Selling in a Recession – Don’t Panic!

“During Hurricanes, Roosters Think They Can Fly”

An executive with a telecom shared this quote with me in early 2001. He was expounding on how many on his sales team had let their sales and professional skills slip during the mania of the Internet bubble. “Shooting fish in a barrel doesn’t exactly improve your hunting skills”.

As economist argue on whether or not we are in the beginning, middle, or we just passed a recession, we are going to take a look back on the lessons we learned during the dot com melt down and how those apply even more today.

Lesson #1 – Recessions, like Real Estate Markets, are “Local”

Sex, violence, and bad news appeal to the masses. Be honest, we slow down for car wrecks, not to see if we can offer aid, but to see gore.

Even the weather channels will play to our basest fears and morbid fascination with the misery of others:

“Yes Bob, we are coming to you live from a town that lies in the path of a potential storm. It’s sunny now, birds are singing, children are playing, ice cream is being sold on a street corner……but this is the proverbial calm before the storm. While we can’t identify the storm yet on our radar, we heard from some guy that we should be ready for the “big one”. While the churches are empty now, we expect them to fill quickly as the potential storm begins to form bringing it with death and devastation not seen since the passover. Coming to you live from the next level of Dante’s inferno, this is…..blah, blah, blah”

Don’t panic. While some sectors will suffer during economic downturn, others will remain stable, some will even have an upturn. During the dot com meltdown, government, non-profits, and those business with sound business models continued to buy technologies.

As we move forward, focus on the fundamentals. Know your ROI, tighten your messaging around it, and focus on those companies that can benefit the most from your solution.