! You believe there is not much business out there, so you feel negative. That in turn affects your activity and your activity destroys your sales results.

Even if there is not as much business out there, then you need to be more active, more focused and more targeted. If your competitors are easing off a little, now is the time to up the anti and grab your share of the market. Even if sales do slow down temporarily, you will be in poll position when things pick up again.

One of my friends went down to our local estate agent this week to put his house on the market. He was told that maybe he should wait as he might not get the price he wants right now. They told him the market was quiet and that might not be able to sell the house at all. Better to wait for the market to pick up. I walked past their offices later on that day. They were all sitting, chatting and drinking coffee. They were probably moaning about what a bad year it’s going to be. If I’s have been in that office, I’d have taken my mates house on and I’d have been on the phone drumming up some viewings. 50 calls, 100, calls, 500 calls… Whatever it takes. I’d have found someone.

Talk about killing your own market! If you see less business then you need to do more sales and marketing, not less. That’s common sense.

3. Sharpen your sales skills

If a workman needs a spade and a farmer needs a horse; a boxer needs a defence and a chef needs a recipe; what do salespeople need? The answer’s obvious – it’s sales skills.

Unfortunately, most salespeople do not spend enough time working on improving their sales skills and techniques. Sales training and development is not something that many salespeople spend their time on out of choice. Perhaps they can get away with this in a booming marrket when sales are easy. Perhaps not. But things will always change if the market tightens. Sales success will go to the salesperson who really understands why people buy and can help people make the right business decisions. Salespeople of this calibre stand to benefit from possible changes ahead because there will be more business for them as their competition falls by the wayside.

Sales will not go to the journeyman salesperson, the mediocre wannabee or the 9-5 order taker. Salespeople like these could well be in for a rough time.

When did you last read a sales training book on selling? How many sales training audios have you listened to over the last month? How many sales training seminars have you atteneded in the last 6 months? For 80% of salespeople reading this, the answer is zero.

If you’re in the 20% who have invested in yourself… Great, you’re on track. Keep the study up and make sure you stay ahead of the game.

If you’re in the 80% who haven’t… Don’t panic! You still have time. Start now by putting together your own sales training and development plan to sharpen your sales skills and hone your sales techniques. Salespeople who can sell in any market will always be in demand. Effort now will reward you whatever this year brings.

4. Improve your service and focus on relationships

As I write this many companies will be working out how to cut corners. They will try to save money by tinkering with their business offerings. They will try and eek extra profits out of their clients by cutting the bells and whistles from their offerings. This is not a good idea. A Swiss cow with no bells is just a cow and no-one would send postcards of them home!

If business is tight you want to be wowing your clients with the best service that they have ever had, from you or from any of your competitors. You need to be going the extra mile. If a recession bites many companies will try and discount to survive. They probably won’t (survive), but  you don’t want your clients going to them as they try to keep their heads above water! You need to “lock in” your existing clients now so that they won’t even think about going anywhere else.

Spend time with your clients.  Build stronger relationships with your clients. Make sure you truly understand them, their concerns and their businesses. Find ways to help them and add value over and above what they could have ever expected.

5. Leverage your efforts

In a soft market many salespeople only chase the easy stuff. They don’t chase the tough stuff. Hey, they’re doing alright and they don’t need to. They’re making sales right?

Wrong.

Most salespeople have all sorts of opportunities which they squander every day and every month because there are seemingly easier things that they can be doing. This is particularly true in an industry or a company where leads have been relatively easy to come by, where sales targets are relatively soft (I could tell you which industries but I’m not going to) or where salespeople are overpaid so don’t crave the business (again, I’ll keep this to myself!).

In a tough market you must leverage all of your efforts. This is basic sales 101 and should be stuff that you do every day anyway… Here are just a few ideas.

Always ask for referrals. Referrals are great business but most salespeople do not ask for them because clients often say no. Learn how to ask for a referral properly and then build asking for a referral into your sales process and ask for one every time.

Upsell and cross-sell. Whether though laziness, lack of knowledge or lack of ability many salespeople sit on accounts where there is so much more business than they are currently leveraging. Extending your business with existing clients will not only make you more money, it will also strengthen your relationships with and value to them and their businesses.

Contact dormant accounts. Most companies have hundreds if not thousands of “dormant” accounts. There may be multiple reasons for this from changing business practises to fall-outs with the client. Dormant clients may well be redeemable and may have been “lost” purely because someone forgot to ring them or a salesperson moved on. Get in touch with them!

Follow up on all leads. I recently contacted 5 health insurance companies over the web. Only one replied. You should not be burning leads like this in any market. Follow up on all leads professionally using a proven sales system like the ones I teach in my sales training seminars and programmes and you will close more business. New clients are essential for any business in any market.

So there we are, 5 tips to help you to sell in a recssion. This year may well prove to be an interesting year for some businesses and individuals. Some of this will be down to the market itself. Much of it will be down to you and how you react and respond to what might be a challenging year.

Here’s my prediction for the year…

There will be winners and there will be losers. Which are you going to be?

Related posts:

1. Sales Prospecting Persistence On The Costa Blanca
2. Getting In A Right State Versus Getting In The Right State
3. How To Build Confidence And Close More Sales