Page 181 - Social Media Marketing

Blasting Out of Your Sales Slump 167

• Have prices gone up?
• Is your competition doing anything different?
• Is the entire industry in a slump? If so, why?
• Have your customers changed the way they shop for your

products and services? If so, what are they doing differently?

Once you have a fairly clear idea of what has changed, you can
begin to formulate ideas on how you can change to accommodate
the new market conditions. For example, if prices have gone up,
what can you do to improve the value you deliver? Can you bundle
products in such a way to make the price increase less obvious? Can
you offer improved customer service to differentiate yourself from
your competitors? If more of your customers are shopping online,
have you made the necessary adjustments to establish a greater
online presence? Do you have an online store where people can
place orders?

By identifying the cause of your slump, you are likely to identify
the solution.

Set a Goal and Reward

A sales slump tends to feed on itself. Perhaps a lack of motivation
triggered the slump, and now that you are in a slump, your motiva-
tion continues to deteriorate, and your slump deepens. You know
that the slump is not going to magically disappear unless you take
action, so you need to do something to give yourself a good swift
kick in the pants-or skirt.

One way to proceed is to set a new goal and dangle a reward in
front of yourself to provide some added incentive. Your goal may
be process oriented, such as making 50 phone calls a day for the
next month, or results oriented, such as achieving a certain sales
volume for the month or quarter. Any goal that will inspire you to
work harder and smarter will do. For more about goal setting, refer
to Chapter 2, "Motivating Yourself with Goals and Rewards."