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How to Overcome a Selling Slump

By Christine Corelli, Sales Strategist, Partner, Red Zone Marketing

“Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you going but gets you nowhere."

If you are experiencing a selling slump, it's a tough situation indeed. A decline in sales or business development is disheartening, especially when you're working hard, and doing everything right but you still can’t make a breakthrough. It can also make both you and your company VULNERABLE to the competition. What to do?

What do you do when your sales have been down for weeks? As you know, this is not uncommon these days. Our current economic conditions have caused sales to drop dramatically for businesses in many industries. So it's very easy to place blame there. But what should you do? Wait for the phone to ring? Go through the motions of your job and wait “until things turn around?” Or, should you worry to the point where your lack of confidence is written all over you when you’re interacting with customers, employees, and coworkers?

Below are methods and mind sets to put you in the right frame of mind and get you back on track when sales are down. If you have been fortunate and have been meeting or exceeding your sales goals during this tough economy, you may still wish to review these to be sure you stay on the right track.

Be a Chameleon – Accept Change.

If there’s one word that captures our arrival into this still very new Century, it’s change. When its environment changes, the chameleon’s biological process enables it to adapt readily to its environment. Unfortunately, for human beings, it’s not quite so easy. But the longer you resist the changes that are occurring and consider yourself a “victim” of the changes that are occurring, the longer it will take for you to move forward. You need to accept "what is," adapt, and forge ahead.

Stop Fretting and Take Action

Fretting and worrying will not help you when your sales are down. They will hold you back. You cannot excel at anything unless you keep yourself in the right FRAME OF MIND. This requires balancing your ability to be realistic and objective, controlling your emotions, and working harder to develop relationships.

Excessive worry will block you from functioning effectively and keep you from putting your best foot forward. And, it will block your creativity--something you need more than ever when sales are down. Consider this: Will worrying change the outcome of what will ultimately happen? What if everything you’re worrying about will work out fine? What if you will have an abundance of opportunities to win new business if you were to take a stronger and more creative approach to sales? What if the efforts you make today are going to pay off for you in the near future? Get on the phones and start dialing. Spend more time with face-to-face customer contact. Call on old accounts you think have bitten the dust, but might reorder.

Eliminate Negative Thinking

If your sales have been down for a period of time, tune up your mind to win! If you begin thinking that you won’t make a sale, then you probably won’t. If customers sense your apprehension or pessimism, then they’ll look toward another company who is more confident. Sound optimistic and convincing. You need to act like a winner, even if you haven’t won the race for a while. Just like a thoroughbred that wears blinders to keep his eyes on the finish line without getting distracted, you must forge ahead on "blind-faith" that you'll succeed.

Remember: Fretting and worrying will not get you where you want to go. Striving to be optimistic and taking ACTION will.

Tap into Your Creativity

It’s not uncommon to get stuck in a rut when sales are down. So, if you're hearing, “I’m not interested,” become interesting to them by talking in terms of what's important to them. Think about changing your approach when interacting with customers, and in your methods of developing new business. Tap into new markets and consider new ideas for sales and marketing. Bring creative ideas to your existing customers. They'll thank you for it. Differentiate yourself from your competition. Talk to other sales people in your company and in other companies too. Find out what's working for them, tap into your creativity, and figure out how you can make it work for you.

Go Back to Basics

You remember what that means: it’s doing the activities you did when you first got started that gave you results. One of them was staying on the phones until you made a connection, booked an appointment or made a sale. Great sales people instinctively know they must spend time "dialing for dollars" to existing and potential customers to get out of a negative sales period. If there aren’t enough incoming calls, there must not be enough going out! So if your phone’s not ringing ask yourself: How many calls am I making? If your phone is quiet, it was be-cause you’re not making enough calls.

Muster up the discipline to spend several hours on the phone each day to help generate business to get you out of the quicksand and onto solid selling ground. The best business development and salespeople know that whether business is down or whether they’re soaring high, they still need always the discipline to get on the phones and hustle or for sure it will fall off.

Also, think about how you SOUND when you’re talking to customers. Do you sound confident in your self and positive when conveying VALUE to customers? Do you sound empathetic to your customers’ problems and that you genuinely want to help them? Do you sound like you have their best interest at heart? Do you sound like every other person who sells your product or service? If you do, find a reason to call other than, "Can I help you with your needs?" "Are you ready to order at this time?"

Master the Art of Influencing Customers to BUY from YOU.

Your ability to influence others is not only an art, but a science. You can win-over today's tough customers and get results faster by understanding and applying the concepts and theories in the "art" of influencing people. Make sure you use a consultative selling approach, and memorize words and phrases that influence customers to buy. Memorize your responses to objections and how to convey value.

(We can help you craft highly effective words and phrases that communicate the "why's" of doing business with your company, and the benefits of your product or service. It will be customized for your company. Call or reply to this e-mail with the words, "Sales Program" for more information on this highly effective sales communication training seminar.)

Get Visible

Here’s something I’ve often heard: “I used to visit a lot of customers and attend events, but I don’t have time anymore.” Physically calling on customers and attending business events are likely activities that helped you get established. You may need to do go back to those practices to get up and running again. If business is down, make more face-to-face appointments, attend networking events, meetings, trade shows, chamber of commerce functions or association functions where you can meet potential customers, learn about your industry, build relationships and form strategic alliances. Be selective where you spend your time and money, but remember: Visibility is important. It's often the face-to face interaction that bonds a relationship.

Reconnect

Reconnect with your advocates. When sales are down for a long period, visit contacts and customers who know you and love you. Don't be shy. Graciously and confidently ask for referrals and more business. Don't tell them you're in a slump. Tell them about the customers you have who are saving money, increasing productivity and receiving quality products and services from your firm. Tell them a story on how you have exceeded expectations for a customer and that you can do the same for them. Remember that the efforts you have made to maintain strong business relationships can pay off for you when you need it the most.

Spend Time Forming New Relationships

Calling on new customers--even those you believe are loyal to your competitor will help you get out of a slump move you toward long-term profitability. Slowly but surely, even in a tough economy, if you keep calling customers and work hard at building relationships, when the time comes for them to buy, you’ll be the one who will get their business.

Maximize Your Productivity

Here are a few hard questions to ask yourself if you’ve been in a slump: Have you been working efficiently but not effectively? Have you been very busy and working hard during a slump, but haven’t been getting results? Then you haven’t been effective. Have you been spending too much time going after small accounts, without consistently striving to get business from larger accounts? Are you spending too much time reading nonbusiness E-mail instead of being on the phones, or E-mailing to your customers and potential customers?

Remember the 80/20 Rule: "20 percent of your customers will generate 80 percent of your business." Are you going after the right 20 per-cent every day? Have you thrown in the towel too soon? Would just a few more times at bat give you the home run? Take a good hard look inside yourself. Have you been procrastinating taking action to get out of a slump? As I said, doing is effective. Fretting is not.

Have you been making the best use of your time? Have you prioritized your to-do’s each day and done them first? What percentage of your day have you spent in non-sales related activities? Are you ORGANIZED? If you don't have effective organizational skills, get them. Your alternative is to AGONIZE over why your sales are not where you want them to be!

Reset Your Goals

Have you lost sight of your goals, or worse, failed to set them. Setting goals is a way of making things concrete. It’s a sure way to focus your energy if sales are not where you want them to be. Get into a non-business setting where you can think clearly and there will be no distractions. Sit down and write down what action you’ll take. Establish your priorities, and set goals so that you’ll move forward. For example, "I will make 10 phone calls per day to existing customers, and 20 to potential customers." "I will study my industry and check out my competition on the Web at 1/2 hour each day." Not your style to set goals? Even the most sophisticated business professionals set goals. Write them down and LOOK at them each day.

Outshine Your Competition

Portray a higher level of service in every aspect of the business process. Listen more talk less. Tell your customers how much you appreciate them. Ask what more you can do to help them. Sound and act like you are happy to service them.

Develop an obsession for turning out your best performance with every encounter, with every customer, every day!

Invest in yourself

Spend more time and energy on learning new skills and self-improvement. Take a refresher course on sales training, or enroll in an advanced sales training program. Consider working with a sales coach. Don't be too proud. Make it priority to be dedicated to continuous self-improvement and focus on improving your skills. It just might pay off more than you could ever imagine.

All of these can help you overcome a selling slump, but remember this quote from yours truly: "There is no mystical magical secret to sales success. It comes from HARD WORK, and your enthusiasm and belief in your company, its products/services, its people, and YOURSELF. Then, making the CUSTOMER feel that same enthusiasm and belief."

For more information, contact us now.

Red Zone Marketing™
info@redzonemarketing.com
1509 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Libertyville, IL 60048
Phone (847) 367-4066 - Fax (847) 367-5226