Two weeks ago Ben Bernanke stated that the recession is probably over. Housing starts are up. The leaves are turning (at least in New England) and business people are starting to believe that the light at the end of the tunnel may be something other than an oncoming train.
We are all breathing a collective sigh of relief. It has been a difficult year...and for many, with the official unemployment rate scraping 10%, challenges remain.
Yet a sense of optimism is evident. And just as I predicted early in the year, budgets are now starting to open up. Mostly marketing and sales budgets, by the way. There hasn't been a general unleashing of capital investments or discretionary spending. That will come later, in mid-2010 and beyond. For now, the increased spending is coming from organizations that want to position themselves for success in 2010.
And that's why this quarter is the most important of the decade. The results of this quarter will drive discretionary investment decisions in 2010. If you want to have a good 2010, you must deliver the goods this quarter. Success in this quarter will help to ensure access to funding for the next quarter and the quarters beyond that. Mediocre or poor results this quarter will cause a significant rethink of sales and marketing strategy.
Many C-level executives and corporate boards are thinking: "Okay, you've had a year to figure out the current environment and to make the necessary mid-course corrections to ensure a reasonable result by the end of the year." Prove them wrong and your successor will be working on a very different action plan, one that involves wholesale shedding of divisions or organizations, cuts that go far deeper than the 5-20% layoffs we've seen already.
There hasn't been a single more important three month stretch this decade than perhaps the fourth quarter of 2001 for the travel industry. At the time I managed a business that built and sold technology services to road warriers. Road warriers were grounded on September 11th and my business went poof. The entire travel business was reshaped in that quarter and the airline industry is very different today as a result.
Your opportunity is to prove, in the next three months, that your business is both viable and thriving. With a focus on "co-creating" value with customers, you may have a chance. Customers today don't want to be sold to...they demand consultative sales people who work with them to boost profitability, reduce costs, increase shareholder value, make a difference in their world.
The critical success factors are simple and straightforward:
- Focus exclusively on the prospects and customers who value and need your specific value proposition, your differentiator.
- Narrow this focus to those who are committed to short term improvements in their business.
- Ensure that your sales people fully understand the business processes and challenges of the individual prospect, not the group in general.
- Commit to value-adding rather than transactional behaviors. You may think that hard selling will work in this market. It hasn't for years and it certainly won't now. You might "win" a few deals but you're destroying the relationships that bring long term profitability.
Thanks,
Lee
Lee:
ReplyDeleteGreat insights; espcially focusing on businesses committed to short-term ressults.
-Rob Peters
I started out in sales, working for Computer Sciences Corporation in 1978 and went through their Marketing Trainee Program. We were taught "Consultative Selling" back then and it is even more relevant today because prospects are better informed and have a better understanding of the limited resources that their companies have and the importance of making the right decision to their success and upward mobility in the organization.
ReplyDeleteAny sales person who doesn't have a win-win attitude going into the sales process will not succeed in sales in the long term and do more harm to the company that employees them than good.
-Ray Hoffer