My Account
Business is experiencing tough times at the moment.
Indeed, it is tough times for most of us. We just need to pick up a newspaper, watch the news, listen to the radio or read our news feeds, and we are assaulted with a growing list of crises: inflation, cost of living, interest rates, climate change, war. It’s wonder that any of us find the will to carry on! But we do. Our species has this wonderfully successful ability to accept and adapt.
When I turn the focus onto business, those crises are having one overarching effect – cashflow difficulties. There are few industries that are booming right now on the Hibiscus Coast. Many of us are experiencing that double whammy – a decrease in sales and an increase in costs. Once in that vice, cash becomes the limiting factor. What can we do? Business owners have been advised to act in a certain way since the dawn of time – first, cut costs. But you have already done that – you are already running a tight ship. You can’t cut costs any more, otherwise you will need an eight-day week to do everything.
No – cutting costs, below that required for efficient operations, is not the first thing to do. The first thing to do is sell more! Don’t cut your sales force, enlarge it. Train it, change it – do whatever you need to do to ensure you sell more. And, yes, it is hard, especially when demand is low and competition is high.
Thus, what I call ‘the tyranny of sales’. It is critical for a company’s success, and yet few people want to do it. We feel too pushy. Our view of salespeople is tarnished by thoughts of the pushy Encyclopaedia seller, or the foot-in-the-door vacuum salesperson.
In the recent past we just put advertisements into our local paper and hey presto, we had some leads, but it’s not that easy anymore. Advertising still has a big part to play, of course, but it needs to be backed with a total change of mindset around sales. A change that is backed by research – and one that works.
This brings us to The Three Laws of Marketing Physics – a concept first developed by Doug Hall, author of Jump Start Your Business Brain, and a way to get past the tyranny of sales.
To best explain this concept, imagine yourself as a prospective customer of widgets from Widgets Ltd in Silverdale. When faced with their salesperson you, as the prospect, have three groups of questions that need to be satisfied before you will buy a widget. First, why should I care? Has my attention been piqued? Will I give this salesperson the time of day? Will I even listen? Secondly, what’s in it for me? What obvious benefit will I gain by purchasing a widget? And thirdly, why should I believe this salesperson? What proof have they provided that these widgets work? Am I confident that they will work for me?
We silently ask all these questions when we buy anything. So, as a Widget maker, turn it around. Make sure you are answering every question, clearly and proactively, before being asked.
If you can sell more in a difficult market, when it recovers, as it surely will, your increased market share will be your foundation for future growth.
Think Differently Group
More stories from the author
