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All About Selling in Recession

Sell through in recession

Pat Johnson

June 18, 2009

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Selling in a recession stricken market is a difficult job. Customers either order less or postpone buying which directly and adversely affects budget.

During a tight market, customers most loath to spend money. They tighten their budget and strive to make use of every penny and waste nothing. Nobody affords to waste money in tight market. Now is the time to plug up the holes and not let things slip through the cracks.

If all these years you were selling your product by focusing on its key features, then now is the time to think different. Try to answer the questions like—do your products or services help your customers to plug up some holes? Do you help them save money? Are they benefited by your product? If the answer is ‘yes’, then turn the benefits to your key selling points. Think out of the box and find out how you can help them save money or resources.

If earlier you were selling savings now is the time to sell cost. Don’t tell your customers that they are going to save money from your product; they already know that and probably many others also told them the same about their offerings…so what difference will you make? Emphasize on their expenditure and consecutive loss and stress that spending money on your product will be a key to curb this expenditure. Instead of talking about the benefit of your product remind them the existing problems they face. This way they will start looking at your product with some interest.

Here is a piece of conversation between the sales person and the potential customer, demonstrating how to turn the tables and compel the customer to think twice before rejecting your offer.

Customer: “Well, it looks good, but I really don’t think we can spend any money right now.”

Sales Person: “I know that John, that’s exactly why I’m here. But take a look at your monthly expenses incurred while maintaining your existing systems. You are already spending $1980 per month to maintain your older systems. Our product will cut that cost by 80%. I agree, Mr. Customer, spending $1600 every month is difficult but installing our product right now will save you $30,000.

You can start selling even while making an appointment with a powerful introduction.

Sales Person: “Mr. Customer, this is John Doe from ABC Systems. The reason I’m calling is that in these tight economic times, most companies are feeling the pinch and looking for every possible way to save money. Well, we have a new solution that will put thousands of dollars back into your monthly budget, adding to your bottom-line and giving you more money to do your job.”
Now after an introduction like that, a prospect cannot say they don’t have money to spend, the sales person just said that she already knows that. Moreover, the idea of saving thousands of dollars will compel the customer to rethink on your offer rather than bluntly rejecting.

The Three Principles

There are three driving principles which a salesman should keep in mind to sell successfully through recession.

1. Be a true business consultant for your customer.

Tell your customers how your solution can solve their problems and improve their business strategy. Offer them innovative ideas based on the insights from your past experience with similar issues.

2. Do your homework well.

Know your customers, their needs, goals, their customers, competitors, employees, and challenges. In a competitive market you should know your customer well before you call them. This information will help you impress your customer during the call.

3. Focus on both results and relationship.

Be result oriented and aim for a long-term relationship with the customer. Customers are more interested in result than the process which gave rise to the result. Think of each customer as market, capturing which will leverage your successes.

Success Strategies

There are three success strategies which a sales person should keep in mind while selling — retain existing customers during a recession, grow existing customer relationships and acquire new customers during a recession.
Given below is a list of tips which will help a salesperson to sell through tough economy:

• Hard work…more and more hard work. Now you have to work hard more than ever.
• How much ever scary the situation becomes, don’t panic and give up on all hopes. Thinking negative is not going to help. Instead, change your selling technique and strategy.
• Put resources in marketing and sales. Increase your visibility in market thus increasing the market share. If you don’t increase your market share now then you may loose business opportunities and potential customers too.
• Be proactive and involve yourself into more networking and social gathering. Stay focused and targeted to increase your sell by the end of the day.
• Innovate new sales strategy or ideas to sell. Bottom-line is leverage your efforts by all means e.g. ask for referrals, try to upsell and cross-sell, get in touch with dormant clients and follow up on all leads.
• Grab every opportunity to build a long lasting business relationship. Never treat a customer roughly. Add value to your service so that it in turn helps to improve their service. Show the customer that you care for them. Spend time with them and understand their concern. Keep your word and stick to your commitment.
• Most important of all, sharpen your skills. After all it’s your selling skill which will get you going in the field. Get yourself into sales training, prepare a development plan and monitor your progress, do everything possible to hone your selling techniques.

Role and Responsibilities of a Sales Manager

• Acquire, retain and train talented salespeople with attitude necessary to achieve results.
• Reward the deserving sales person for their efforts and ensure that the compensation is aligned with their performance.
• Focus on the continuous growth and development of the sales force.
• Lead the sales team and motivate the team to stay focused on strategic and financial goals.

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I really enjoyed your article. Great tips on staying afloat and still performing at a high level in todays world.
I looked into a new form of communicating with my customer base, by creating my own website. I tried blogging, etc., but eventually settling on www.mysalesrep.com. They made it easy for me to post what was important for my customers. My customers have given great feedback, but more important, I now have a new form of getting my message out there!
Again, nice article.