During the last recession I noticed I was making more sales more quickly to small and mid-sized accounts than those in the Fortune 500.
My smaller accounts bounced back faster because they could change and get past the "cut back" phase more quickly. Once the adjustments were made, they returned to business growth, and buying. I also found that I had bigger impact on smaller accounts because I was able to meet with strategic and financial level decision makers more often and make my "save money or make money" recession proposals stick more consistently.
At the same time, at my Fortune 500 accounts, I heard a more about "across the board cuts." These clients were under more pressure from above and seemed to have fewer options to maneuver.My experience was not unique. Similar results were found after the 1991 recession by Avraham Shama and published in the Journal of Small Business Management. Shama measured effect of that recession on small Inc 500 businesses vs. large manufacturing and service corporations and concluded."
As can be seen, there is a significant difference in the way marketing managers in the different groups of companies describe the economic environment, with managers in small Inc. 500 companies more likely to describe the economic environment as growth, and those in large service companies to describe it as recession."
In Sharma's study, respondents from large manufacturing and service corporations saw the recession as negatively effecting their business by a full third more than respondents at smaller companies. So when you selling through a recession put more emphasis on small and mid-sized accounts. This may be counter intuitive as we have trained to spend the most time on accounts with the biggest potential, typically the largest accounts.
But recessions can be counter intuitive times where the biggest potential might be in smaller accounts.Link to the study:
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/market-research/401989-1.html
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