Amid the current economic downturn, marketers aren’t just trying to ride out the storm, according to panelists who spoke Thursday at BtoB’s NetMarketing Breakfast.

The companies represented at the event—Wausau Insurance, Tellabs and Molex—are taking steps to increase their market share despite the grim outlook.

These aren’t ideal times, but opportunity is everywhere.  Seize the moment.  Grow.

While the current business environment isn’t as great as we all wish - far from it - and there are plenty reasons to be concerned, there’s never been more opportunity to win new accounts and strengthen relationships with existing customers.

The business environment is far from perfect, but opportunity is everywhere.

Here is a fact:  In bad times, the strong and smart thrive.  The weak fold.

For those of you that are good great at what you do, these are truly exciting times.  Stop listening to all the gloom-and-doom news and keep doing what you do great.  For you, things may tighten, but you’ll likely be wealthier and better positioned in your market when the economy returns to a commonly accepted definition of normal.

For those of you worried about your future, don’t sweat the things you can’t control.  You need to get smarter about the way you market your product or service, focusing on the delivery of valued benefits.  For you, here are five things you can focus on to win more business opportunities in a tough economic environment:

1. Focus on bringing your customers new opportunities, not fixing problems:  When people are concerned about bad times, they often delay fixing things that are broken, preferring instead to save money and repair later.  But rarely does someone pass on an opportunity to win more, regardless of how good or bad times are.  Position your product or service in such a way it creates new opportunity for your prospective customer and they’ll be more likely to give you time and consideration.  Don’t save money, make money.  Don’t save time, create more output.  Don’t reduce rejections, create more response.  Create opportunity that otherwise doesn’t exist.
2. Create opportunities specifically for your existing customers:  Now is the time to get closer to the customers you have.  Existing customers are a wonderful source of revenue growth and new opportunity.  The cost of sale to existing customers is low and sales cycles are typically shorter.  The key is knowing your accounts and tailoring solutions they’re likely to respond to favorably.  Win more of your customer’s business.
3. Align yourself with business people:  This is something you should always do, but especially when the economy isn’t strong.  Senior staff make more purchase decisions in tough times than compared to others.  Position your offering first and foremost as a business solution to create new opportunity (see item 1 above).  Business people are always open to business discussions - forget the marketing and sales language and convert your message into the language of business leaders.
4. Get enthusiastic:  No one likes a doomsayer.  I’m not suggesting you feign excitement, I’m suggesting you feel it.  The glass is always half-full.  If you’re really good at what you do, now is your time.  Seize it.  People want hope, give them a sincere dose of it.  Sincerity is a must.
5. Shift more marketing effort to direct response activities:  Direct response marketing is the only marketing approach whereby every dollar you spend can be tracked to a sale.  Now is not the time to skimp on marketing and sales activities and it’s certainly not the time to squander money on feel good branding activities in hope of creating interest that may lead to an inquiry and opportunity to make a sale.  Track every lead generation message and dollar you spend.

There are other things you can do to succeed in bad times, but the five things above are great foundations to thrive in tough economic times.

What would you add to my list?

And it’s a mistake most companies shouldn’t and don’t have to make.

There are exceptions, but as a general rule the strategy to be the lowest cost provider in a given market is flawed. It’s okay to be the low cost provider, as long as you don’t choose to be as a strategy.

Choosing to be the low cost provider in a market poses a twofold problem:

1. You loose control of your pricing by now having to lower you price as market conditions may suggest and competitors influence.
2. You attract the price sensitive portion of your market. This group generally holds little loyalty to things other than price and often is difficult to serve because of their price bias.

Being the low cost provider means you’re the alternative to who people want to be with if they only had enough money. Low cost providers are vulnerable to increasing wealth and competitive pricing - neither of which a business can control. Again, there are exceptions, but I’m taking about a general rule.

For mainly the two reasons above, I don’t like a strategy of being the low cost provider in a market. Do you agree or disagree?   Why?

“The time has come for one of us to buy and you’re the only one at the table that can do that.”

It’s not the most polished closing statement ever made, but it won a $3.5M deal when I gave it. I smiled, looked our prospect in the eye, and almost saw one of my regional manager’s lunch when I said it.

As we drove back to the airport I was asked why I went for the close in that meeting, it wasn’t staged as a closing call, I was asked to join the meeting as a show of support from “Corporate.”

The answer was simple. We had already presented, positioned, and nurtured our solution – we had done what we were supposed to do as a sales organization, it was time for our prospect to either buy or tell us why they wouldn’t. Either way, we win.

Some sales people are afraid to ask for an order. I understand many of the reasons why - none are acceptable.

Fear of rejection or ending a business relationship is among the top reasons many fail to close. Lack of confidence in their solution or concern of being pushy are others.

You should never be afraid to ask for a prospect’s business, after all, that’s why you’re there. Your job is to sell the solutions your company offers.

Your prospect expects that at some time in your relationship you’re going to ask for their business. Don’t disappoint them.

Something I do early in a sales opportunity is ask my prospect what their decision process is for purchasing a solution such as I’m selling. With my prospect, I map out each step of the sales process before I begin the heavy lifting of selling. This is especially effective in B2B and complex sales - it qualifies the prospect as being the person I should be selling to, identifies others in the organization that influence the sale, and makes my forecast more accurate.

Bottom-line: There is a time to ask for the business.

You know in your gut when that time is and you shouldn’t hesitate to ask. If you’re rejected, you’ll at least you’ll know where you stand in the deal, what barriers need to be overcome, and whether or not you have a realistic chance of winning your prospect’s business.

Have you seen a sales process that went too long because the sales person was afraid to ask for the order? If so, what affect did that have on your business? If not, do you believe fear of closing is much of a business problem at all?

I bet you’ve receive more than your fair share of this trash mail too.

The pre-qualification is carefully worded to give the impression you’re approved, worse, that you won.  But you’re not.  And you didn’t.  Your pre-qualification means your name fell into a mailing list someone bought.  You’re pre-qualified against search criteria the sender selected.

I hate this stuff.

There’s a twofold lesson and opportunity here.  Sadly, the first lesson is that tricks and gimmicks like this work.  Sad, but true.  The second lesson is there are countless people like me that are turned off by this stuff.

The seocnd lesson is the opportunity.

I am more convinced than ever there is a thriving market for the honest offer – an offer based on real benefits – void of tricks, gimmicks, ploys, and teases to be read and acted upon.

What do you think?

Here’s the list I’m referring to - Seth Godin’s description of a marketer.

The bulk of most competitive analysis is too often summary information on the competitor from an insider’s perspective:

• company profile
• feature comparison
• product line descriptions
• geographic support
• comparative pricing
• service and support capabilities

All of this is good information, but what sales teams really need is the prospective customer’s view of their competitor:

• business opportunity or challenge the competitor is positioning themselves to address
• strengths in the competitor’s position
• weaknesses in competitor’s position
• business argument against the competitor’s offer
• business argument in favor of the competitor’s offer
• vulnerabilities in the competitor’s product or service features and functionality relative to their ability to deliver a benefit
• risks in a business relationship
• opportunities in a business relationship

Looking at the two lists above, you can see where a sales person needs both sets of information about their competitor, but notice how the list of information from a prospect’s view enables the sales person to position themselves and their competition.

What sales teams need to do better - and be better prepared to do - is position their offer and competition in a manner that defines the argument to purchase their offer.  Competitive analysis from the buyer’s perspective is a key component of effective and useful competitive analysis.

What do you think?

With this post, I'd like to introduce you to The Cash Flow Blog.

The Cash Flow Blog is written from a business leader's perspective of cash flow, intended to help other business leaders increase their company's  profitability - as well as sustain and grow their business - by managing the timely flow of cash in and out of their business.  

I won't touch much on accounting aspects of cash flow, this isn't a finance blog, but will speak about and open discussion on ways to timely get more money into a business and manage it's flow out of a business.  This includes maximizing post-sales activities, promotions, partnerships, and other areas of customer management.  Also, subjects such as managing accounts receivable, expenses, and cost reduction will be routinely addressed.

The purpose of the site is to provide business leader practical ideas and how-to information to maximize cash flow in their business.

So, with not further delay, here is The Cash Flow Blog.  There are only a handful of posts now, but it's building.  Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single post. Cheers!

But that's rarely the case.  Most of us have a number of competitors - large and small.

So, what can we do to differentiate ourselves from our competition?

Isn't that the question all of us face?  Assuming we have something people want and we can deliver it reliably and to an acceptable level of satisfaction - Why should a prospect give us their money and trust us with their business as opposed to any of our competitors?

Why should I do business with you instead of your competition?  The key is difference. 

Truth be told, the real question isn't what's different about your offer. The real question is what you do different that your prospective customer cares enough about to compel them to choose you over your competition.

The real issue is valued difference.

It's not enough to be different. You have to be different in a way your target audience cares about. Otherwise, your difference is of no difference at all.

What do you think?  Is valued difference the key to winning interest from a prospective customer -or- do I have this all wrong?  What are the things you do to add valued difference to your offering?

The best way to create a presentation or marketing message is to write the close first.

The close is where everything comes together. It is where you reveal your call to action and direct the recipient to do something with the information you have presented.  It is the reason you presented or wrote the white paper, landing page, case study, etc.

What you should do is write the close first and then create the slides or information before it necessary to build overwhelming support and cause to heed your call to action. The purpose of all information before the close is merely to build momentum and give a compelling reason to act.

Writing from the call to action backwards is the technique I use to write copy of all types - sales letters, landing pages, websites, white papers, case studies, presentations, etc.  This simple tip provides greater focus to your copy and will increase your response rate.

What do you think?