The current economic slowdown is forcing you to find the most efficient and effective ways to sell your products and services. Here is the problem: If you continue to focus your marketing and sales efforts exclusively on the top line, it may be a difficult way to survive today’s recession. On the other hand, simply cutting costs to sustain profits or even to ease cash flow may result in irreparable harm to your long-term market position. It’s a classic Catch-22—a chicken and egg situation that is enough to make every chicken hoard its eggs. So let us stop, take a breath and look at the big question:
How can you maintain the flexibility needed to succeed in a down market and yet capitalize when market demand returns?
This is the question many businesses asked themselves during the last three recessions. It is the same question we are pondering today. As we look at companies that cracked the billionaire code in previous recessions—emerging as a stronger, more powerful, and unbeatable force—we realize their solution is quite simple. Actually, it could be summed up in just one sentence:
It is not only what you sell, but how you sell it.
If the answer is so simple, why it is not working this time? After all, you may argue, many companies are selling exactly the same way these companies did in the past. Well, Albert Einstein (that guy with weird hair) was asked a similar question when he administered an examination to an advanced class of physics students.
As he left the building, he was followed by one of his teaching assistants. "Excuse me, sir," said the shy assistant, not quite sure how to tell the great man about his blunder.
"Yes?" said Einstein.
"Um, eh, it's about the test you just handed out." Einstein waited patiently. "I'm not sure that you realize it, but this is the same test you gave out last year. In fact, it's identical."
Einstein paused to think for a moment, and then said, "Hmm, yes, it is the same test."
The teaching assistant was now very nervous. "What should we do, sir?"
A slow smile spread over Einstein's face. "I don't think we need do anything. The answers have changed."
And just as the answers in physics changed, so too have the answers to our quandary. To all appearances, we may have the same recurring problem of recession and a slow economy. However, the the old way of selling— make a product, find a customer, meet face-to-face to familiarize her with the benefits and features of your products or services, negotiate on prices, close the deal, fulfill the commitment, and find a new customer—is not going to work.
To uncover the new answer, let’s see how today’s thriving companies are beating the recession, accelerating sales and gaining a larger market share.