Rhymes with Cars

Here is the second part of an on going series from my notes at Sales 2.0, hence the goofy title. Gerhard continued his opening keynote by sharing some really stellar recession facts.  Prior to listing the actual facts, he shared an anecdote about George Schultz, who was the CEO of Ritz Carlton.  George had a great outlook during recessions simply stating that people are going to continue to travel. They may not travel as much, but it is important to figure out ways to get them to stay at our hotel.  This requires a huge change in looking at the world. Six Selling Rules for a Recession 1.) It takes 15 - 20% more prospects to make the same number.  I was really happy to see this as it aligns with my post from last week about making it in a recession.  I suspect that this number will hit 25% very soon.  Get your lead generation house in order ASAP. 2.) Companies that reduce their sales and marketing effort in 2009 will be gone in 2010.  As has been said before, now is not the time to stick your head in the shell and wait for this to blow over. 3.) 22% of deals in your pipeline will be lost to the status quo.  This is one of those things that I think that all sales people know, but most are too optimistic to admit.  There are two types of trucks out there, garbage trucks and money trucks. or  Which do you want?  Don't spend time with the garbage trucks, look for the money trucks.   Score your leads more carefully and focus on companies / industries that are doing well in this market.  Here is a good list to start with.  Who is going to do the best with the Obama stimulus money?  Start moving your marketing and sales dollars there now. 4.) Companies lose 10% of their sales due to lack of insight into the sales process.  In Six Sigma, one thing is wrong in a thousand.  In sales, it isn't on common to have 30 things wrong in 100. Learn from your losses, record & reduce failures. Focus on a Six Sigma style of sales where you're  always adjusting your process towards perfection.  Does your average deal close in 45 days and you're still chasing something that is 200 days old?  It may be time to give that up and focus on newer, fresher opportunities. 5.) Relationship quality and deal quality suffer during a recession. Avoid it.  Sales people will get knocked down a lot more this year than they've been knocked down in recent years. Now is the time to get rhino skin. Stay positive, recognize the adjustments that there will be more failures before success, play the point not the game. 6.) Today, it takes 20 - 30% longer to close a sale.  Focus your time on how do you close deals faster. I used to work with a guy that said 'Time kills deals'.  Never was this truer than today's climate.  What can you do to accelerate your close time? Next up, notes from my meeting with Ken Rudin, the co-founder of LucidEra.