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Episode Transcript
Alex Chan | Paul O’Donohue
Here’s a question for you: If you’re a business owner or CEO, Are You Recession Ready? This session discusses step number two of the SalesStar High-Performance Pathway: your Sales Plan. And to help us to go through this idea of the sales plan is Paul O’Donohue, SalesStar CEO and founder. Paul, good of you to join us once again.
Hey thanks, Alex. You know, through tough times and recessionary times, we’ve got to plan for the best but prepare for the worst. So, real critical, important topic. This one.
It is a critical topic. And the question that I have for our viewers is probably we’ve got a strategic sales plan already, but is it current? Is it up to date, in order to deal with an economic shock, possibly a recession? What’s your comment on that?
Well, you might have a current plan. And again, it might be based on planning for the best. So, you know, when the economy’s going really well. But, do you have a plan in your back pocket for the worst case scenario? Not saying that it will happen, but, you know, this is all about being prepared. So, you know, I think it’s a good time for sales leaders and business owners to really think about the worst case scenario and having a plan ready. So when a recession does hurt, they’re not panicking.
Yeah, I remember at the last global financial crisis or the GFC, way back in 2008. It’s been a while since we’ve had a big recession. There was one major company that did a major pivot in their strategic plan and they decided they would focus on their verticals or the niche areas, and a couple of great things happened. Number one, it got them through the recession then and number two, they came out the other side owning those vertical markets that they decided to specialize in. But you’ve seen some more recent examples during the COVID lockdowns two years ago on how people broke records even when the economy came to a standstill, didn’t you?
Well, it all starts actually from thinking, rethinking your target markets. What was your target markets could fundamentally change. You might actually want to hone in on more attractive core markets that are less impaired by economic and then economic crisis. So that’s one thing. But then, you know, within the plan, you really need to get your strategic messaging right, because what happens in a crisis is it’s actually tougher to get in front of the right people. So you’ve got to have the right message. You can’t sell tactically. You can’t sell features and benefits because everyone sells the same way. So you’ve got to really differentiate yourself, and it’s really important to nail your strategic messaging that should also that should be in the plan. The other thing should be in the plan is your key leading and lagging KPIs.
Right. So your strategic messaging you say, you’re referring to, why should I buy from you? Unique value proposition to name but one anyway.
Well, yes, it’s the “why should I buy from you?” But you’ve got to remember, in a recession, sometimes a lot of companies cut back staff. And the people we’re selling to are hyper busy. They’re doing the job of two or three people, it’s just really tough to get your attention in the first place. So with the use of positioning statements in the strategic messaging, it helps you get the cut through on the busy and the busy day to get their attention and to give them a real reason why to meet you in the first place. You fundamentally need to be able to sell that first appointment, like, your strategic messaging has got to be so good that your prospect needs to think “that sounds like me, that sounds like value, and I would actually pay you to come and see me.” So you’ve got to be able to sell that first meeting.
Yeah. You know what, your comment there just made me think of our go to market strategy as well, which is the problems that we solve. I think that these problems that we solve could actually change in a tough recessionary climate. We really need to rethink that one to make sure that the problems that we solve, otherwise known as our go-to market strategy, is really current for our market base.
Yeah. 100% and that will dovetail into your go to market strategy and your strategic messaging. But Alex, why don’t we keep the short and give access to anyone that wants it. There would be a link below to it to access our one page plan and a video series to help you plan for the future.
Well, that’s great. So, as Paul said, go ahead and download that one page plan. It has all the things that we’ve been talking about. It’ll get you off to a much, much quicker start because it’s all templated for you, all the different areas that you need to fill out. And if you want to know more, reach out to a SalesStar High-Performance coach – We’re here to help. Follow the series and get the full overview on how to be recession ready as we continue our journey with the SalesStar nine step High-Performance Pathway. And remember, watch out for key strategic moves later in this series. We’ll see you next time. Bye for now.
