Don’t accept the economy as an excuse from your sales team

It’s been nice the last 24 months or so to hear much more positive news about the state of the economy.

Business overall seems to have stabilized and in fact most companies are generating good profits.

Even through the depths of the “great recession” many companies were successfully conducting business and making a profit.

Safe bet that through the down times you were hearing many salespeople complain that companies simply were not spending beyond necessities. But have you been barraged now with the sales team telling you that they are going gangbusters since things seem to have turned the corner? Probably not. There is some truth to the old adage “all ships rise with the tide,” but the economy is never the primary factor for sales success or failure.

Salespeople have different tolerance for rejection. Nobody really likes it, but successful performers expect to be told there are minimal to no budgets for their products in bad economic times. They also refuse to accept that at face value.

I worked with an associate who did his best work in economic down times. He would sympathetically listen to clients complain about lack of funding and then turn the tables. “I’m guessing the stress on your business” he would point out, “means that you’re going to keep doing what you’re doing and after weathering the storm you’ll look for adding revenue streams like the one our service opens up?” A prospect struggling with revenue was usually open to discussing the possibilities.

Whatever the response to this associate’s questions, he would ask another one diving deeper into the client’s business probing for areas of weakness or opportunities for growth. If and when he uncovered an issue, he would expand on it and find ways to build even better outcome scenarios for the client with the new revenue. It was a work of art requiring significant insight and creativity.