Winning Strategies: How to Prosper in the New Economy »
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The key to business success today is knowing how to think, not what to think. You need to understand what's happening in order to move quickly to take advantage of changing conditions. Although there's a place for using the correct tactics, the best overall results come from operating on the appropriate strategies. Here are nine strategies that will keep a business on track:
1. View downsizing as a permanent state of mind. We talk about going through certain experiences, usually bad ones. We want to think there's always 'light at the end of the tunnel,' that a 'new day is coming.' Although this particular mindset breeds a helpful and healthy optimism, it is poor preparation for structural changes taking place in society. Employees saw serious staff reductions as a temporary expedient for coping with recession. Many accepted the personal sacrifice with remarkable equanimity because they had been led to believe that they were helping to save the company.
Downsizing is no longer a goal. It has become a permanent business procedure and is being driven by the confluence of intense international competition and the penetration of automation throughout an organization. Since we can expect both of these conditions to persist for an indefinite period, downsizing will continue as a corporate business strategy.
Downsizing opportunities include a broad range of outsourcing and consulting opportunities.
2. Realize that there is a finite supply of customers. As the long-distance carriers have discovered, the pool of customers is finite and this is why one after the other rolls out campaigns to take customers away from the competition. There is a growing realization that every customer and prospect must be treated with extraordinary respect and care. If lost, someone else gets the business and finding new ones is difficult and expensive.
As the value of each customer is appreciated, there will be less cold calling, less telemarketing and fewer high-pressure tactics. The opportunities presented as a sensitivity to customer worth involve bringing the organization as close as possible to buyers and reinforcing customer value.
3. Make time your most valuable asset. In effect, time has run out in business. There are fewer people working longer hours. As a result, both the office and the home are demonstrating a fortress mentality. Access is more and more limited and controlled. Every home has a telephone answering machine operating at all times and the automated attendant and voice-mail system offer invasion-free conditions.
The opportunities focus on attention-getting techniques, ways to get a message through the seemingly impenetrable cocoons protecting today's customers.
4. Understand the impact of dog-bone-shaped demographics. Both the middle-class and mid-sized businesses are disappearing. Main Street has changed forever. This is the era of size, a condition dramatized in the success of the mass merchandisers. In other words, the demographics are taking the shape more of a dog bone. At one end are the largest companies getting even bigger and commanding much more business. At the other end are the 10 million or more, an exact count is unknown, of tiny home-based businesses. In the middle are a dwindling number of mid-sized businesses.
The same dog-bone-shaped configuration applies to the consumer marketplace. At one end, the affluent group is growing. The once large, stable middle-class is diminishing, and the number of Americans with lower incomes is getting bigger.
Business opportunities include building special niches and expanding territory coverage, whether by TV, catalogues or some other technique to create more business.
5. Learn to live with the extended buying cycle. Buying decisions are taking longer because no one wants to make a mistake.
Consumers want to get the most for their money and they will invest more time researching even small purchases. Business buyers are no different. Buying errors are costly financially and a wrong move can have career repercussions.
Because most salespeople come to the conclusion that those who fail to make a quick decision aren't buyers, they go on to the next prospect. Opportunities to make more sales exist for those who let the customer set the buying pace.
6. Use knowledge as the ultimate in customer service. The definition of quality customer service is changing. Everyone assumes the order will be correct, that it will be delivered on time and that any problems will be taken care of quickly. The most important way to delight today's customers is to offer them knowledge to improve the quality of their lives or be a business resource. Using knowledge to assist the customer is the best way to separate a company or salesperson from the competition.
Using knowledge effectively offers the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
7. Make an effort to motivate the prospect, not the salesperson. To increase a salesperson's productivity, satisfaction and income, the task of motivation needs to be redirected. The traditional task has been thinking up ways to "juice up" the sales force. Everything from contests, to trips and awards has been used with the goal of getting salespeople to push harder, make more calls and close more deals. Although somewhat effective, the results are always temporary.
At the same time, customers are showing an increasing reluctance to want to see salespeople, have less time for presentations and are far better informed.
With these two situations, the need for increased sales productivity and customer reluctance, the focus should be on motivating the customer rather than the salesperson. To maximize a salesperson's effectiveness, companies should be developing qualified leads, rather than expecting the sales force to do that job. Salespeople become highly motivated when they have prospects. Leads are the primary motivation for successful selling.
8. Manage prospects effectively. Most lost sales fall through the cracks. It isn't the salesperson's ineptness or even laziness that causes the problems. It's the inability to manage prospects successfully.
Sales people know who they are going to see tomorrow and next week. But what about the follow-up on last week's calls or those made 45 days ago, or even a year ago? Since the mind of everyone in selling focuses on the "hot" prospects, everything else is pushed aside. And this is where the competition manages to get the business.
Using some type of contact management system is essential for the highly successful salesperson. Staying in touch is the key; constant follow-up is required. All this happens by having an easy-to-use, convenient system in place.
Good lead management means more sales.
9. Be sure to sell the company. Many employees see themselves as being in business for themselves, although they happen to work for a company. Such factors as job layoffs resulting from downsizing, changes in pension provisions, and job insecurity have all caused employees to see themselves as independent contractors.
Salespeople were the original free agents, moving from one place to the next, a situation that is being exacerbated by economic change. In order for a company to capture customers and to hold them even when a salesperson moves on, intense effort must go into selling the customer on the company and why it's smart to build a long-term relationship with it.
These nine business strategies focus on the fundamental issues of what is happening in the economy and provide direction for evaluating current activity and long-term planning.
______________
This resource is (c) John R Graham, President of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm.
by John R Graham
The key to business success today is knowing how to think, not what to think. You need to understand what's happening in order to move quickly to take advantage of changing conditions. Although there's a place for using the correct tactics, the best overall results come from operating on the appropriate strategies. Here are nine strategies that will keep a business on track:
1. View downsizing as a permanent state of mind. We talk about going through certain experiences, usually bad ones. We want to think there's always 'light at the end of the tunnel,' that a 'new day is coming.' Although this particular mindset breeds a helpful and healthy optimism, it is poor preparation for structural changes taking place in society. Employees saw serious staff reductions as a temporary expedient for coping with recession. Many accepted the personal sacrifice with remarkable equanimity because they had been led to believe that they were helping to save the company.
Downsizing is no longer a goal. It has become a permanent business procedure and is being driven by the confluence of intense international competition and the penetration of automation throughout an organization. Since we can expect both of these conditions to persist for an indefinite period, downsizing will continue as a corporate business strategy.
Downsizing opportunities include a broad range of outsourcing and consulting opportunities.
2. Realize that there is a finite supply of customers. As the long-distance carriers have discovered, the pool of customers is finite and this is why one after the other rolls out campaigns to take customers away from the competition. There is a growing realization that every customer and prospect must be treated with extraordinary respect and care. If lost, someone else gets the business and finding new ones is difficult and expensive.
As the value of each customer is appreciated, there will be less cold calling, less telemarketing and fewer high-pressure tactics. The opportunities presented as a sensitivity to customer worth involve bringing the organization as close as possible to buyers and reinforcing customer value.
3. Make time your most valuable asset. In effect, time has run out in business. There are fewer people working longer hours. As a result, both the office and the home are demonstrating a fortress mentality. Access is more and more limited and controlled. Every home has a telephone answering machine operating at all times and the automated attendant and voice-mail system offer invasion-free conditions.
The opportunities focus on attention-getting techniques, ways to get a message through the seemingly impenetrable cocoons protecting today's customers.
4. Understand the impact of dog-bone-shaped demographics. Both the middle-class and mid-sized businesses are disappearing. Main Street has changed forever. This is the era of size, a condition dramatized in the success of the mass merchandisers. In other words, the demographics are taking the shape more of a dog bone. At one end are the largest companies getting even bigger and commanding much more business. At the other end are the 10 million or more, an exact count is unknown, of tiny home-based businesses. In the middle are a dwindling number of mid-sized businesses.
The same dog-bone-shaped configuration applies to the consumer marketplace. At one end, the affluent group is growing. The once large, stable middle-class is diminishing, and the number of Americans with lower incomes is getting bigger.
Business opportunities include building special niches and expanding territory coverage, whether by TV, catalogues or some other technique to create more business.
5. Learn to live with the extended buying cycle. Buying decisions are taking longer because no one wants to make a mistake.
Consumers want to get the most for their money and they will invest more time researching even small purchases. Business buyers are no different. Buying errors are costly financially and a wrong move can have career repercussions.
Because most salespeople come to the conclusion that those who fail to make a quick decision aren't buyers, they go on to the next prospect. Opportunities to make more sales exist for those who let the customer set the buying pace.
6. Use knowledge as the ultimate in customer service. The definition of quality customer service is changing. Everyone assumes the order will be correct, that it will be delivered on time and that any problems will be taken care of quickly. The most important way to delight today's customers is to offer them knowledge to improve the quality of their lives or be a business resource. Using knowledge to assist the customer is the best way to separate a company or salesperson from the competition.
Using knowledge effectively offers the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
7. Make an effort to motivate the prospect, not the salesperson. To increase a salesperson's productivity, satisfaction and income, the task of motivation needs to be redirected. The traditional task has been thinking up ways to "juice up" the sales force. Everything from contests, to trips and awards has been used with the goal of getting salespeople to push harder, make more calls and close more deals. Although somewhat effective, the results are always temporary.
At the same time, customers are showing an increasing reluctance to want to see salespeople, have less time for presentations and are far better informed.
With these two situations, the need for increased sales productivity and customer reluctance, the focus should be on motivating the customer rather than the salesperson. To maximize a salesperson's effectiveness, companies should be developing qualified leads, rather than expecting the sales force to do that job. Salespeople become highly motivated when they have prospects. Leads are the primary motivation for successful selling.
8. Manage prospects effectively. Most lost sales fall through the cracks. It isn't the salesperson's ineptness or even laziness that causes the problems. It's the inability to manage prospects successfully.
Sales people know who they are going to see tomorrow and next week. But what about the follow-up on last week's calls or those made 45 days ago, or even a year ago? Since the mind of everyone in selling focuses on the "hot" prospects, everything else is pushed aside. And this is where the competition manages to get the business.
Using some type of contact management system is essential for the highly successful salesperson. Staying in touch is the key; constant follow-up is required. All this happens by having an easy-to-use, convenient system in place.
Good lead management means more sales.
9. Be sure to sell the company. Many employees see themselves as being in business for themselves, although they happen to work for a company. Such factors as job layoffs resulting from downsizing, changes in pension provisions, and job insecurity have all caused employees to see themselves as independent contractors.
Salespeople were the original free agents, moving from one place to the next, a situation that is being exacerbated by economic change. In order for a company to capture customers and to hold them even when a salesperson moves on, intense effort must go into selling the customer on the company and why it's smart to build a long-term relationship with it.
These nine business strategies focus on the fundamental issues of what is happening in the economy and provide direction for evaluating current activity and long-term planning.
______________
This resource is (c) John R Graham, President of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm.