The Answer is NOT Inside Your Head

Posted on February 16, 2010

Changing economic environments can kill business predictability. High level executives may have to work cross-departmentally when needed to galvanize the right combination of efforts. But they must do one thing for sure:  stop thinking about it and get out there.

In the second half of 2008, most of the CEOs I know started complaining that their tried and true sales and marketing techniques started failing. What had produced steady results stopped working. With the top line crumbling, everybody starting scrambling. Given the depth of the downturn, everyone added some new techniques, adjusted pricing, and otherwise made attempts to figure out something—anything—to push the top line upward.

Should anyone have abandoned their best pre-downturn sales techniques in favor of new ideas? No.

Do the drastically poorer results during the great downturn mean that the best pre-downturn techniques will never work again? No.

Changing economic environments kill predictability. This is very frustrating when it comes to knowing how to grow top line revenue. It feels like trying to push a rock with a rope. When things are steady we have the time to test and hone sales techniques, product offerings, pricing strategies and marketing plans. We evaluate the return on our investment. We iterate and change approaches over time, steadily improving results. This is good business practice.

It seems the economy has bottomed out and many feel growth is returning. Do we use the old approach, the new approach, a hybrid, or do we experiment more? One thing is certain: The answer does not lie in our heads.

It lies out there, in the marketplace. You have to go forth to get it. Put yourself in the middle of the market, in front of customers, prospects, non-customers, related businesses, competitors, trade shows and more, and listen. Out there lays the seeds of the next growth spurt for your company. You must find those seeds and tend them.

When I say you, I mean the chief executive. In larger businesses it might mean someone on the CEO’s top team, but this is not a sales manager’s job. It requires someone who can think about the entire business at once. An executive who understands that the job of sales is not just a sales department responsibility. It involves production (to keep costs low), product development (to build the right product) and marketing and sales. High level executives can work cross-departmentally when needed to galvanize the right combination of efforts.

Don’t just visit a few customers and jump to conclusions. Spend plenty of time in the field! You need to hear the same message over and over again to be sure that any given opportunity is real. Once you think you see the path you need to quickly modify your product, your pitch, your process and your price then test your hypothesis. Once you feel your hypothesis has been confirmed, take yourself out of the process and hand it to the people who will be selling as you scale up. It needs to work for them well enough so that you can predict the results as you commit more resources to the effort. Remember to keep an open mind: Too many of us remember when, “It didn’t work four years ago” and assume this means that it will never work. Things change.

Another way to approach the problem is to live the customer’s experience. Not just the experience of buying from you, but the experience of doing their job. What do they actually do each day? What is hard for them? What do they love? When they need your product category, what are the steps they take to make the decision? Get granular, so granular that you could almost write an instruction manual for their job. This will mean spending time with them, face to face. If you make decisions about how to position and sell your product while “in the head” of your buyer, you will fare far better.

When it comes to sales process, don’t abandon the old, pre-downturn techniques. People are still people. What worked 10% of the time only works 3% of the time when conditions are tough. Without those tried and true processes, your top line during the downturn might have been smaller. Other elements of the offer like pricing can change swiftly as marketplaces contract. Competitors can neutralize your past competitive edge.

You’ll always need to try new things, testing them to see if they move you forward. Don’t forget to ask for help from the very people that buy your product. What they say will be a great indicator of what you should do. Pushing the top line up always takes investment and time. Some of what appears to be the best ideas will ultimately fail, but others will contribute to growth. A few will make a big difference.

Stop rattling ideas around in your head and get on the road. Engage the marketplace. Probe and listen for cues about what customers want and need. What you learn will be the best path to pushing the top line up again.