How to make sales during a recession

You’re probably feeling the pinch right now. This year, growth in manufacturing and other industries has dropped. With smaller budgets, companies are becoming more prudent with their spend, demanding a greater return on investment than ever before. It’s clear that in this new climate, companies will have to adapt to these ever-changing circumstances in their approach to making sales. 

But, with limited resources, how can you do this? We’ve helped lots of companies to grow their business, and along the way we’ve picked up some tips which can make all the difference... 

Reduce friction

The attitude of people who have bought from you will directly influence how many new customers you will get -- after all, your customers can be your biggest advocates, or your harshest critics. HubSpot believes that happy customers are the force that turns your leads into prospects, and your prospects into customers. But when customers encounter friction, at any stage of their journey, this sales process stops moving as quickly. 

Friction can come as a result of anything -- from an unhelpful customer service representative, to a website that doesn’t do its job well enough. Creating a frictionless sales experience is the key to making sure your customers leave happy, make future sales with you, and tell their friends all about it.  

Streamline your sales efforts

Like lots of companies during a recession, you may have had to cut jobs or freeze new hires for the time being. While this is not ideal, there are still ways your sales team can maximise their success by working smarter, and not harder. 

Here’s a sobering statistic: on average, your sales team spends just a third of their time selling. No, they’re not slacking off. The rest of their day is taken up with administrative tasks, such as researching leads, creating reports and yes, even data entry. 27% of sales people devote at least an hour a day to this, which is ludicrous when you think of how many tools are currently available to do this for them. 

Your take-home from this? Automate everything. From your sales emails to your pipeline progress -- heck, even your meetings’ calendar! A lot of traditionally time-consuming processes can be automated using freely-available and inexpensive CRM software and plug-ins. For help with getting started, chat with the FINALLY team. 

Align with your buyer

Ever feel that your outreach efforts could do with updating? On the whole, B2B companies provide a more complicated sales process than B2C who are harnessing new technology, like video selling or social media advertising, to diversify how they reach out to prospects.

It’s safe to say that B2B isn't quite there yet. Okay, our products are more sophisticated, and are generally service or account-based and in need further explanation. As well as this, some are tailor-made for our audience and while our effort goes into this, it’s not simplifying how we do things for everyone involved. But this is a mistake. The patience consumers have for jumping through hoops and managing your infrastructure is only going to decrease. Now is the time to make things easier for your customers. If you don’t, your competitors will, and it’ll be that company that stands out in your industry. 

Related: The what why and how of multichannel marketing 

But how do you do this? Here are a few key things to remember when aligning your business to its customers: 

1. Be available 24/7 - For many consumers, 9-5 opening hours is just frustrating. It's why FINALLY and others have installed chatbots on their website to handle customer service queries well into the wee hours.
2. Transparent pricing and discounts - No one likes to feel mis-sold or over charged. For a more seamless transaction (and less chance of buyer attrition), keep your pricing simple. 
3. Make it as easy to buy as it is to cancel - As much as customers love a seamless sales process, they hate feeling locked-in. If you want customers as advocates, give them the freedom to cancel should they wish. 
4. Let your buyer drive the sale - Whether it's speaking to them on the platforms they’re most comfortable with, or providing helpful solutions that are tailored to where they are in their buying journey, the sooner you let your customers drive their own sale, the happier everyone will be. 

FINALLY can help you to develop a fresh approach to your sales efforts. We help B2B companies to capture leads and develop these relationships using an inbound approach, making your company useful to find, and impossible to leave for its customers. To find out how we can help you, get in touch with our team today.