10 CEO Recession Success Tips
by Paul DiModica
Wherever you are in the world reading this, (Value Forward
News is read in over 110 countries worldwide) you are exposed to
a recessionary financial time that is slowly affecting everyone.
So, what are you going to do?
Let employees go?
Cut back on marketing?
Squeeze your current clients for more money?
Yes, you can do all of this, but is that going to help? What
can you specifically do during a recession to grow you business
profitability?
10 CEO Recession Success Tips 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."
Sincerely,
Rick Erling
President The CxO Group, LLC and
Publisher of The CxO News
www.thecxogroup.com
info@thecxogroup.com
(972) 727-6880
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