Increasing sales in a crisis. Is it realistic?

During a crisis brought on by a pandemic and other global changes, businesses lose money because sales fall. Can you increase sales during a crisis? It sounds like fantasy, but let us take a closer look. 

• Is it realistic to grow sales in spite of the crisis and COVID-19?

• Which tools and strategies should be used for that?

• How do you increase b2b sales during a crisis? 

It is small and medium businesses that most often have to look for unconventional solutions without counting on outside support. 

Selling more during a crisis. Fantasy or reality? 

During a crisis most business people concentrate on keeping the company alive. That is logical, but it is precisely this approach that blocks the opportunities for growth. 

In a crisis uncertainty grows, people lose their jobs, they are refused credit, and overall purchasing power falls. Can you think about growth in a situation like that? 

To begin with, let us simply look at things from a slightly different angle: 

• During a crisis people start thinking more rationally. They buy what they genuinely need. And if what you offer is exactly that kind of goods and services, your company has a chance of getting through the crisis comparatively easily. 

• Companies' activity on the market often falls far more sharply than the needs and the purchasing power of potential customers. In other words, along with the crisis there appears a shortage of supply of particular goods and services. That is exactly where the potential for growing sales and profit during a crisis is hidden. 

Let us say straight away that there is no magic wand in the form of a universal recipe. But there are recommendations that will help you find the solution for your own business. 

Strategies for growing sales in a crisis 

Deciding on a strategy for running the business during a crisis is vitally important 

Specialists in marketing and strategic business planning identify three main ways of behaving on the market: 

• defensive;

• active and aggressive;

• preparing for the worst possible scenario. 

All of these involve a particular set of safety measures for holding on to the regular customers you have already worked with for a considerable time. During a crisis it is important to: 

• keep your most valuable regular customers;

• find a way to improve the services you provide to regular customers, so as to bring them more value and earn more profit. 

What else can be done to keep the company profitable during a crisis? 

• Clarify or adjust the positioning of your products. Work out who needs your services or goods — only then will you be able to plan marketing campaigns properly, aim advertising more precisely and optimise your pricing. 

• Think about which of your offers could become anti-crisis ones. For example, inexpensive sites, a budget version of SEO optimisation, the automation of work processes and so on. 

Below we will go through each strategy in more detail. 

The defensive version of the strategy 

You will have to take a fresh look at every customer. Recall the Pareto principle: 20% of clients bring 80% of the profit. Concentrate all your resources on precisely those 20%. As a result you will cut costs by at least 40 to 50%. 

It is better not to offer your key customers very large discounts. Think about their needs and start cross-selling. The main thing is to offer what your customers genuinely need. 

The attacking strategy

Every company has offers that can be positioned as anti-crisis ones. Most often these are goods or services that help to save money and quickly solve a problem that is acute for your customer. It is exactly these anti-crisis products that should be promoted as actively as possible. 

Launching an affiliate programme is an excellent idea too. You give other people the chance to earn, and they bring your company extra profit and extra customers. 

The strategy of preparing for the worst scenario

This strategy is aimed at reducing the business's costs and preparing it for the situation getting as bad as it can. The main measures: 

• Find goods (or raw materials for production) at the lowest possible price. 

• Find new suppliers who will offer better terms.

• Rebuild the work of the sales department. Identify the process people (those who follow instructions and procedures precisely and work well with long-standing customers) and the sellers (hunters of a sort, who bring in new clients but are not very good at working with them regularly). Give each employee the tasks that match their type. 

Staff turnover in a crisis is inevitable. There is no need to fear it, but it is very important to track the cost of attracting new employees. Always check whether you will lose customers along with a manager who leaves. 

What else can be done to increase sales during a crisis?  

Analysing what competitors do gives any business important information during a crisis

What other measures can be taken to raise the company's sales and profitability? 

Analyse your competitors 

This advice always holds. But what should you watch during a crisis? Above all, follow the competitors who are introducing new services, stepping up advertising campaigns and so on. Their results, both the successes and the failures, can provide valuable information.

Improve your service

Another piece of advice that always holds. But during a crisis this measure matters especially. Cutting prices and offering discounts is not always effective or even possible. Good service is another competitive instrument worth using in a crisis. 

Launch a new marketing campaign 

Rebuild the marketing system in your company. The changes can vary depending on your budget, the situation on the market and other factors. The following are almost certain to help: 

• starting content marketing;

• working on your unique selling proposition and the positioning of your products;

• updating the site with usability requirements in mind;

• launching new marketing channels and redistributing the budget between them;

• marketing automation. 

The ultimate goal of all these actions is to drive sales and increase the effectiveness of every marketing channel. Your communication with customers has to be as active as possible without becoming intrusive. 

How do you raise sales in the b2b sector? 

For B2B companies one of the main tasks during a crisis is improving their goods and services

The b2b sector suffers most of all from falling sales during a crisis. The main reason is far from always a general narrowing of the market and falling demand. Subjective psychological factors play an enormous part here. What should be done in such situations? 

• Review the sales plans and set realistic targets.

• Improve your services and adjust their positioning.

• Try to reach new markets. 

• Introduce anti-crisis services for your customers. 

• Work on automating your processes. 

The mood in your sales department matters enormously too. If your staff do not believe in the usefulness of the product and in the company's overall success, they have to be either won over or let go. This is not about clichés on positive thinking at all. It is simpler than that. A successful salesperson has to be sincere, and if they themselves do not believe in the usefulness of what they are offering, people will feel it. Besides, what specialists call psychological contagion can take hold of a team. The mood of the dissatisfied and the unsure will spread to everyone, and that means results will fall across the whole sales department. 

Conclusions 

Let us list once more, point by point, the measures that will help you sell more in a crisis: 

• analyse in detail how your team works, how effective your marketing is and how demand for your goods and services has changed;

• identify the most effective marketing and sales instruments and step up your work with them;

• improve the quality of your service so as to compete on more than price;

• automate marketing and all the related processes as far as possible;

• introduce cross-selling, affiliate programmes and loyalty programmes for priority customers;

• enter new markets (even the market of your own country can be new if you enter it with a new service);

• make your site more effective, rebuild its structure, take up SEO, start content marketing, move it to good hosting.

We wish you and your business development and growth even in difficult times!