Selling 2.0

What is Your Recession Sales Strategy? 
January 2009
This study broke new ground by documenting how US companies were treating the recession like a slow time of selling and not a time of strategic opportunity. The study was the first to document how the recession was moving sales organizations to use social media for sales prospecting like never before.

This study was sponsored by Oracle and published by the social media site, The Customer Collective. It quickly became a breakout success:  
- It became top downloaded "Financial Management" white paper, worldwide for several weeks, according to ZDNet (see left).
- Also rose to be the second most downloaded white paper, worldwide, in the "Cost Planning" category. 
- It was carried on most major business publication web sites, including Forbes, Business Week, Entrepreneur, Inc, Fast Company, Sales & Marketing Management, Internet Week, Information Age, Sales Management 2.0, and Smart BIZ . 
- In April, The Customer Collective was approached by Kraft Foods, asking permission to use this study for the sales training of their sales directors in 64 countries.

Free white paper from The Customer Collective

 "What is Your Recession Sales Strategy?"

 This is the title of a new free white paper/survey I wrote for The Customer Collective. It is based on a survey and packed with strategies you can use to sell more effectively in these challenging times. If you use them you will be more successful because one of the survey findings was that three out of four organizations do not actually have a recession sales strategy, so developing one will put you ahead of most competition. 
 

While tough times often bring new ideas to many company functions, when it comes to sales, most organizations are doing things they way they always have, opting only to "sell harder" and hope for better times.

But a recession is more than just period of slow sales. It is a time when the markets and customers we sell to change behavior, with "buying less" only the tip of the iceberg. Customers often realign their buying criteria, corporate values, personnel, organizational chart, and alliances in ways that last long after the recession ends. Sales success depends not just on selling harder, but selling strategically smarter to these customer adjustments as well.
 

When Customer Collective Co-founder and CEO, Robin Carey asked me to do this study I could not wait to get the survey out, discover the results, and share all the great ideas.
 
I also looked beyond the survey I did to incorporate results from previous studies done on recession selling. In addition, terrific insights were added through interviews with some of the most knowledgeable sales strategists of our time; Jill Konrath, Chief Sales Officer for Selling To Big Companies; Dave Stein, CEO of ES Research Group; Denis Pombriant, Founder and Managing Principal of Beagle Research; and David Bonnette, Group Vice President, North American Sales at Oracle.

In these tough times there really are strategies sales organizations can use to make a difference. Often they are counter intuitive to selling in good times. This white paper/survey can help you find ones that will help you. If your competition just keeps "selling harder and hoping for better times" read this paper before they do!

"What Is Your Recession Strategy" is free with a registration to The Customer Collective, a terrific, free social media site for sales and marketing professionals that you will want to join anyway. Use the link below. If you already are a member, just use the same link to download.

Download the white paper/survey for FREE and register for FREE with The Customer Collective HERE

In addition:

Read a brief overview of the survey from the Teich Group:
 6 Critical Findings For Growing Sales in a Recession


The January 2009 issue of Folio Magazine reports on what the study means for content publishers: 
What "Do You Have A Recession Sales Strategy?" Means for Content Publishers

Additional content from the survey:
Survey: Entrepreneurs dodge recession discounting by moving faster