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UTC Event: Selling in a Down Market
Yesterday I attended a UTC event about selling in a down market. Don Cash, the VP of sales at Omniture, led out the discussion and he did a great job! I took down some notes and I thought I’d share them here with you. Ninety-nine percent of the information I heard was not new to me so what I’ve included below are my takeaways of things you ought to be doing or thinking about if you employ a direct sales force.
- There’s no magic bullet to selling in a down economy - get back to fundamentals (think block and tackle).
- Time is money – convert everything you do to dollars and cents. Think in terms of ROI.
- The best sells people are those who can sell in a down market.
- Executives should be selling – Josh James is selling at Omniture.
- Every lead not acted upon is a missed opportunity (call all your inbound leads in the first 5 minutes).
- Its a great time to hire – good people looking for a job are abundant.
- Small “heal bitter” competitors will die – will you live?
- Spend money on marketing and sales now – put the nail in your competitors coffins. Use this as an opportunity to expand your market share.
- Don’t get doom and gloom – sales people need to be optimistic - don’t let bad news get them down.
- Don’t let non-sales employees get your sales people down.
- Focus hard on current customers – its easier to retain then to get new customers.
- Omniture is cutting back on expenses like tradeshows and allocating to more productive lead gen sources.
- Give prospects a better deal (price, terms, etc) – give existing customers a better deal.
- Ask your customers for leads.
- Networking pays off!
- Remain calm – don’t let everyone get riled up - focus on the big picture.
- Assess your own viability - make adjustments to your business model.
- Now is the right time to differentiate and go for the competitions throat.
- Minimize client risk (think guarantee, reduced terms, etc).
- Businesses that save clients money will get prospects attention - address the fact that your product can help in a down economy (if it can).
- *Sell directly to the pain!*
- Refine your unique value proposition – simplify your message.
- Position your pitch against your competitors.
- Research your pricing options – what is the deepest you can go on discounts – don’t be rigid about pricing and terms – facilitate business.
- Prioritize your opportunities.
- Go back to your old leads and re-market.
- Funnel all reserve cash into sales channels and marketing efforts with proven, realizable ROI’s.
- Get metrics in place – numbers count – double your efforts!
- Celebrate your victories for morale – enjoy the moment and find ways to stay motivated.
- Become a leader, be positive, focus on the fundamentals.
We then went into a Q&A breakout session that had a little bit of group therapy feel to it. Here are some of the takeaways from that part:
- Talk pain points with customers.
- Address the economy head on and use it to pitch your value and why others are buying from you.
- Shift away from bad industries – go where the money is.
- Guarantee it!
- Don’t assume everyone is on a buying slump - find the prospects with cash.
- Pay a commission (no kidding, right?)
- Increase incentives to sales people, create competition, hold sales contests.
- Customize your pitch (consultative selling).
- How do you increase the number of people you talk to? Sales is a numbers game.
- Find the M.A.N. (Money, Authority, Need).
- Don’t cold call – do it smart!
- Consensus takes away risk! Get everyone to agree!
- Tell a story!
- Write a book and be an expert.
- Hire a dedicated demand generation manager. Marketing and quality leads are the key to success!
The best part of the meeting was listening to Don talk about the fact that there are salespeople at Omniture who make upwards of $800k per year. No, I’m not kidding. That’s freaking cool!
The other thing that was shocking to me was that some attendees with words like “vice president of sales” in their title were acting as if they hadn’t heard some of these things before. Give me a break. This list just scratches the surface of what you should really be doing so if you aren’t even doing the basics then you could be in a lot of trouble.
Best of luck!