In a recent study, 96% of CEOs believe we will experience an economic storm and recession. Is your team prepared should we experience an economic downturn?
Over 70% of CEOs surveyed three months ago felt we were heading into an economic slowdown and recession. The recent update is that 96% of CEOs believe we will see a recession.
Some of our clients are feeling a slowdown in some markets. Building and supply are experiencing a slowdown for those manufacturers that supply products for building new homes. Retail is feeling the pinch, and our clients that supply store fixtures and displays are seeing orders reduce, pushed out six months, or canceled entirely. Technology companies are posting news breaking layoffs.
Many of my clients have shared 2022 was a record-breaking year for revenue and they want to keep that momentum growing. Unfortunately, it does not take a great deal of sales skills to enter incoming orders (mainly if you are getting the orders because your competitors can’t ship.) Sales people often stop using sales skills and the tools they were provided when the orders are easy to find.
In 2022 many of my clients were spending more time determining the orders they did not want.
Sales skills are like muscles; if you don’t use them, they grow weaker. Their sales process and instrument panel grows dusty.
When you take flying lessons, one of the first things they teach you is to rely on your instruments. You must trust your instruments if you enter a cloud or are flying in a storm with low visibility.
One instrument the sales team has that is often not used correctly is their formal sales process in your CRM. Do you have a formal sales process? Do you have a CRM? Are your salespeople using it? Has your sales manager been trained to coach sales opportunities through the pipeline? Are you sure?
Salespeople must have the right dashboard and instrument panel they can trust when they find themselves in economic storms and can’t see the horizon. Sales teams that follow a formal sales process outperform other companies without one by 15%.
Each client has their own sales process unique to their channel, but they all follow a version of the following framework:
Ideal Customer profile- identify your ideal customer
Outreach – sharing how you help others in their industry and their role
Discovery- here we teach sales teams questions to determine if the person has problems we can solve.
Qualify – so they have problems and challenges, but do they have the budget, is the person you speak to within authority? Do we clearly understand the need and timeline?
Collaborate – share the problems you heard and how working together, you could solve them
Quote- send a statement of work
Negotiation
Close
Follow up and reinforce value, ask for the next opportunity
We suggest customizing your teams’ sales process based on your history serving your channel and voice of customer insights we capture interviewing your large clients and prospects you wish to be clients. Salespeople are equipped with sales playbooks and tools to help conversations advance to the next phase of the process and ultimately close.
To ensure salespeople do not receive objections late in the sales process that send their sales into a tailspin, we provide training to help uncover any objections along the sales process. We help sales managers improve their coaching skills to help their salespeople move sales through the sales pipeline and close.
I was taught many years ago to manage processes but coach people. The sales manager and the salespeople have one familiar voice of truth…their instrument panel, their CRM.
If you would like to quickly understand if your sales team knows your formal sales process and is following it as well as determine if your salespeople know how to use your CRM to drive profitable growth even in an economic storm, let’s schedule a call.
We would be honored to help your team fly through the economic storm and come out of it stronger.
When Flying In A Storm, Rely On Your Instruments
