The perfect sales storm

Liz Wendling //December 1, 2010//

The perfect sales storm

Liz Wendling //December 1, 2010//

The perfect sales storm has hit. This storm is being powered by an economic downturn and strengthened by customers who have drastically changed their buying habits. The slow economy has sparked fear and caused panic with many salespeople and business owners. When times are tough, it becomes more challenging to sell, but the only way out is to sell your way out.

Even the most confident and highly motivated salespeople can take only so much negative news without getting dragged down. Some are choosing to ride out the storm and are ultimately becoming less proactive and selling less. There’s nothing like an economic downturn to change once-solid good sales habits into inconsistent bad habits. Choosing to do nothing only makes matters worse.

Never before have salespeople been so willing to put their egos aside by hiring sales coaches and adjusting their approach to make themselves invaluable to their customers, colleagues and company. To be a successful salesperson, you must have a fierce can-do attitude that supports you through the swells and troughs of the sales storm. You must be able to hit the storm head-on and move swiftly to take advantage of opportunities, all with a big smile on your face and your ego in check.

Salespeople are facing the daunting challenge of closing sales and bringing in new business in a down economy. With uncertainty about when things will improve, customers have tightened their budgets and increased the level of scrutiny on every purchase.

How you choose to input and process this information will determine your attitude and behavior, and ultimately your success.

As a business owner or salesperson, you can choose to focus on the fear and adopt the scarcity mentality or you can focus on taking action and create your own sales success. If you allow yourself to be controlled by fear or make your decisions based on scarcity, you will miss the business and sales opportunities that come your way.

Have you ever been around salespeople who sell incredibly well during tough economic times, even while doing business in highly competitive markets and even when the price of their product is well above their competitors’ prices?

Those successful salespeople sell like crazy, rain or shine, and there’s no such thing as a “slow day” or a “slow month” for them and they make it look easy. You know why? Because when the winds of change were upon them and the storm took a turn for the worse, they made changes in the way they approached the sale and made adjustments where necessary. They chose not to hunker down and wait for things to pass, but found a way to sell stronger to get out of it.

More than ever, companies in all industries are looking for ways to retain customers, boost revenue, and maintain profit margins. To survive and ultimately flourish in this new economy, you must re-examine the way you sell and deal with customers; and some of the adjustments that need to be made are long overdue. It’s time to stop complaining and take control of your own sales success. .

It turns out that the salespeople who are hungry for business are also eager for a new perspective and creative ideas about what they can and should be doing differently.
So whatever lies ahead of you, make the best of your opportunities and get rewarded for your efforts. Remember, it’s not what you sell, it’s how you sell.

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