3 Key Components To Succeeding In Today's Economy

Ray was a former Sales Manager of mine when I sold radio commercial time. Although I had been in radio for some sixteen years to that point, I had never formally been a sales representative. We had, as sales reps, monthly quotas to achieve. The numbers seemed daunting in a relatively new territory which I was taking over. I had also never actually sold radio airtime before. I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to achieve the monthly quotas that were expected of me.

Ray, in his wisdom from years on the street, simply focused me this way: “Kevin, if you look after the weeks, the months will look after themselves.”

Ray refocused me by showing me how to break down the monthly totals into four weekly performances – small manageable steps.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: This is good advice at any time in the economy, especially today. But there are three key components that you will need to consider to succeed in a resetting economy. Perhaps you may have overlooked these in the past few years.

1. Get rid of the need for record-breaking performance. Not every year is a record-breaking year. An organization can still do well in today’s economy if they are prepared to commit to creating relationships based on value with their clients and staff. Relationships based on money only will seriously be undermined and loyalty becomes non-existent. When you teach your clients and staff to buy based on price, then the guy with the best price wins. What are you offering as far as solutions go? People will pay a fair price for something they get tremendous value from. Sell your “value-proposition” and not your need to have a record-breaking sales year. What has that got to do with your staff’s and customer’s needs anyway?
2. Stop comparing to last year’s performance. Last year and the year before were boom-years. If you want a fair comparison, compare to 2002 just prior to the boom. (If we could only teach the media how to do this when they tell us how bad our economy is today.) But in relative terms, comparing apples to apples (2009 to 2002) we are about the same – perhaps a little better today. Make a fair comparison. Measure yourselves by the quality of your work and not the finances. Money is a lousy way to keep score. Customer satisfaction is a better way to check how you’re doing. Keep customers satisfied and they keep coming back. Look after the customers and staff and the dollars look after themselves.
3. Chop the deadwood. When times are good, you get fat. You get bloated. You feast at the table of the never-ending supply of money. You gorge yourselves and treat your lives like a drunken orgy of delights. Now is the time to get lean, to lose weight, to trim the fat. Because times were so good you had to hire people who were not necessarily the right fit for your organization. But you needed warm bodies and any body would do. But now is the time to eliminate waste. Companies are getting rid of programs that don't positively impact the bottom-line directly. Feel-good motivational stuff doesn't make people better salespeople, better workers or better managers. But change an attitude, a perspective or point of view and you can make a difference in the day-to-day functioning and results of any organization.

Now is the time for personal and professional leadership - not being paralyzed by the scare-mongering of the media. Now is the time to strike while a company's competitors are sitting on their hands waiting out the storm. Now is the time to create relationships with customers - not to agree that the sky is falling. Now is the time to bring value to the market - not just price. Now is the time to be bold while everyone else is being conservative. Now is the time to change minds - not agree with the media-induced perspective. (Even the media is in trouble - having spent the better part of the past year telling people that times are hard. It has come back to bite them in lower ad revenues. It's the old adage of what you think about, you bring about.)

People want to believe that there is something positive coming out of all of this and they want something to look forward to. People want a reason to believe that what they do matters and that they are valued. People want believe that they can still succeed in this economy. And I believe that they can. Anyone can. And I will argue to the death with anyone who believes anything to the contrary.