Ok, we know that the economy has gone south, credit is practically unavailable, businesses are drawing their spending back and so is the consumer, so what are you going to do as a business owner or sales manager to make sure that your business is not one of those that will be gone tomorrow?
The two places that most business want to cut back are not the wisest choices:
Training – A successful sales team or business owner stays involved with continuous training, keeping their prospecting, and sales skills sharp. This is the one place that the small business owner pinches their pennies, finding no value in quality training. It is important to keep new material in front of both the business owner and the sales teams. Now is not the time to stop learning more about how to be a more effective sales person, how to implement referral systems that will generate higher referred prospects and how to close more deals.
Memberships – Business Owners and Sales Managers alike begin to pull back on the networking groups and organizations where their teams have been spending time. A better result would be to diversify the organizations and make sure that you and your team are spending time in the right places with the right people and measure their results.
After completing our course many of our clients are amazed at how much time they have invested in networking activities that are not productive or effective. If you and your people are out there networking then it is impotant that they be trained to do more than create visibility. They must be able to effectively leverage their networks that become profitable for both parties.
Now is not the time to pull back, now is the time to become more strategic and more effective.