New Contributor - David Colomb

Guest Contributor: David Colomb
David's Posts - David's Blog

Hi. My name is Dave Colomb and I am a salesperson with over twenty years of sales experience. I deal with small business owners, and love the experience. I sell trinkets and gift items to small independent gift shops. I also have 12 years of experience as a small business owner, so I've been on both sides of the table. I've thoroughly enjoyed both experiences.

In today's economic conditions I'm finding that my clients are extremely nervous about their futures. We live in an area,(Northern California), where there have not been large layoffs, but foreclosures are an issue, and everyone is concerned about the outlook for 2009.

The way to work through these uncertainties is to be a consultant and a cheerleader for your customers. You need to point out the positives and the opportunities of the situation. It's fun to sit down with a customer and lament on how bad business is, and how tough things are, but who does that help? We need to go in to the business with a positive attitude and a plan to help our business succeed, and it is our business. As my first sales manager told me, nothing happens until someone sells something. We all need sales, but to get those, we need to be sure that our clients remain in business, and remain successful. That means we need to be a consultant who shares the information that we have acquired through our travels.

As for the cheerleader aspect of our job, we need to point out the positives that are out there. Energy costs have dropped to levels not seen in the last five years; this is putting money in the consumer's pocket. Yes, the consumer is careful in spending that money, but they'll still part with their dollars if they see product that excites them, displayed properly. We need to help our customers to be able to do that. We also need to point out that the positives in the local area, new businesses, changes in the community, things that could improve our customer's business. In the last week, I've run in to several business owners who are saying that they have decided to ignore the "depression", they're going to continue to do their business and deal with the economy in a positive way. Many city governments have instituted, "Buy Local" campaigns, cities depend on sales tax revenue and in many cases they have spent a great deal of money to attract small businesses to their community, and they don't want to see these businesses fail. Closures hurt everyone. Even major retailers such as Wal-Mart realize that local businesses are needed. Wal-Mart has put programs in place to help small businesses succeed. There are a number of people rooting for the small business person.

I think that what is going to do the most damage to small businesses, in the overall, is fear. As we all know, looking at the negatives drives people to make defensive decisions, and that leads to buying less and contracting their business. Responsible contraction is prudent, wild contraction will kill a business; we all need to remain positive and work together to succeed.