SALES AND MARKETING IN A RECESSION This is a continuation-in-part of last month’s newsletter dealing with good financial practices in an economic downturn, i.e., in a recession.  The discussion below is from Silicon Valley SCORE member, Charles Askanas. In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a CEO of a company was quoted as saying, “ Now is the time to circle the wagons”.  The early settlers probably knew that they would die if no help came.  First, no help will come because everything depends on you and the course of action you take.  Secondly, you should not “circle the wagons”.  To the contrary, in tougher times, such as the current recession, the business owner should become tougher and more aggressive. Maintaining one’s business is difficult in a recession and everyone is nervous about business outcome and survivorship, hoping that business continues and grows.  There may be gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands with many people spend their energy thinking about and fearing impending doom.  Everyone associated with leaders in a recession environment share the same sense of impending doom.  It is next to impossible to sell or promote anything when all seem to display a lack of confidence in business operation.  The business owner being tough means that he or she must do more in depth planning when bad things happen, and, then, stick to a developed plan.  Tough means having an optimistic point of view as a role model and a positive aggressive outlook.  The capable leader focuses on building trust by being and appearing confident and taking strong positive action.  Action has to be taken very quickly and should be visible to employees as well as customers. Consider the following points in your action plan: 1.  Now is the time for innovation.  What else is there that can enhance the value of your business product or service offering?  It is not necessary that they are big innovations that take a lot of time to implement and require lengthy explanations to sell.  A recommend approach is to determine appropriate offering enhancements by brainstorming with everyone involved in product/service sales.  Remember that in a brainstorming session, there are no shutouts.  Every idea should be evaluated and the session participants should be allowed to build on ideas suggested by others.  The brainstorming session results should be prioritized.  The order of the priorities is determined by rating line items on a list of possible criteria, including ease of implementation, customer appeal, and ultimate effect on the business.  One should also ask, “Can the current target customer be expanded by, for example, approaching a different demographic (e.g. a different segment of the population and/or geographical area)?”  Once a decision is made relative an expanded product or service offering or its marketing, an implementation plan should be agreed upon. How will the changes in a product or service approach be introduced and priced?  One recommendation is to promote the new offering through direct mailings to the existing customer base for a quick start.  It is a demonstration that the business is alive, well and on the move.  Once having made a decision, test it on a few selected customers.  Find out what works best for the new offering through positive trials of different agreed-upon approaches. 2. Sales Training Every employee of the business should be trained on a regular basis. In the recessionary environment, every sale should be made and every opportunity realized.  The training should consist of improving everyone’s ability to be a good listener.  Part of listening is asking good questions related to the customer’s immediate wants, needs and desires, and demonstrating your interest in satisfying them.  Training also includes good selling practices and how to interface successfully with the customer base.  Every person who interfaces with a customer should be trained on how to properly deal with that customer.  For example, a rude cashier can ruin a good restaurant experience for a customer. 3. Promoting the product/service and the sales organization. Product/service promotion and organized sales can be effectively executed with an active network.  Such network activity need not be expensive.  Regardless of the economy and a company’s financial situation, small budget networking is the most effective way to accomplish any number of activities including recruiting and product/service promotion.  Such a network can be built with friends, relatives, members of your church or other society, old schoolmates, and past co-workers.  Each person should be approached and asked if they will help you.  It may be necessary or desired to give each member of your network some small reward.  It can, for example, be future discounts on your products/services.  Train these contact persons for 10 minutes and give them your updated collateral material about your product/service offerings.  The training should consist of describing your offering and its competitive advantages.   Send a card to each contacted person and thank each of them and, further, keep a record of your last contact with them and agree how often you should follow up with them. In summary, try to expand your business horizons, plan, test, and make decisions while your competition is “ Circling the wagons.” For more information along the above discussion, check out BizWiseTV podcasts about the latest business challenges and opportunities.  Listen and learn about how our vision and ideas can help transform your business.  The link to follow is http://www.cisco.com/offer/bwtv/score/169788_1. For more help in coping with an uncertain economy and the current recession, contact SCORE “Counselors to America's Small Business.”  SCORE is a nonprofit organization of more than 10,500.industry-wide, volunteer business counselors who provide free, confidential business counseling and training workshops to startups and small business owners.  Call the Silicon Valley SCORE at 408-288-8479 for an appointment and help.  We are located at 84 W. Santa Clara Street in San Jose and have a library of business materials.  Also, go to www.svscore.org for even more information.