How to Use Tough Times to Boost Sales and Increase Market Share

No one welcomes tough times. Yet, during these difficult periods some businesses thrive, grow, and prosper. These firms display an unusual vitality by seizing the opportunity to increase sales, introduce new products and services, and capture a greater share of the market.

Here are sixteen practical techniques for using tough times to build a more profitable business.

Just remember the old saying, “Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”

1. Become more aggressive. Change your marketing strategy to fit the psychology of the times.

Emphasize how your products or services save time, cut costs, and increase productivity. If you take this route, you’ll stand out in the marketplace because most of your competitors will pull back to a more defensive, protective position.

2. Work at retaining present customers. Even if customers are spending less, don’t let them be tempted to take their business elsewhere. Studies show it costs five times as much to gain a new customer as it does to keep an old one.

3. Increase sales to present customers. The customer relationship is always much more fragile than we like to think. If fact, customer satisfaction depends on just one issue: Meeting needs on time, every time. Work harder than ever to meet as many of those needs as you can.

4. Build your prospect list. Develop what we like to call a “druthers” list. If you had your druthers, what two or three hundred firms would you like to do business with? Now, make regular contact with these companies. Explain why you have a special interest in them. Show how dealing with you has special benefits for them. Make your goal clear: Ask what you will have to do to get their business.

5. Use “Value-Added” techniques to get an edge on your competitors. Separating your company from all the rest in the same business is more important than ever. Think like a customer to discover what you can do to dramatize your uniqueness. It’s never the “value” you want to add that makes the difference, however. It’s the “value” the customer wants to receive that’s important.

6. Polish up your company image. Make sure your firm is perceived in the best possible light by customers, prospects, suppliers, and opinion leaders in your business and the community. Does your firm appear professional? Capable? Is customer service your number one priority? Then, publicize those “special” qualities that make you more professional than your competitors.

7. Keep a watchful eye on the competition. Don’t assume your competitors are sleeping. They may be making moves which could cut in to your customer base. More than ever, it’s important to scout the competition.

8. Increase your promotional efforts. A McGraw-Hill Research analysis of 600 industrial firms shows that companies maintaining or increasing advertising during the 1981-1982 recession averaged higher sales during that period and for the following three years than companies which cut advertising.

9. Make your employees and suppliers your firm’s ambassadors. Tough times can cause anxiety.

Don’t let it show. Negative messages spread like wildfire and can hurt your image with employees, suppliers and customers. Emphasize good news via pay envelope stuffers, bulletins, and newsletters. Don’t ever fake it, but always accentuate the positive.

10. Practice niche marketing. Look for those markets which best match your company’s products and service – and come out swinging! Strive to become the big fish in a small pond. Chances are competition is less intense in these markets and your strong position will fend off unwanted intruders. As you successfully serve new customers, you have a good chance to become the preferred supplier.

11. Maintain a strong financial position. Keep your bank informed about your business. Is your line of credit intact? Although you pay close attention to the accounts receivable, watch for “slow pay” trends and take action fast. And of course, take advantage of every possible discount for prompt pay.

12. Become marketing-driven. Make sure it’s your customers who are running your business. A marketing-driven company operates just one way: The total effort – product, service, price, and promotion – must be adapted to the needs and wants of customers.

13. Concentrate on the basics. Your company’s single most important job is to get and keep customers. The only way of doing this to help your customers solve their problems better than anyone else! Don’t assume you have the answers. Learn what each customer means by “better.” Then, adapt your product or service so that it is perceived as “better” in the eyes of your customers and products.

14. Concentrate on consulting. Remember, customers aren’t looking for “off-the-shelf” solutions to their problems. Tailor your services to meet precise needs. This means taking more time to be helpful, understanding and supportive of your customers.

15. Demonstrate a “we can do it” attitude. You may have the best products or service, but that’s not enough. Go the next step. Show enthusiasm for going out of your way to prove that you’re service oriented.

16. Use the magic word – “Sure.” Since we’re all in the problem solving business, respond to requests with a strong “Sure.” You may not have all the answers at the moment. That’s not important. You can get them later. When you’re talking to the customer, convey confidence and be 100 percent positive. It will get you more and more business.

In a nutshell, tough times don’t last. Tough people do. When you get tough with yourself and your business, success is on the way.