An article from
"What is Your Recession Sales Strategy?"
That's the title of a new free white paper I wrote for The Customer Collective. It is based on a survey and packed with strategies you can use to sell more effectively in challenging times. If you use them I know you will be successful because the survey the white paper is based on discovered that many organizations have a sales strategy recession going on alongside the one in the economy.
While tough times often bring new ideas to many company functions, when it comes to sales, these organizations are making no strategic adjustments, doing things they way they always have, only opting to "sell harder" and wait for better times.
But a recession is more than just period of slow sales. It is a time when the markets and customers we sell to change behavior, with buying less only the tip of the iceberg. Customers often realign their buying criteria, corporate values, personnel, and alliances in ways that last for years after the recession ends. Sales success depends not just on selling harder, but selling strategically smarter to these customer adjustments as well.
When Customer Collective Co-founder and CEO, Robin Carey asked me to do this study I could not wait to get the survey out, discover the results, and share all the great ideas. I also looked beyond the survey to find ideas from other studies as well. In addition, terrific insights were added through interviews with some of the most knowledgeable sales strategists of our time; Jill Konrath, Chief Sales Officer for Selling To Big Companies; Dave Stein, CEO of ES Research Group; Denis Pombriant, Founder and Managing Principal of Beagle Research; and David Bonnette, Group Vice President, North American Sales at Oracle. In these tough times there really are strategies sales organizations can use to make a difference.
This white paper can help you find ones that can help you. If your competition just "selling harder and waiting for better times" read this paper before they do! "What Is Your Recession Strategy" is free with registration with The Customer Collective, a terrific social media site for sales and marketing professionals that you will want to join anyway. Use the link below. If you already are a member, just use the link, log in, and download.