We’ve all been through hard times and crises – especially for the past 3 years: Covid, war, inflation, banks bankruptcy, stock markets volatility – a lot of things happened lately. And when such challenging times come a lot of businesses put some of their processes on hold waiting for the situation to get better. It’s a natural reaction to stress and uncertainty. And business does not like uncertainty. 

One of the most straightforward decisions to make in such situations is to cut costs. But which one to begin with? It apparently depends on the company and its situation. Some businesses start by laying off people, others cut marketing budgets. And someone stops sales and business development. 

Today I want to give you several reasons why you should not consider sales as one of the first verticals for cuts or putting on hold and what could you do instead. 

Reasons to not cut your sales

Continuity

Sales are that type of process that should never stop – however challenging the situation on the market might be. Especially if you have it up and running. And there is a simple reason behind this – just because it will be much harder to relaunch it in future. 

Sales are like a Nuclear Power Plant – easy to stop and quite hard to restart. When you have it up and running – even at a smaller pace – it keeps on generating power. And when the time comes, you just need to make the load higher. 

The same principle applies to sales, because sales is about consistency: lead generation, outreach, interesting building etc. It’s about always being present. If you stop the process, you will get out of the spotlight very quickly. And it will take the time to bring the traction back. 

Competition

When you stand still and wait for the better times, your competitors keep on going – always keep it in mind. Some of your competitors will continue building their network, growing the traction, optimize processes. And when the turbulent time is over, they will be ready to accelerate, while you will need time to restart your engine. 

Talent

War for talent only keeps growing. And sales professionals are not an exclusion. According to Gartner, 78% of sales leaders say it’s difficult to attract quality people.  

You may definitely want to reassess the skills of the team, but don’t forget to take the market situation into account while making the final decision. The first 2 points described above should be applied to the talent aspect as well – if you decide to lay off sales people, think about the costs, time and complexity of bringing them back. And remember about competitors who might keep on going, while you stand still. 

Those are 3 major reasons why I believe you should not cut off your sales activities. And it would be fair if you would ask me: “Okay, then what should I do if the market is down and inbound does not work as well as it used to?”

Sales strategies in crisis

There are many steps you can take in order to keep your sales activities up and running. Let’s look at the options.

Focus on outbound

Outbound sales are quite often underestimated – especially in good times, when the marketing generates a lot of inbound inquiries together with word of mouth and other business development activities. But when the market is down you might notice the drop in inbound which is quite natural – just because people tend to spend less and become more careful with their budget planning which results in lower interaction with ads and other marketing related instruments. Outbound approach will help you with maintaining the interest, traction and traffic to your website. 

If you can balance your strategy between switching from inbound to outbound sales (or combining the two of them), you will be more resilient and flexible if the crisis comes. 

Moreover, a good outbound process in place is also a great way to expand to new markets and grow new business verticals. 

Focus on prospecting / nurturing

Prospecting is one of the important aspects of outbound sales. Depending on the strategy and team that you have, you may either keep this process separate or as a part of the whole outbound strategy. Either way, it’s a very effective step you can take in the time of crises. 

It may include: 

• Gathering information about key accounts which will later be used by either sales or marketing teams
• Network building which will allow you to establish valuable relationships with key accounts and interesting leads. It’s a very important part of the prospecting process which takes time (depending on your strategy) but at the end of the day results in  much more quality connections and prepares the basis for the future outreach. It’s like planting the seed which will grow into a tree further.

Review internal processes

Crises are a good time to focus on your existing processes, strategies and approaches, assess their efficiency and adjust. There are a lot of aspects to work on, so let’s dive deeper in some of them: 

• ICP / USP / VP: each business is like a live organism which constantly changes and evolves. It’s important to review your Ideal Customer Profile, Unique Selling Proposition and Value Proposition regularly in order to stay relevant and up to date. 
• Approaches: review your messaging and selling approach – how you present your business, how the value proposition is communicated, to whom, on which markets, how often you follow up with people and many other aspects. 
• Strategy: if you ever thought about entering new markets or adding new products / verticals to your business, crisis is a good time to work on new strategies or review already existing ones. 
• KPIs: good analytics is one of the most important aspects of a consistent and quality sales process. It helps with many aspects, starting from keeping the team aligned with their goals and statistics and up to strategic overview of the whole sales strategy implementation. 
• Tools: if you don’t have CRM  – it’s the first thing you need to implement. Moreover, always be curious about the tools and instruments available on the market, if there are any new interesting ones that you would need to try – like emailing tools, automation, qualification assistance etc. 

Upskilling

Sales never stand still – same as business – it constantly evolves and enriches with new approaches, tools, instruments etc. Look even at ChatGPT – some sales team already use it for their sales messaging or emails development. If your business is about IT – it’s a good time to train your people to get more technical knowledge. Be creative – there are a lot of options, starting from coaching and up to immersive training. 

Review compensation policy

This measure might not be the best decision ever, but on the other hand it might be the option to keep your team and add additional financial incentives. If your sales professionals compensation consists of the base rate, you might consider lowering it and building up a bonus / fee related model. 

Investing in people

How counter intuitive it may sound – investing in new junior people is another option to consider. If you have good leaders in your sales team, you should try taking people without experience or very little one and grow them internally. It’s cheaper than hiring a professional with lots of experience, and in the end of the day – you will be growing the team members which will follow your processes, approaches and strategies which will result in a higher loyalty and better business understanding. And when the crisis is over – you will have people ready to hit the scores. 

Summary

The best thing you can do in turbulent times is to look at the big picture, assess your possibilities and work on opportunities. Sales strategy is about seeing things in a long term perspective, being flexible and constantly evolving. 

Crisis is not the reason to stop your sales activities, but vice versa – it’s the best time to look back, review the results, adjust the plans and keep on going. And always remember – if you wait for the better times, others move further.