Is the Economy an Excuse to Fail or an Opportunity to Excel?

Negative headlines create fear and anxiety. This is not the time to crawl under the desk and suck our thumbs. Our role as sales leaders is to help salespeople translate fear into energy. It's time to remember our core mission, and it's time to raise our heads and pursue more audacious goals.

We need to adjust our strategy. Many sales managers ask their salespeople to doublel their call volume, but the reps then end up doing only half their job with twice as many prospects. It is far better to call on fewer but more qualified prospects and create a deeper connection and deliver more value. One way to look at this is "deleting 25 percent of the company's prospect database, saying, 'We need to stop chasing garbage trucks.'"

We need to shore up our balance sheet, lower the cost of doing business. Trim fat, but don't cut muscle.

This isn't the time to lower our price. If we cut price, we look like we're having a fire sale. The best strategy is to lower the risk of buying.

Sales leaders must over communicate that they have confidence in their team and confidence that the market will return to normal, that the world is not coming to an end, and that job security comes from creating happy customers.

This is the time to improve everything: people, processes, and technology. Sales will improve with better training and coaching. Sales will improve with better processes. Sales will accelerate with better technology. The worse the economy gets, the harder we need to work on improving our business.

This is the time to get on the offensive. We cannot control the market. As one VP of sales says, "This is the time to rip our competitor's hearts out."

Tough times will test our leadership. Effective sales leaders will lavish praise on their people for performing at peak levels. At the same time, sales leaders -- always ready to improve everything and always determined to expect better results in the future -- will express chronic dissatisfaction with the status quo.

We need to reassure our star performers that their jobs are safe and their bonus potential will be high even though their results may be lower.

We need to focus on our customers, respond to their new requirements, and uncover new opportunities.

We as sales leaders need to improve our mindset, for all eyes are on us. The economy may empty our pockets, but it cannot empty our spirits.

Source: Gehard Gschwandtner, Publisher SellingPower