The economy is starting to look up, but in the meantime, managers who hope to maintain high closing rates would be well-served to employ these three strategies as part of their sales blueprint: 

1. Get more from existing buyers. When it’s difficult to grow your business horizontally, look vertically. How can you increase your average volume per sale? What products and services can you cross-sell or up-sell to existing buyers? Can you offer package deals, volume discounts or upgrades that’ll provide an automatic boost?
2. Alleviate buyers’ fears. During a recession one of the biggest obstacles is overcoming buyers’ fear of making a poor buying decision. Uncovering what motivates that fear (e.g., leaving an incumbent supplier, repercussions from upper management, etc.) puts salespeople in a much better position to win the buyer’s business.
3. Qualify, qualify, qualify. When times are tough, managers need to provide reps with the best leads possible. That means identifying which prospects (i.e., SIC, title, region, etc.) are most likely to buy and moving them to the front of your lead pipeline. But it also means having a system in place to ensure salespeople are qualifying prospects early and often. If your average sales cycle has become longer, it’s a sure sign salespeople are wasting time with prospects who are either stalling or have no intention (or power) to buy.

Tags: boost sales, down economy