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Written by Hamish Knox; President of Sandler in Calgary, Canada
Creating accountable, sales focused organizations in Calgary
When the economy takes a dip, like the recent drop in the price of a barrel of oil, leaders and salespeople alike typically stop doing their behaviors out of fear or frustration. Fear of “stretching themselves thin” and frustrated because “nobody is buying.”
The former is hilarious and the latter is ridiculous.
When the economy crashed in 2009 prospects still bought. They may have bought less than they had before the crash, but they still bought from someone.
The leaders and salespeople who chose to accept the brutal reality of their situation and still continue to do their behaviors came out of the 2009 downturn significantly farther ahead of their competitors who chose to sit under their desks with their hands over their head.
“Behavior” is Sandler’s word for the activities that help grow your business each day, week or month.
In my experience, when a downturn hits the most common strategy for salespeople is “hold and pray.” That is, hold on to existing business and pray that either a) their existing clients don’t cut back their buying too much or b) their clients don’t go out of business.
A strategy that my clients follow is “grow and plunder.” That is, even though the economy is slowing down they proactively seek to grow their existing client base while creating opportunities to plunder their competitor’s client base.
If your behaviors are consistent your results will be consistent. If your behaviors are random your results will be erratic. Choose to opt out of an economic downturn by doing your behaviors each day in the face of overwhelming reasons not to.
Until next time, go sell something.
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