Remember what it was like when your business was still in startup mode? It was an all-hands-on-deck environment charged with excitement, excitement that drove you and your team to increase your sales, broaden your network, and experience a new level of success. Now, you’ve hit a bump in the road and the electric fuel cells of excitement are depleted.  

In times of crisis, harness the nervous energy of your team, turn their anxiety into excitement, and attack this crisis with all the energy of a startup. By using the same thinking and tactics you deployed in startup mode, you can not only get your business back on track but you can also achieve a whole new level of success for yourself. Here’s how.

Make everyone a salesperson

Many organizations lose sight of the fact that, regardless of position, every team member is a salesperson. Every interaction with existing and prospective customers is an opportunity to delight, provide remarkable value, and to expand your sales opportunities through referrals. How your team members speak to your current and future customers should consistently support your business goals while exemplifying your mission, vision, and values.

What’s the best way to facilitate this? By providing sales training to every member of your team. Call an all-team meeting to clearly communicate the why behind the sales training, the how of the training, and the commitment to what happens when training isn’t completed. Hold your team accountable by holding yourself accountable. Yes, you as the business owner–you need to be completing the same sales training as your team! Thereafter, sales training should be introduced to new employees the very first day, in the onboarding process. 

Company-wide education and training couldn’t be more important than when you’re facing a business emergency. Training will diversify your organization’s roles while helping your team identify every opportunity to boost sales. 

Develop a process for every employee to understand your brand’s value propositions, products, and services

Your marketing message should be included in the company-wide sales training and reinforced through company-wide accessible resources. Every team member should know your business’s value proposition and its meaning, as well as the features, advantages, and benefits of your products and services. 

Do you have an information hub in your organization? A centralized location for training documents? A CRM to collect and reference client info? Set your team up for success with high-quality resources. They should be able to live, breathe, and believe in this information to the degree that they—just like you—view every interaction as a means to push the business forward. 

Pull sales revenue forward by creating discount packages

Cash flow from sales is like blood to the body. If sales are in a slump, creating discount packages to increase the blood flow. When designing these packages, focus on how you can stabilize the state of the business today while also cultivating a stronger future for the organization. An example is offering your clients a 10% to 15% discount if they commit an additional six to twelve months of services. 

Be careful here: don’t give your customers such a deep discount that you’re losing out on your margin, creating something that is unsustainable, or reducing your offering’s perceived value. These packages should foster a deeper, longer commitment in clients while also building upon the mission, vision, and values of your company. Use those concepts and your present day financials to guide you. 

Do not veto marketing. Instead, lean into it. 

Unfortunately, marketing seems like an obvious choice when you’re looking for areas to reduce spending and protect cash reserves. Turning off the marketing faucet is one of the worst, knee-jerk reactions a business owner can do during a crisis. Even the best digital marketing campaigns to take significant time to mature–time that you can’t afford to lose if you aspire to achieve future success. 

Even with the best data available, marketing can be unpredictable. However, despite this, I highly recommend you don’t slash your marketing budget. Instead, you need to lean into your marketing team, find innovative ways to keep your existing customers engaged (you can’t afford customer attrition), turn those existing customers into brand advocates, and reach new customers to increase your revenue. How can you do any of these things without a strong marketing presence? You can’t accomplish this without marketing. I repeat, you can’t. 

So, what are some of the ways you can leverage your marketing efforts? By showing your audience value! Host webinars or live virtual events, create downloadable content with high impact, provide product demonstrations–put on your thinking cap and brainstorm the possibilities. Focus on value that relieves clients and prospects of their fears while also increasing their confidence in you. 

You’re meeting them where they’re at (and where they need you) all while using this as an opportunity to get your brand in front of them to increase your sales. 

Getting back to basics with a 10X startup mindset by meeting your clients where they are at mentally, use crisis as an opportunity to get your brand in forefront, and increase your sales. 

Do you remember how to get back in touch with the startup leader that lives inside of you? Are you a 10X business owner who needs help making tough decisions?

Contact Cardone Ventures TODAY to learn how I can help you scale and grow your business, no matter what the business climate looks like.