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Five rules for becoming a core supplier
They may be core customers to you but are you a core supplier to them? When times tighten, companies concentrate business with their core suppliers and give up peripheral ones. Once you are established as a core supplier, your business can often grow during a slump.
How to offer greater value at the same price
The individuals you call on will be under greater pressure to deliver cost effective solutions. There are ways of offering more value without lowering your prices, but today's buyers are smarter. The key is to offer value added programs with attachable dollar value.
Shaping the turn around-vision
How will the people who "invest" more in your products during the slow times benefit when the slump turns around? Are you ready to present specifics?
Adjusting your brand story to fit the changing times
Your product offerings may change every year and economic slumps come and go but the basic brand promise of your company should endure. As a market slows should you present your brand promise differently? Also included: how to present your brand so it actually makes a difference on a sales call.
Reassess your competition
When there is "enough business to go around," peaceful coexistence with your competition may be fine. But in a slump, weaker suppliers may not survive. If business in your market is not growing, you must steal it from your competition.
Dealing with more demanding and problematic customers
A slump can bring out the worst in customers. Expect customers to demand more concessions and act more problematically. Do you see this as an opportunity or a hardship?
Are you a slump seller? Take a test:
Click here to take a sales effectiveness test written at the peak of the Great Depression
Click here to read Josh's Folio article: "Selling Through a Slump" page 1, page 2
More "Selling through a slump" downloads
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