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8 Questions to Ask Yourself in a Recession

Written by: Wendy Weiss

Article Overview: Questions to ask yourself in a recession.

8 Questions to Ask Yourself in a Recession

1. What can I do for my existing customers to create greater value for them?

Creating additional value builds customer loyalty. It is always important to have customer loyalty... especially during a recession.

2. Who can I refer to one of my existing customers or prospects?

See #1 above. Helping customers creates loyalty. It also induces reciprocity. If you help a customer, they will feel obliged to help you, perhaps with an additional order, perhaps with a referral or perhaps simply by not switching to another vendor.

3. What else (products or services) can I offer existing customers and prospects?

Additional products and services mean potential additional sales. What makes sense to add to your existing offerings? Now might be the time to add them.

4. Which existing customers might be in a position to offer great referrals?

If you don't routinely ask customers for referrals it's now the time to start. If you do routinely ask for referrals, when is the last time you asked? It might be time to go back and ask again.

5. How many prospects do I need to contact in order to close one sale?

If you haven't already done it, figure out your average. Then do the math so that you know exactly how many prospects you need to contact in order to reach your sales goals. Bear in mind, the number may be higher than usual because of the recession.

6. How can I better organize my time?

Tighten up your sales cycle. Tighten up the time you spend on nonproductive and nonrevenue-generating tasks. If you're not selling, you're not making money.

7. What do I most need to learn to help me sell more? How can I learn it and how soon can I learn it?

Do you need to improve your skills? Will improving your skills help you close more sales? For most sales professionals the answer to this question is "yes." Identify the skills you need and take steps to acquire those skills. They will help you, in this recession, and beyond.

8. Will one of the sales-enhancing Weiss Communications programs help me achieve my goals?

If you've answered "yes" to the above question then take advantage of one of our sales-enhancing programs.

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Article Tags: additional products, customer loyalty, existing customers, last time, making money, math, offerings, prospects, recession, reciprocity, referral, referrals, sales goals, sales professionals



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Re: Marketing ideas? - Questions will set you free... And make you Rich [quote="KH_Global":349pds7c]Just ask ask ask. That is it.[/quote:349pds7c]
Re: Contact Information - Another idea would be to have an email form in place to accept "ticketed" inquires (if people are afraid of spammers seeing their email address). However, I hate how some sites try to persuade you out of sending an email by bombarding you with lists of "Frequently Asked Questions & Answers" as I find they're rarely helpful.
Synergy and Other Creative Insights - Truth is that there is [u:2iwgooi1]C[/u:2iwgooi1]ollaboration - on a formal basis and [u:2iwgooi1]c[/u:2iwgooi1]ollaboration which is informal. Let's say that you have a great new product. Before it launches you get loads of buddies in the same business as you to tear it apart and let you refine it. Creative people will get others in as well. people from outside the business - or those who are in the business who might not have anything to do with it and seek their input - listening hard. These aren't focus groups, they are way beyond this - they are real outsiders and thus have very open minds, asking the dumb, the stupid questions, which are often the most valuable. Questions like these help me be a good coach too! I once worked in a business where the backshop (the store room) was always untidy. They held a team meeting and had the cook in as well (you know the one who ran the employee facility). She knew nothing about the storeroom and its processes, but boy did she ask some tricky questions of them. Sometimes, little 'c' collaboration is real good at the mocro level, without which the big 'C' collaboration would be worthless.
Re: link exchange strategy - [quote="RussellWebb":2xvcpjwz]Questions that pop into mind... Does PR ranking effect 'who' you would exchange links with? Do you really need thousands of links to rank higher in the SE's? Are one-way links better than reciprocal links?[/quote:2xvcpjwz] Hi Russell, While I know you posed these SEO questions for Samin, I thought I'd help you get the conversation started by putting in my 2 cents. 1.) I think it's all about getting "quality" and high ranking/trusted sites (that are related to the content of your site and industry) to link back to you. 2.) While it's somewhat true that the more links you have the better, I'd suggest focusing on "quality" links rather than quantity. Poor sites and ones that aren't related to your field can actually hurt your rankings. 3.) Absolutely, it's much better if someone only links to you. However, reciprocal links are still good for those who have just launched a new site and are getting started. If I'm wrong about any of these comments, please feel free to correct me.
How to protect my trade mark? - Affirmative commercial action might be, for example, to increase spending on advertising, in order to make better known his use of the mark, or it might be to attend a national trade show associated with his business for the same purpose. Maybe he's just been lazy and hasn't had any serious lack of means. None of the questions was rhetorical. But I readily can imagine that you found the questions irrelevant to the legal discussion. I do not think that they are. Questions about the fairness of outcomes seem to me to be always relevant to legal discussions, with this reservation: that usually nothing can be done about clusters of unfair outcomes from within a particular legal system (ours, or canon Law, the Sharia, continental statute law, etc.) at a particular time. They need to get addressed politically first. In this connection, a lobby-related forum might be useful. Many patent and trademark related issues get very heavily lobbied. It's not that I found your points irrelevant to the legal discussion, it's just that most of your points missed the mark. I represent the "little guy" almost exclusively, and my clients have been very able to protect their marks against infringers large and small. You should educate yourself on the way things actually work, not how you think they might work, and then come back for a real discussion. I'd gladly discuss policy issues with you.


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