Never Stop Selling

(How to avoid boom & bust)

One of the biggests risks for some businesses is having so much business that you stop selling. In some companies, when they are busy they are not selling and when they are selling, they are not earning. This is a particular risk for professional services businesses - even quite large ones - where the best sales resource is often the most valuable delivery resource. Many businesses fall into the same trap. They reduce their sales and marketing efforts when order-books are full. They lack the time to continue their relationship building when times are good. The bad news is that good times are often followed by bad times. A couple of cancellations can leave you starting from scratch to rebuild the relationships that you allowed to become fallow whilst you were busy. What to do?

1. Never stop selling - Even when you are really busy, keep all of your relationships alive. Many professionals sell the majority of their time to people they have kept in touch with over an extended period when they were not buying.
2. Manage your relationships - When order-books are full, keep a close eye on customer satisfaction. Make sure that you are easily dissatisfied. Treat long-standing clients as though they may defect at any moment. Take no-one for granted.

Review If you are at full capacity and growing the number of customers is not appropriate:

• Avoid turning potential business away (business that will most likely stay away from you if things change and you have more capacity);
• Think creatively about how you can satisfy those clients that are currently unsatisfied;

Things to consider

• Look for alliances and other mechanisms to satisfy these customers without adding to your cost base;
• Think about price as a tool to manage your customer base to become more profitable so that you can fully satisfy all the highest spending clients;
• Use Segmentation tools to better understand your customer base;
• Adding flexible capacity that has no fixed cost (outsourcing, sub-contract, …..)
• Additional products with lower costs or new processes;
• New, higher value, products / services may be appropriate for some.