An economic downturn usually triggers the instinct in sales people to "hustle" more.
If I only call more customers, I can make still make the numbers.
Let's offset decreasing conversion rates with higher contact volume is the logic many sales people and managers default to in difficult times.
The smart strategy would be the opposite - to call less people and work hard to increase conversion rates. A recession does not necessarily mean that conversion rates have to go down - it only means that conversion is harder to come by.
Avoiding sales force burn out
Nothing is more frustrating for a sales force than conducting a high volume of customer acquisition outreach with poor results. And no one is less successful than a frustrated sales person. Acquisition outreach requires even in the best scenario a high level of confidence, which the potential customer feels and receives assurance from.
Trying to increase the number of outreaches to make up for poor conversion rate during a recession only triggers a downward spiral of frustrated sales people, further decreasing conversion rates, and further increasing outreach work load.
Especially for startups and SMEs, this would mean a death sentence.
Improve conversion through better targeting and quantifiable gaps
The solution, especially in a recession, is to do the opposite. To reduce the number of potential customers contacted but to improve conversion rate by focusing on high potential customers. Customers, where your products or services have a clearly quantifiable impact, that is large enough for the customer to allocate financial resources to your product or service even in times of scarce budgets.
Take advantage of the reduced opportunity costs
Opportunity costs are the potential benefits a customer misses out on when choosing to invest financial and other resources into your product or service instead of something else. For example if your product or service only provides moderate cost savings, in normal business circumstance the customer might decide to invest the resources rather in growth projects with a higher impact to the bottom line.
But in a recession, opportunities decrease. Especially growth opportunities. And even smaller bottom line improvements become attractive. This offers new opportunities for your sales people to maybe revisit customers who have been interested but ultimately decided to allocate their budget to larger bottom line opportunities - maybe your impact looks much more favourable in comparison now that growth opportunities have decreased?
If you want to find out more about the benefits of gap selling in a recession as well as how to identify and quantify gaps, just check out my linked posts below.
Are your offerings and sales processes recession ready?
Recessions are a difficult time for every sales organisation, but with the right tools and processes you can get through this time without significant setbacks and even generate sales which previously had been unattainable for you.
If you want to have a quick readiness check or if you feel you need help to get ready for the challenge, just contact me for a free initial consultation to see whether I can help you.
コメント