Now that the crystal ball has dropped in Times Square, it”™s time to gaze into the other one ”“ you know, the one that forecasts the future.
Ron Volper doesn”™t have a crystal ball: No one does, he says. Still, he”™s well-positioned to consider what lies ahead in salesmanship. As managing partner of the White Plains-based Ron Volper Group, he has advised some 90 Fortune 500 companies, including General Electric, Exxon Mobil, American Express and JPMorgan Chase while training more than 30,000 salespeople and executives over a quarter of a century. His new book is “Up Your Sales in a Down Market: 20 Strategies From Top Performing Salespeople to Win Over Cautious Customers” (Career Press).
Generally, Volper sees a brighter picture for sales in 2012 than the one that shaped 2011, though not one as rosy as the halcyon days of Dow 14,000 (October 2007).
“The early signs I see indicate that the economy is improving and sales will continue to improve, though not as fast as we would like,” he says.
Those signs are even more hopeful in the tri-state area, which will continue to do better than the country at large in the information age:
“The tri-state area is less dependent on manufacturing and has a more diversified economy. There”™s more investment in education and diversified financial services. ”¦ Health care is huge here. In general, you have a more skilled and educated workforce. Those drivers ”“ higher education, higher skills, diversified education ”“ have helped us and will help us.”
As far as business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships are concerned, now is not the time to be a shrinking violet.
“Those businesses selling to other businesses are sitting on a lot of cash. ”¦ I”™m talking about the banks, the brokerages, the insurance industry, the venture capitalist firms, the private equity firms, the huge technology companies ”“ Google, Microsoft, Apple. There”™s a lot of cash, sitting on the sidelines. ”¦ They”™re afraid to spend, to the detriment of the economy and their own selves. You can”™t cut your way out of a recession. You can only grow your way out.”
Volper says the same to small businesses, although he knows it is stomach-churning advice at best.
“It takes guts. But by not doing this you are shooting yourself in the foot. Small business needs to invest in advertising and strategy as well as hiring while resisting price-cutting. ”¦ You need to create more demand.”
By the end of 2012, the sectors that will have seen their sales increase include health care, which is positioned for the aging population, and entertainment, which he describes broadly as everything from electronics to relatively inexpensive cosmetics. And yes, that includes the movie industry, which had a lousy 2011. (That, however, has less to do with reluctant audiences than with a crummy product and the decline of star power, according to some industry experts.)
In dreary times, “people are looking to be amused and entertained,” Volper says. The businesses that will do well, then, are those that help people “get out of their skin or make them feel better in their skin.”
Though the numbers are not yet in, Santa was better to retailers in 2011 than he was in 2010, says sales expert Ron Volper. Credit an aggressive approach to selling, with some stores rocking ”™round the clock. But there the picture was a bit deceptive as retailers worked longer to make a buck.
“While same-store sales were positive, not as positive were sales per hour,” he says.
How to get all the indicators pointing up in 2012? Follow these tips:
- Extend greater outreach to current customers, who help create new customers.
- Be high touch as well as high tech. That means you should increase personal service to your customers.
- Do not cut prices. “There are some exceptions, but in general, it”™s a huge mistake.”
- Offer a different kind of training for sales personnel that focuses less on the product and more on customer expectations.
- Talk less, listen more.
