When an economy struggles, that can take a toll on your business and sink your sales. If your company is struggling financially because of the economy, you need to address that head-on. Having the right mindset, direction, and strategy can help you deliver results.
Granted, your sales team might feel like giving up when the economy weakens. Nevertheless, that’s not an excuse for you not to keep up with your sales momentum, especially during tumultuous economic times.
How can you keep up with your sales even when the market looks bleak? Consider a few strategies to help you pick up pace.
Provide Tangible Support
When your company has poor sales figures, it is easy to blame everything on the economy. Nevertheless, you need to examine your team’s performance. Your sales team isn’t going to get fired up when there is no ownership for minor budget flaws. Even though a tight client budget can challenge salespeople’s motivation, they can reveal opportunities for growth.
The first step is to strengthen the resilience of your sellers, which involves addressing any loopholes. When sales begin to decline, think of tangible strategies to support your team and encourage them.
As a team leader or manager, it is your responsibility to remove any hurdles or roadblocks your team has to increase the likelihood of success. You can begin by giving them a simple structure to re engage their intentions, personal growth, and values.
Lead Instead of Manage
When your sales figures plummet, it is only natural to look for ways to drive them up. Looking for ways to get more leads and client calls isn’t enough. Keeping your sales performance up requires more than having a tight focus on your key performance indicators and pipeline reviews. You need to have strong initiative by leading and coaching your team.
When you actively coach your team, you will get more leads and follow up on them. Sometimes a sales representative would get many leads but would feel intimidated to follow up on them.
Nevertheless, when a team leader personally coaches them, he can boost their confidence. When lack of confidence is immediately addressed, action is taken, leading to more sales opportunities. The more time you spend coaching your team, the more resilient and confident they will be when making calls and following up on opportunities.
Understand your Customers
When your sales strategy is smooth, selling seems effortless, and your team gets to follow a more passive approach. However, at times your consumer’s priorities might change and shift which involves meeting their demands creatively and tailoring your product offering to meet their needs and expectations.
Instead of just giving them a brief description of your products and services and what you offer, try to understand their perspectives. In certain instances, you might need to pivot your product offerings and strategies to meet their needs.
Streaming services like Netflix, for example, adapted their streaming options during the pandemic to cater to the needs of their demographics. When some of their subscriber base declined, and their viewership was affected, the company responded by launching a new ad-supported plan.
Netflix was the first platform of its kind to offer ad-free options. As consumers saw value in the streaming service, their subscriber base increased, which in turn caused the company’s sales to grow in the first quarter of 2023 to almost $8.16 billion, topping last year’s numbers for the same quarter.
Making successful sales moves begins by understanding your clients and giving them what they want. Sometimes it is helpful to talk to your clients about their priorities; you can also appeal to them and make a sales pitch.
One Step at A Time
Maintaining your sales in a flagging economy can be very challenging; it might even make you feel like you are running an obstacle course. Experience has shown that focusing on a single priority or marketing strategy that your team can accomplish one step at a time is much more efficient. It will also help you get through challenges successfully.
Another important factor to consider is to remove unnecessary hurdles and roadblocks and concentrate on following up on leads and current customers to find practical solutions to issues of concern.
When your sales strategy is sturdy, you can support your company and team to overcome any challenges they have, to keep their sales strong even amidst a flagging economy!
David Messiha | Staff Writer
