Rising inflation, market volatility, increased unemployment, and shrinking GDP contribute to growing global recession fears. Unprepared businesses are especially worried, and with good reason.
If you’re unsure of how to handle the customer, labour, and financial challenges of recessions, you aren’t alone.
Let’s explore what a recession means, how to spot one, and how you can prepare to weather the storm.
The business world is seldom static. While you always hope for periods of growth and expansion, downturns are inevitable. But sticking your head in the sand won’t protect you from slow seasons, low B2B sales, and harsh economic conditions: when times get tough, smart entrepreneurs prepare.
Sales technology has been at the right hand of sales personnel everywhere for years. Its development has pushed products and padded pockets with greater ease and consistency than ever before.
That is exactly why picking the right models for your company is mission-critical. Doing so means your team has the tools they need to thrive. These choices extend to the CRM software your company relies on for its day-to-day operations. Therefore, investing in the right CRM software ensures your sales team has the data insights they need to close more sales – sending profits and efficiency soaring.
The sweeping changes affecting B2B sales strategy didn’t happen overnight. Even before the onset of COVID-19, many B2B buyers had moved toward self-reliance to conduct their own research and share their findings with colleagues. Interaction with a salesperson often only occurs after the modern buyer satisfies their preference for self-discovery.
Nobody likes failing. Just ask any salesperson what their greatest fear on the job is; they’ll usually respond with the fear of rejection. Despite being offered the best prices on the best products, clients will still find a reason to say ‘No.’ It’s not personal, it’s business.
And yet, sales anxiety persists – and it affects everybody no matter where they are on the totem pole. But is sales anxiety the main cause of diminishing sales success?
In a world full of choices, sometimes it’s nice not to have to choose. Local wineries understand this more than most other establishments. With hundreds of wines for guests to choose from, the decision process can seem more tedious than relaxing. How can we fix this?
When combined with superb customer service, recommending wines that fit your guests’ preferences can help to create an enhanced customer experience.
The saying goes that sales tools make the salesperson. Is this true? Without a doubt, they do give sellers an advantage over those who still depend entirely on spreadsheets, charisma, and pitches. However, sales tools and technology alone won’t amount to much.
To make sense of sales tools like business intelligence, analytics, and marketing, agents will need to learn how to use them effectively and efficiently. This is where sales enablement comes into play.
The pandemic changed the way we live, work, and conduct business. This is particularly true for the restaurant industry. While most businesses were forced to close their doors indefinitely, restaurants and other food and beverage establishments were able to survive – thanks to mobile ordering apps. The ability to order food online granted safety and convenience to customers. Though other industries have reopened their doors to resume business as normal, customers still hugely appreciate the benefits of their beloved mobile ordering apps. The best part of it all? Customers and the restaurant industry are far from the only winners. Here are five industries benefitting from the mobile ordering era as we speak.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have helped transform countless field sales agents from transactional order takers into proactive, opportunistic professionals. Despite being revered as a sales tool, CRM systems can also prove incredibly useful in managing supply chain disruptions.
A CRM provides a single hub to organize, store, and access customer contact details, background information, and communication logs. Additionally, it tracks and saves orders, return history, and customer support tickets.
When things are going well, it’s easy to sit back and stay the course. This is especially true with your sales team. Why rock the boat when you’re sailing smooth? Most managers start pushing if their teams haven’t hit their targets or they see more potential. But shouldn’t effective leaders empower their sales teams in both bad times and good?
Of course, they should. Empowering your team is always the right move. Research confirms that empowering employees provides them with a better work environment where they can perform even better.
It seems we’ve traded old pandemic-induced economic blows for new Russo-Ukrainian War-induced supply chain disruptions. Add in mounting global inflation and you’ll get a world faced with higher prices for harder-to-find goods. Chief among those suffering from supply chain disruptions the most are building and hardware distributors and manufacturers.
How do you measure sales success? By definition, it’s the confirmation that a prospect allowed a seller to address their needs.
This leads to an even bigger question. How do companies achieve field sales success?
Before the internet leveled the playing field in terms of knowing about products and companies, many salespeople saw field sales success as an individual accomplishment. Sales teams and companies supported that notion, as competition between agents meant bigger revenue for themselves. They stoked the competitive fire by offering awards and incentives for top sellers.