Selling in a Struggling Economy

By Larry Laux
President and Founder

Recent developments in the U.S. and world economies brought to mind the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If –“

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . .”

There are lots of anxious people in the world today, and it seems to me that some anxiety is justified. Certainty 400 point swings (both directions) in the stock market are attention grabbing, as are the difficult-to-comprehend numbers being tossed about as bailout plans.

How do you sell in this economy?

I suggest you start with a simple question – was there a market for your firm’s services last week, last month? If yes, then there is still a need for those services today, and there will be tomorrow, next week, and next year.

Absolutely, your clients and prospective clients will use the market noise as an excuse to negotiate or to delay purchase. However, all using ‘The Economy’ as an excuse means is that you have not made a good enough case that your services provide value well beyond the amount of money you are charging.

Clear communication is a big opportunity for you. Make sure everyone in your organization that does, or even might, have communication with your clients and prospects knows your ‘elevator pitch’, or what you would say to a CEO if he got on the elevator with you on the first floor and punched the button for the 12th floor. That’s all the amount of time you to state the case why they NEED your services, and it is imperative that everyone in your company is saying the same value proposition.

People are claiming that “this time is different”...it’s NOT different. Do you know what the Prime Rate was in December of 1980, when Metrix was 7 months old? 21.5 percent! Companies still made purchases. When companies understand that by spending $X they can make 3 $X in a year, the smart ones are going to do that.

They just need you to remind them of the return on their investment in your companies’ services.