By Tibor Shanto

Regardless of how you view things the one thing everyone seems to agree to is that there is some comfort to being able to say it is over, now that just leaves the rest of the year. As Skip Miller said in his book “ProActive Sales Management”:

“If you, as a sales manager, do not know if you are going to make the year after the first quarter, the battle is over. Now you better be lucky.”

So with all that, and a hint of spring in the air, we did a very unscientific survey of what sales professionals can do going into Q2 to make the best of the rest of the year. We had all kinds of suggestions from the ridicules to the superstitious. I was not aware, but apparently in markets that have been in decline for over two quarters, you are supposed to swing the chicken over your head in a counter clockwise rotation three time before you cold call a VP of Finance; where as in up markets it is four times clockwise. Here, in no specific order, is what we learned from those kind enough to respond.

No surprise around here and I am sure with all of you was the over whelming opinion that while markets have changes, the fundamentals of good selling have not. As one respondent put it “The process of good selling is no different today than it was 6 months or 10 years ago. On the other hand, the issues that will surface today will be quite different.”

Others had similar opinions but again the number one message was that the climate has changed, the atmosphere has not; the number one response was “be proactive”. So let’s look at what suggestions there were as to how to respond to issues currently surfacing. We certainly do not want to suggest that you don’t have to update your approach; we all know the old saying about expecting different results from the same actions.

1. Activity – There was consistent feedback that efforts around activity have to be redoubled. That is not to say that you have to do twice as much of everything, but the effort going in needs to be more thoroughly considered. This includes research in advance of initial contact and every contact along the way. Make sure you are spending your time with the right opportunity not just someone nice willing to spend time with you. Again not that new, but implication is that it will take you much more effort to find real and willing prospects, don’t risk spending time with someone just because they are willing to set aside the time. The feeling is that you will have to spend twice as much time looking for the right prospect, once you find them don’t be distracted by non-prospects.

2. Level of Engagement – The concept applies equally across your existing client base, prospect base and lead funnel. “Assume Nothing” was how one respondent put it, talk to your customers, talk to your prospect and communicate with your leads. As things change so do priorities and expectation, and by extension opportunities. A disinterested party can be your best prospect a week later due to changing realities. Use all tools at your reach, from e-mail, to social media like LinkedIn, Twitter and others. Using these to monitor trends so you can be a resource for your buyers. Being aware gives you reasons to call and provide value. Combined with the notion of activity above, the right call to the right person for a good reason is much more productive that a lot of unfocused calls. But you have to stay in tune and then with the right info and reason stay in touch.

3. Client First – Again tried and true, but with the hits our buyers are taking, they have to be the centre of every conversation. Buyers and clients are “Focusing on capital preservation, alternative financing options, business efficiency, etc. Buyers are focused on making it to next month, next quarter, not re-architecting their environment or making big new bets.” If you are not showing them the value and impact they will not care, and they will remember who brought value in tough time and who will reap when the good times return.≈

Most agreed that there are all kinds of good models for crafting questions in a way that helps the client stay involved; understand what the specific difference and impact is to them. More important than ever is to engage in a way that clients are able to make a decision. We have to remember that the rules have changed for them too, at times it is not so much that they do not want to make a decision, it’s that they do not know how given the new rules .

While it is not an easy time for sales professionals, it was good to read that many sales pros are adjusting and coping (not liking but coping), and that there was great commonality in their focus and activities. They all agreed that things have changed, and maybe for the worst, but all except one, had a proactive outlook as to how to cope now. Acting in a way that will help them succeed the current downturn, and plant seeds that they know will yield big results when the market firms up based on the work they are doing now. The key everyone agrees is to focus on the areas discussed above, and to remember that the fundamentals still work when applied.

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Tibor Shanto , Principal with Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., and find out how he has helped dozens of organization to fill their pipeline with real prospects - - driving real revenue.

You can also read the blog edition of The Pipeline at www.sellbetter.ca/blog. For more information on helping your team sell better, write to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call 416 671-3555. You can also follow Renbor on Twitter http://twitter.com/renbor.

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≈ Separate from the survey, this last trend of buyers’ inability to make decisions because the rules, parameters, and benchmarks have changed, has been an area of focus for us, I have been working with another sales specialist who is spent many years studying and writing about the importance of the buyers’ buying process, look for an article on the subject soon.