Selling in a Crisis

54Outperform the Dip

The market had been in freefall for several months. There were daily stories of people who'd had their life savings wiped out. Essentially, it was all bad news, all of the time.

I scheduled a meeting with my financial advisor to review my investments and sort out what we were going to do to avoid catastrophe. He walked me through the grim statistics of the bear market: Tech stocks down 50–70%, NASDAQ down 30%, S&P down 20%, crypto down 80%.

Then he gave me the good news: my portfolio, for all of the volatility, was down only 9%. While most investors were taking it to the chin, my portfolio, though down, was in great shape and poised for big gains when the market cycle eventually moved back to abundance.

My financial advisor was outperforming the dip. I congratulated him and walked away from the meeting much happier than when I walked in.

In your industry vertical, market, region, and company there will be a dip in revenue, profits, new customer acquisitions, units sold, customer and order retention, and other key performance indicators and metrics that matter.

The truth is that the dip cannot be avoided. Things are volatile. The market is down, and customers are pulling back. You have no control over broad market-wide downturns.

However, you have absolute control of outperforming the dip in your market, outperforming the other companies in your sector, and outperforming the other sales professionals in your industry and company.

The real secret to outperforming ...