Saturday, February 14, 2009

Growing Your Sales During a Recession

By Leigh Stan

Most businesses tighten their belts during a recession and think about how to wait out the storm. During a time like this, it is important to understand how you can increase sales in a manner which is productive with your business expenditures. A prospecting firm can be one of the lowest and most productive ways to increase sales during a recession.

Prospecting firms offer advantages because their salespeople are comfortable on the phone. There are many salespeople who are good at selling but struggle on the telephone. Using a prospecting firm will allow your salespeople to be productive doing other activities while the prospecting firm can build a list of prospective new clients for your business.

One of the worst drains of your time is being on the phone with uninterested customers. Delegating the prospecting to a company can allow you to focus on growing new clients either through meetings or marketing strategy, ultimately which will cost you less.

You can turn your attention to meeting the people who are interested in your business. Using a prospecting company can allow you to track your return on investment so that you can increase sales but you know what it will cost to get to where you want to be.

Most businesses struggle with inconsistent sales to new prospects. Using an outbound telemarketing company will give you a consistently full pipeline, leading to more sales and thus lowering your costs.

Outbound telemarketing is not a favorite activity of many salespeople and they will procrastinate on doing this activity. Experimenting with new ideas with no idea of ROI will be frowned upon while a prospecting firm can build your business effectively by asking the firm typically what costs are involved in acquiring new customers.

With the focus on new business, many customer oriented salespeople do not have time to meet with current clients. They will have good telemarketers with set scripts who can sell cost conscious individuals and businesses on meeting with you to lower their costs, which can increase your sales.

Few companies are looking for sales over the phone and your business will likely be one of the few prospecting for business over the telephone by using a prospecting company. This system can dial automatically so the prospecting company can reach potentially five times more prospects than your salespeople can reach.

A prospecting company can allow you to increase the number of clients you want based upon how much work they do for you. Using a prospecting firm can allow you to enjoy this growth that will happen once the economy turns around.

If you have struggling salespeople, you may be able to reduce your staff by outsourcing new sales to the prospecting firm. This improves the productivity of the company and lowers cost for new clients and current clients.

It is hard for any business to simply maintain its current state. Most businesses will either grow or lose business during a recession so you have to ask yourself which side you want to be on. - 15246

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