We certainly live in interesting times! As part of my book research over the past few months, I've been speaking to a lot of business people about the economy and how it is impacting them. It's clearly a topic of interest and concern.
I've been surprised by the number of people who say, "Q4 of last year was my best quarter ever. Business is great!"
True, many of the people I speak to have received, or are in fear of soon receiving, the dreaded pink slip. I feel for them and their families, as they will be faced with hardship this year.
But how is it that more than half of the people I've spoken to are prospering? More specifically, what are they doing that the others aren't? What can be done to stay on the winning side?
IDC is research company that looks at trends and attempts to read the tea leaves so that businesses can pick the right strategies. Here's a very informative summary by Lee Levitt of IDC regarding his firm's predictions for sales strategies in 2009.
Here’s are his top 10 predictions:
- Selling strategies that worked last year will not work in 2009.
- Companies that significantly reduce their sales and marketing investments in 2009 will be gone by mid-2010.
- Companies that blame their lack of selling on the economy will fail by 2010.
- Sales organizations will be asked to do more with less.
- Companies have cut T&E budgets deeply. Most will lose valuable
face time with customers and prospects. Those that shift headcount to
inside sales will provide similar levels of customer touch at lower
cost…and drive customer satisfaction.
- Sales organizations that bolster dedicated investments in lead
quality and demand generation will be rewarded with significantly
higher sales productivity.
- Organizations that cut sales training in 2009 will suffer. Organizations that bolster sales training in 2009 will prosper.
- Savvy organizations will use the economic downturn as justification to replace direct sales “laggards” with well enabled inside sales. Customer (and employee) satisfaction and sales productivity will rise accordingly.
- If you remain confident and customer focused, understand the impact
of the economy on your customer, and strategize to serve them
accordingly, your organization will be well positioned to thrive in
2010.
- Continued support of customers during the downturn will earn loyalty (build relationship capital) when the turnaround comes.
