A depressed economy or personal business downturn requires that you relinquish any restrictions about your “ideal” or preferred customer. This isn’t a time to be selective with your criteria; you may have to break some of your previous rules for those with whom you do business.
You need to adopt an appropriate game plan to ensure that you advance and conquer when things are tight. What you did yesterday may have worked then, but probably won’t be relevant today or tomorrow, so be willing to open up your customer base to offset any pullback from your normal list.
If your typical customer profile has diminished or they have cut their budgets, you will be forced to look to wherever a flow of business could come.
When economic conditions change, all of your earlier considerations and actions need to change along with them. Now is the time to be prepared to change past decisions in order to achieve your goal of advancing and conquering during the “contracted” economy.
Be prepared to change past decisions in order to achieve your goal of advancing and conquering during the “contracted” economy.
This doesn’t mean you throw your standards out the window; you’re simply readjusting your acceptable criteria during this temporary lull in order to accommodate a wider range of prospects and projects.
Ask yourself why you don’t do business in a particular zip code or with a certain demographic? Start looking for new markets and customers, and spend your energy and resources to determine what you have to do to get them. Forget yesterday and keep all your attention on how you will create a new tomorrow.
Reassessing your list of potential customers should be an operating basis at all times, but it’s even more critical now. You need relationships, business flow, action, new relationships and new business. You need to adjust for any loss in opportunities and revenue due to the constraints on the marketplace.
These new considerations – and your willingness to work with a broader range of people – may cause you to find yourself opening up to opportunities you’ve never imagined before, expanding your power base, and finding sales and customers you might have missed, denied or overlooked during better times.
How far should you take this? It’s up to you. I always remain open to creating new relationships in order to establish new contacts that may one day become regular customers. So, get real during economic contractions, and know that you will have to make adjustments in the way you think, the people with whom you’re willing to work, and how you conduct business.
