Marketing Your Way Through a Recession
Studies show that businesses who maintain or increase their marketing during a recession experience higher sales growth – both during the recession and immediately following.
During a recession, money gets tight and fewer people are buying. If both you and your competitors continue to advertise, you wind up competing even harder for the few customers that are left.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that, even though there are fewer customers, there are also fewer companies marketing to them, because many of your competitors will cut back their advertising. Advertising during a recession gives you a unique opportunity to win their customers and gain market share.
Facts tell, but stories sell… well, most of the time
Storytelling is a great way to involve your client and close a sale … unless you get too involved, that is.
Is Cold Calling Really Dead? (Part 2)
In my last post, I took issue with a particular sales consultant on what I considered to be blanket statements he made regarding the so-called ineffectiveness of cold calling.
In all fairness to his expertise, the author did outline an effective alternative to cold calling:
Is Cold Calling Really Dead?
In case you didn’t get the memo, it appears that cold calling is offically “dead” – at least according to one expert. In an article entitled No, You Don’t Have to Cold Call – Ever, sales consultant Paul McCord had this to say about cold calling:
In my opinion, there is hardly a more worthless use of time and energy than cold calling.
Cold calling is time consuming for the salesperson and it immediately signifies to the recipient of the call that the person making the call isn’t an expert in their field because most prospects assume that true experts aren’t sitting at a desk pounding the phone.
Really, Paul?
He goes on to suggest that, while cold calling may generate some business, it’s not the most effective way to find prospects.
There’s just one problem with his statement: My department generated nearly half-million dollars in revenue last year… strictly by cold calling.