The pundits would have you believe the world is heading for financial meltdown.
Congress (so far) is refusing to pass the $700 Billion Wall Street bailout. Liquidity is drying up. Businesses are failing. Will there be panic in the streets?
And yet some businesses are doing extremely well - and in fact thriving in these so called troubled times.
Well, the facts are - the world is still turning. The sun will come up tomorrow. Life will go on.
So you have a choice…
Join the depressed brigade, retract and retreat, be fearful and wait until it's all over.
You watch helplessly as your business goes down the drain because you're paralysed by fear and you just can't get yourself to do anything.
Or…
Become even more active in keeping and acquiring more clients and business.
There are many people who make an enormous amount of money during "recessions". In fact there are people I know who actually believe that they're making more money during a recession than during an economical growth period.
It all comes down to one thing… recession or growth, we still need and more importantly, "want" to buy stuff.
The only question is who are we going to buy from?
If you're selling stuff, now, more than ever, it's vital you do two things right.
Keep your existing customers - and have them come back for more. And ramp up your lead generation efforts to get more people in the door.
Let's cover keeping your existing customers first…
Unless you're in a monopoly - you get to keep customers by offering them a great customer experience. And then REMINDING them to COME BACK and spend more.
But most important of all is give them what they want NOT what you think they need!
So how do you get them coming back?
If you have been in business for some time, you would have a client database of some sort.
If you're struggling with the word database, this simply means that you would have clients you've worked with in the past. It could be names and addresses on invoices, business cards, email addresses etc.
Hopefully you have been collecting names and addresses. If you haven't - start now. And if you're in retail and need some strategies as to how to get people to give you their personal information, give me a call.
Your database is a really invaluable part for you business. These people have bought from you in the past and assuming they were happy, why shouldn't they buy from you in the future?
But they won't think of coming back unless you keep in touch with them on a regular basis. Let them know you're still around and offer them reasons for coming back.
And this is really where the recession comes in handy.
We all are much more aware as to where and with whom we're spending our money.
So if I just take myself as an example, I'm always out and interested in a bargain, and who isn't?
If someone who's delivered good quality service to me in the past is offering me a great deal why wouldn't I buy from them rather than taking the risk of some unknown company I haven't had any dealings with?
And coming back to customer experience…
How do you know they're having a great customer experience? You ask them!
I can virtually guarantee that you'd be very surprised at the results. In a great many cases what you think the reasons are people buy from you are way off the mark.
Why is this important? Well, by focusing on what they really want (and knowing it scientifically) - you can ramp up your sales with far less effort and money by not wasting time and effort on activities that aren't important to your clients.
Rashid Kotwal is an international speaker and author who specializes in on-line and off-line strategies for direct response marketing and sales optimization. He works with sales organizations want to get more business, faster and with less wasted effort. You can find more information at
Sales & Marketing Consulting and
Get Clients Online Fast.
Copyright Rashid Kotwal.
