Are we sufficiently prepared to sell in a crisis situation?
One of the most palpable consequences of the recent turbulence that the incipient trade war is causing is the return of the spectre of recession. If European economies in general have already been experiencing a slowdown in their growth, if not stagnation, US tariff policy decisions and the reactions of the “affected” countries may accelerate this process and increase awareness, if not the reality, that we are headed for a crisis.
A smaller cake for the same number of diners
Whether or not this is more or less real and pressing, it can be a good opportunity for governments, companies and consumers to ask themselves how to deal with a crisis, in this case a crisis of demand and not of supply as was the case with the pandemic, that is, a scenario in which, in business terms, after years of growth in the size of the market, both domestic and foreign. It seems that, at best, this growth stalls when it doesn’t, there is a decline.
In graphic terms, the size of the pie is reduced, and the diners do not do so in proportion, on the contrary, it may happen that when some of the markets are closed or limited, there are new players in the market.
As a result, competition increases and the size of the market shrinks. In this new framework, maintaining the volume of sales for a company necessarily involves gaining share and if its strategy impels it to grow in volume, the gain in share (the piece of the pie) would have to be substantial.
The strategic and operational implications of this refocusing of commercial action affect the entire company, the entire value chain and in particular the commercial function and the teams operating on the front line.
What are these implications in the commercial field and in its teams?
The most complex is cultural. Companies come from a culture of “buying the sale”, of loyalty and maintenance of quotas, where growth occurs via natural increase in the market, purchase of commercial portfolios, companies and in some cases the introduction of new products that cover market gaps. In other words, the commercial effort is more financial via incentives and promotions to the channel or directly from inorganic growth through the acquisition of companies, all in a context in which it is common that, if your customer grows, you grow with them, without needing to gain share with your customer, at most protect the one you already have. Now, it may be time to make more of an effort to sell to the market than to buy the market.
Are all companies and teams equally prepared to do so?
In this new hypothetical crisis situation, gaining share and attracting new customers becomes a “must” for companies. Farmers have to spend less time ploughing and relearning, if not starting, in the strategies, processes and actions of the hunter, both the one who hunts new accounts and the one who has to hunt within his customers to gain in penetration and compensate for what may be lost due to stagnation or regression of his customers or by the loss of others who have stopped operating or who have been captured by the competition.
The first challenge, the change of culture will not be possible if it is not accompanied by a substantial modification in commercial operations.
Changing the culture requires instilling new values, orientations and objectives in the sales teams. For these intentions and new focus to be transformed into results, it is required:
- A strategic reflection on the composition, renewal and activation of the client portfolio.
- Redefine business processes.
- A commercial management that accompanies the monitoring not only of the results but mainly of the quality and orientation of the commercial activity.
- New sales tools and methodologies
- And, first of all, managers and commercial technicians, with new competencies, attitudes and skills or at least well disposed to play a more active role than they would have had in the past.
This is what is called a commercial transformation, a paradigm shift in a new framework that requires rethinking:
- Where are we going to sell?
- What are we going to sell?
- How does the way we sell in the different segments vary?
- What discourse and what sales methodology for what positioning in front of the customer?
- How do management tools have to evolve?
In each sector, each market, almost each company, the logic is the same but the concrete answer to these questions will be differential. What is not eligible is to re-consider these and other questions about how to adapt, if not, transform the commercial function to face a crisis that we hope will not come, but for which we would at least have to ask ourselves if commercially we are prepared.
