MARKETING TIPS FOR WHEN THE ECONOMY'S CRAZY

There's nothing like a little market tailspin to send you scrambling to assess the core attributes of your business - products, sales and service. Truth is, it's easy to ignore quality issues and opportunities for improvement when the revenues are easily rolling in, but complacency has its price - you may find yourself in a weak position when fortunes take an inevitable turn.

Staying at the top of the heap requires creativity and commitment to quality no matter what the market is doing. By adopting proactive thinking and consistently striving for improvement as core practices, you give you a better platform from which to launch when you find yourself in need of a revenue boost.

So don't blame your troubles on the economy - there's always room for excellence. Use this opportunity to take a good look in the mirror, and recommit to quality at every level of your organization.

Fine-tune your marketing efforts when a volatile economy threatens revenues

Fearlessly Assess Your Current Products And Services
Do you truly deliver what you claim to offer? Have you put off making changes or improvements because things were going okay the way they were? Where have you gotten complacent? Are customers purchasing from you only once? It's time to acknowledge mediocrity and commit to refining attitudes as well as products and services.

Leverage Gifts and Successes
Analyze effective skills and successful projects or services, and find out how these might be of value to others within previous or existing client organizations, or to prospective customers. Too often, we restrict our attention to the needs of the current "point of contact" within an organization. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you may learn about needs in other business areas, or leaders who could benefit from your expertise. If you have multiple projects with one client, how might you help connect people, issues, resources or initiatives that might otherwise go unconnected within the organization?

You can also brainstorm ways to customize non-proprietary products or services you provided for one customer to solve problems for another client, or even extract one facet of a product to create a new application that is of interest and value to other customers.

Revisit and Re-Energize Your Sales Story
If you ask each member of your sales staff what her basic "sales story" is, chances are good that you'll get answers you weren’t expecting. Even if you've provided a tightly written sales script, individuals tend to key on particular words that resonate to them personally, and they may be knitting bits and pieces into a tale (or "elevator sound bite") that leaves you horrified and wondering what company they’re talking about!

Now's the time for a refresher session to reinforce the image or concept that you want out in the marketplace. Rehearse your basic concept line; a short description of your products' major benefits that makes your company unique, and some "reason why" data. Role-play so you can observe tone and execution as employees practice - you'll be rewarded with knowing that they are representing your vision more consistently, making smoother presentations, and gaining the motivation that grows with proficiency.

And don’t make the mistake of thinking that your sales representatives are the only sales people in your organization! Forward your "marketing stories" to your entire workforce - reinforcement of the company's "reason for being" can serve to remind employees of their "reason for being there"!

Make Every Employee a Marketer and Salesperson
Every employee should ideally feel that he or she is a key company representative and that his or her service skills - whether directed toward external clients or internal colleagues - contribute to the bottom line. Give each employee the power to cut through red tape in order to solve problems, and publicly recognize their gifts as assets to the organization. Encourage them to assess the aspects of their job that they most enjoy and the skills they employ in fulfilling those aspects. Those talents may warrant repackaging into another job description, and your employee’s dream job may yield a completely new contribution to your business!

Optimize Every Opportunity
Permeate your organization with the mantra, "Do It Right. Do It Right Now," and be its shining example. If you call a client you're thinking about today, and she may be able to meet with you this week. Put off the call until tomorrow, and you may find that she’s booked up for the next month. If a client-service or account representatives could have fixed a customer problem today, but throws the information into her "to do" pile, that customer may go elsewhere out of frustration, or a project that you could be starting tomorrow may languish for months, or fade away altogether. Don't let opportunities and revenues slip away due to complacency or laziness – those opportunities to be of service and enhance profitability may be irretrievable. Involve all employees in assessing how to avoid such missed opportunities, to the benefit of everyone in your group.

Know Your Customer - Let Your Customer Know You
You could meander along for years providing a customer with the same product, and they may never know about services or products you may have that would help them address other issues. It's not up to them to think of you; it's up to you to let them know the depth of your offerings and how your company may be of value to them. To do that, you must develop a relationship with them that goes beyond them thinking, "oh, no – it’s a sales call" when they hear your voice on the line. Don’t just call in a panic, or obliviously when you need something. Connect with customers often, and in ways that allow you to share something with them, be it information, an idea or simply a "thank you."

Take clients to lunch once in awhile, or meet "just to catch up". Ask questions about new developments and listen for opportunities. Asking "how can we help you further?" is too general; It puts the onus on your client to think for you, and he or she may not be able to envision you providing anything but the current service. Talk about projects you've done for other clients and highlight ways you could see the product or service helping them, too, based on the conversations you had. Demonstrating that you are thinking about the client and making those connections to their needs will make them more receptive to your ideas.

Don't write a company off if your main contact has left - find out who's there now, or to whom your contact reported, linking past successful collaborations when you make the new connection. Paying attention to your primary contact's conversational mention of peers and higher-ups can lead you to new opportunities to be of service, even when that contact is no longer there. Better yet, don’t put yourself in a situation where you lose contact with a client company simply because an individual leaves the organization. If that happens, you’ve built a relationship with one person, not an organization of people. How can you provide your best service and expertise if this is the case? Build relationships with the people in your client organization.

Give 'Em Something Extra
Let your customers know that you value them beyond your contractual agreement. Gracefully gifting them with extra service or bonus product helps to differentiate you as a vendor that cares. Forwarding an article with a note that says, "thought this might be of interest to you" sends the message that you view your contact as a human being, rather than a revenue stream. If your goal is to have a business that transcends the flip-flops and fluctuations of the economy, that true connection with your customers is the your wisest investment.

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