Selling in a Crisis

1Rise and Survive

In a crisis, getting out of the box is more than some caption on a motivational poster in the conference room. It means life or death for the entire enterprise.

Suddenly, there is a sense of urgency to improve. To get back to the basics. Everyone, from the CEO to the frontline sales professionals and account managers, must learn, adapt, and change. YOU must get better, because survival depends on it. Those who don't, go extinct.

It's natural to wish that things were different. It stinks to worry about where your next sale and commission will come from, where you will find new customers, and how you will hold on to the ones you have. It is depressing to watch your retirement plan shrink, see your customers go out of business, and deal with the never-ending stream of bad news piped through the TV and social media.

The key to outselling a crisis is action. The strong look forward, not backward. Those who quickly adapt and innovate thrive. The determined and persistent win. The rainmakers find a way to make it rain.

In volatile times, the salespeople who rise and survive are the ones who become disciplined, focus on the fundamentals of sales, make smart choices, and maintain a winning mindset. There will certainly be doors that close, but there will be many, many more that open. Your success in capturing these opportunities lies in your willingness to create a new vision for your future, energize yourself, do the hard work, and resolve to look through the windshield ...