Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Talking to salespeople, there seems to me to be an air of futility about at the moment, about prospecting for new customers and new business. While It may be easy to find reasons to be despondent, allowing yourself to feel and behave in this way, what ever the evidence is actually counter productive.

Much recent conversation has been focused around customer service and protecting your existing customer base. Without doubt, this is sound downturn strategy. However the basic principles of doing business tell us that this in it's self will not be enough.

To succeed, what's called for is aggressive and smart targeting of new customers so that new opportunities to sell can be created.When considering how best to deal with the current situation, salespeople need to start by thinking and then behaving opportunistically.

So let's do a rethink, What advantages might there be to prospecting right now?

Let's start by realising that the current situation has acted to focus the mind so that many businesses are now:

• Looking for solutions that will lead to increased productivity
• Looking for solutions that will decrease costs
• Looking for solutions that will bring increased value
• Evaluating their current list of suppliers
• Considering what other options are available
• Looking for better deals
• Open to new ways of doing things
• Wanting more ROIs

We can realise that some of our competitors:

• Have gone out of business
• Will go out of business
• Are scaling back in terms of products
• Are scaling back supports and service
• Are focused on surviving not succeeding

We can realise that many salespeople in our industry:

• Are leaving
• Are unmotivated
• Are not targeting new customers

I don't know about you, but the more I think about it, the more is seems to me that now's a great time to be talking to new customers. It's a great feeling walking in the door to a meeting, knowing that the prospect is already focused on many of the topics I discussed.

How much easier this makes it for me, to show how my products can add to this already existing need for increased value and productivity, while my competitors continue to talk of survival and getting by.

There's an old saying in my home county of Tipperary in Ireland. When the sun shines, make hay.