Overcoming sales slumps
Overcoming sales slumps
Every business owner can relate to sales slumps. Sales slumps and declines are unpredictable and are triggered by uncontrollable events. These events might include:
- Changes in product demand
- Competition and new products
- Seasonal slumps – tax time, holidays, or other times where business is slow throughout the industry.
Remembering that a sales slump is temporary can be the key to getting through a difficult time. How you handle this problem may determine how long your slump will last and how quickly you will recover.
Here are a few tips to coping with your sales slumps:
1. Focus: Change your focus to deal with today’s business. Take care of today and handle next month when it comes along. Putting too much stress on future sales can leave today’s business neglected.
2. Confidence: Sometimes sales slumps can leave you wondering about the source of the slump. Have I failed in someway to be the perfect salesperson? Often sales slumps can devastate your selling confidence.
Instead of evaluating the situation objectively, we tend to let it affect us emotionally. Take this time to reaffirm your sales techniques and make improvements as needed; remember the slump is temporary.
3. Reevaluate your sales plan: This might be a good time to take a closer look at your business sales plan. Add new sales strategies to your plan to boost annual goals. This might be the opportunity needed to take a closer look at your overall sales plan and strategy.
4. Relax: Take a break. Putting undue stress on yourself will not help a sales slump. You cannot become creative and resourceful under stress and tension. Join a health club or take up a new physical hobby such as running, walking or bike riding. Sometimes a rigorous physical workout program will assist with relaxation and sleep.
5. Use your down time wisely: If things are slow, now might be a great time to work on the projects that have been delayed due to time constraints. This could be great time for you to revamp your website, install new procedures that will increase your efficiency when business is back to normal, or might be a great time to develop stronger organizational skills.
The most important tip for overcoming a sales slump is to go back to your original sales plan and techniques that worked for you in the beginning. Sometimes we lose our focus and get side tracked.
Taking this time to reflect and self-evaluate your progress, your successes and your sales plan will ensure you come through a sales slump sooner or may help to increase your future successes when business returns to normal.
Rich Enterprises Inc has been providing marketing programs since 1999. Our programs help businesses rejuvenate their sales by adding new opportunities to sales pipeline.
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