1. Cross- and Up-Sell in Existing Active Accounts
Active purchasers/users of your products and services who are buying from you currently may have a need for something else that you do. Look at ways of up selling and cross selling into all of these accounts. How could they blend one service/product they currently use with another they have never used? What would be the benefit to them of doing so? What financial/other incentive can you give them to do so?

Formulate as many cross- and up-sell strategies as you can for everything that you currently provide. Look at packaging sets of goods and services so that you add value and revenue to every sale you make. With a little imagination, you'll find you can increase the value of each sale, and create brand-new sales, with little additional effort. It doesn't have to result in a doubling of the value of every sale you make, or in doubling the value of every existing account. Even modest margin increases will add up substantially over time. Look at how McDonald's approach every one of their admittedly individually modest sales – "Would you like fries with that?"  Go large!

2. Awaken Hibernating Accounts
Review the records of everyone you've ever done business with. You'll find there are some on that list who, for whatever reason, have had no contact from you or your sales force for some time. Good times are like that – we all tend to chase the "low-hanging fruit" – the opportunities that walk up to us and say, "Take me!" There will be some customers who have had excellent experience with you, but who haven't done anything with you recently because you simply have not asked. Get out and see everyone. Things have changed since you saw them last – for one thing, you're much hungrier and, if you've actioned the first point above, you now have so many "packaged" offerings that you must have something to interest them.  

A key point when you undertake these first two steps is to avoid the temptation to confess that things are tight. Do that and you put your most valuable assets in a situation where they may feel pressured to do something for you – particularly if traditionally you have had good personal relationships with the account contacts. Also, the thought that you might be under any real pressure can grow into the concern that you may not be around to service or implement any project or product that they might buy from you. Be upbeat and treat this as an account-development meeting – seeking more ways in which you can help these valuable customers to meet their objectives, thereby helping you to meet yours.

3. Revisit All Recent Leads
In good times, there is always easy money to be made and, therefore, prospects who express an interest in what we do. But they either don't place an order or don't return our calls, and they fall by the wayside. Review all of your recent leads. Filter out those that came to nothing – but where, for whatever reason, you never got to a no or to a formal decision on your part to qualify out. If these folks contacted you looking for information, attended a seminar, or requested a brochure, then at some point they had a qualified interest. Chase down these leads. You'll find that some never got around to making their purchase because they were too busy and there was no salesperson driving their decision-making process. Be that salesperson.

4. Seek Referrals
This is classic, basic sales advice, but it is never more important than when times are tough. In every encounter with active customers or hibernating accounts, get into the habit of asking for referrals. Look to existing accounts for referrals to other contacts within the account, or for referrals to their suppliers and peer organizations. Speak with everyone you know in business and ask them to think of anyone to whom you should be speaking. It will get results. Simple, but effective.

5. Cast Your Net Wider
When business is good, the advice is simple: refine your target audience. Know your customer base and market to it to the exclusion of all others. It also means being fussy – going only for the high-ticket, high-margin deals you deserve. When the going gets tough, go for some of those smaller projects you would have sniffed at in better times. Be prepared to come down from the mountain.
 

Take that horrified look off your face – we're not suggesting you compromise your values or your standard of service, simply that you recognize that tighter times demand a more flexible approach to deciding who merits your attention. You will find that lowering your sights even a little will substantially broaden the target base with which you have to work.

Be careful, however. What you sell to one class of prospects may not appeal to another, perhaps smaller, purchaser. Look carefully at your offerings, and at the new additions to your target base, and repackage what you do to appeal specifically to them. Is there a way to "modularise" what you do, breaking it down into individually priced elements that smaller customers can use on an as-needed basis? Can you provide financial payment terms that make it easier for the customer with shallower pockets to work with you? What can you do to broaden your appeal? You may have to create a brand-new range of product/service offerings and marketing approaches to hit this wider target base.

6. DON'T Reduce (or increase) Costs …but DO increase value. The moment you start the "bargain basement" approach, your existing customers will imagine that they smell "blood in the water" and this may shake their confidence, driving them away. No prospect or customer ever ran away from more bang for his or her buck, however. Look at how you can deliver more – better service, higher quality, better payment terms, whatever – for the same money. Do this by looking at what your targets value and what your competitors deliver. You'll find that you can very often up your value proposition by 100 percent and still elevate your true cost of sale by only a fraction of that percentage. And – need we say it? – don't even consider pumping up your prices in tough times.

7. Invest More Time and Money …in marketing and promotion. You've heard it all before: sales is a numbers game. These numbers – particularly the key ratio – are completely different when things tighten. If you were working a 100-10-1 model previously (100 suspects producing 10 prospects, which in turn produced 1 sale), then you know you're going to have to ramp the input to this funnel to a much higher level to compensate for the slowdown. Do you have to double it? Triple it? Whatever the multiplier, you'll find you need to have your prospecting machine running continually, in parallel with other activities, seven days a week. Look at what you can realistically aim to sell to your target base and set about designing as many ongoing prospecting activities as possible. Ramp up your public relations, run value-added seminars and road shows, engage in coordinated mail and fax broadcasts – do whatever you have to do to get your message, and ultimately your sales team, in front of as many prospective customers as possible.

If you have not already done so, consider dedicating some of your team to prospecting alone. Now is not the time to skimp on the promotional budget. You have to invest in chasing prospects out into the open.

8. Build Lifetime Customers
In general, the easiest and most profitable business to win has always been that won from existing satisfied customers. Delivering excellent customer service is essential when there is less business to go around. If you are a direct part of the sales organization or effort in your company, you are one of those with ultimate responsibility for development of profitable customer relationships, and with customer retention. No longer can you shift the blame for implementation or delivery to someone else in the organization. To ensure your future sales, you must take complete ownership and responsibility for the success (as perceived by your customer) of all of your sales. This means taking a perhaps unprecedented interest in the successful and quality implementation or delivery of every project, product or service you deliver to your customers. It means ensuring that everyone involved in delivering what you sell understands that you expect them to go the extra mile to satisfy your customers spectacularly. Ensure that all of your sales result in delivering the success and benefit the customer set out to achieve. That way, you start making headway on tomorrow's sales today.

9. Ask the Troops What They Think
Before you charge into implementing these suggestions, see if your team has any more to add. Call for input from every department on what people think you could do to up revenues and drive sales. Don't confine this to your sales and marketing people – frequently your technical and administration people have a keener awareness of what your customers would really like, or would be willing to pay extra for. Besides drumming up new ideas, this process will make everyone feel an important part of the organization's positive drive for increased success – people will much more effectively implement actions they feel they helped to formulate than ones they feel have been imposed on them.

10. Keep Your Chin Up
Hey! We're not Pollyannas! But we can assure you that unless you stay optimistic, you are dead. Don't feel that you or your business is unique in its suffering, and that all is lost. It's that kind of thinking that fuels dipping consumer confidence. Whatever you're facing, you'll find that others have come through worse and that things always get better – and this happens faster for those who keep their heads and remain focused and optimistic. Too many people fold up their tents and head for home at the first sign of bad weather. Don't be one of them. Businesses can survive, and even thrive, if their owners and managers remain calm and do what needs to be done to cope with more challenging times. Decide what you need to do to ride the storm out, and then focus all of your energies upon doing it.

The sky is never really falling unless we collectively wish it down upon ourselves.