With the 2024 presidential election now less than a year away, savvy small business owners need to start preparing for the potential economic shakeup that often follows a change in administration. While it's impossible to predict exactly what policy shifts or economic forces will be in play, history tells us the first year or two of a new presidency tends to bring turbulence before any sustained trends take hold.

Just look at the backdrop of where we are now (and where it sure seems like the economy should have already taken a downturn): stubbornly high inflation, the Fed trying to use high interest rates, low unemployment, rising wages (like where cities/states are raising their minimum wage to well above the federal level), slowing consumer demand, and whispers of a potential recession on the horizon in late 2024 or 2025.

That's a lot of moving pieces for small businesses to try to account for in their sales forecasts, budgeting for tools, technology and staff, and what systems and processes to put in place now to make sure you are ready. This is why understanding sales operations and sales training basics are essential for any small business.

Yes, there are some businesses/industries where when the general economy takes a hit, they will do well. But for most companies and leaders that have been around for a while, the focus should be more on securing everything that you can to prepare for a hurricane that is scheduled to make landfall.

With seven months (or less, whenever you read this), there is still time to get some fundamentals in place, put new tools and strategies that will help the team succeed. Part of this preparation includes building sales team processes and sales training videos for beginners to ensure everyone is up to speed.

Here are the Top 5 ways that could help your sales operation:

1. Sales Tech Audit – Part 1: What Can You Remove?

It sounded like a good idea at the time. The salesperson told you how much it would help your team close more deals and allow you to scale your team and their results.

But in reality, it didn’t turn out that way. Maybe they were an amazing salesperson that got you excited about the hype of your ideal future. Maybe you were just so in need (aka desperate) for something that would help your team close more deals, you thought that tool(s) would be the key to unlocking their full potential.

Now, if you honestly sit back, unattached from the ego around the decision, is there anything in your marketing and sales tech stack that you would do away with? Especially if it didn’t lead to finger pointing at the people who opted to put it in place.

It is always a good time to remove tech bloat, but right now is especially critical as a way to prepare for 2025 and beyond.

2. Sales Tech Audit – Part 2: What Can You Add?

Now I know I just said to look for things you can cut out or cancel from your sales tech stack. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any tools.

In fact, right now is such an amazing time for technology, automation, machine learning, and AI. Just like any tool, they are getting cheaper, easier to implement, simpler to manage, and more effective. What used to take a lot of different, disparate technology can be done better with less. Like those infomercials for the BowFlex – one machine can do it all!

Where could you add the right tech (key emphasis is on the RIGHT tech…be wary of very convincing sales executives with the latest and greatest solution) add to your sales operation to help with efficiency? Knowing how to sell with the right tools can make a significant difference.

There are too many categories and solution providers to go into here [The 2024 Martech map has over 14k companies on it] but here are the two key questions to ask yourself and your sales leaders:

●      What could help your humans (salespeople) do more of what you need them to do (be a human talking to another human who needs help making the right decision)?

●      What are they doing – admin, process wise – that if they did less of it themselves, they could spend more time and energy on their one job (see previous question)?

Those are your guiding questions to finding the right tech for your company and team. This approach aligns with sales basics and can improve the overall selling skills of your team.

3. Good To Great Is Still Right

One of the best business truisms from Jim Collin’s business masterpiece is to first make sure you have the right people on the bus (and assist the wrong people off the bus), then get the right people in the right seats. This is foundational to sales training 101.

In order to tell who should be on the bus with you as you head into a more challenging economic environment, you have to have a vision, mission and core values that act as the guidepost for the people on your teams. This will help them, and you know what “right” looks like at each moment. This is part of the basics of selling and basic fundamentals of sales.

The problem is that most organizations do not have a clearly defined mission and vision statement or core values. For the small percentage that do have those, most of the team couldn’t recite them all – which means they can’t be followed and used appropriately.

When times are good it’s easier to have people get through their job, hit some/most of their numbers, and things just keep on keeping on. But when things get tough (like we saw in the early days of the pandemic), then you will find out who wants to be on your team and put in the work.

Take this time now – again, whenever you find this – to a) ensure you have a mission, vision and core values, b) make sure that everyone can recite it, and c) use it as a filter of who is not a good ‘fit’ in your organization.

It is a critical tip for setting sales goals and ensuring your team is aligned with selling value to the customer. Don’t wait until things get real to see who should be on the bus versus who will probably get hit by it.

4. Product Training Isn’t Enough

If you are like 95.8% of the companies out there (I made up that % but doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty close to accurate) you have given your sales team a lot of product training. They know your product (or service) – what it does, the value prop, the elevator pitch. If it requires one, they can do the demo with their eyes, and ears, closed. They know the competition and maybe even the competition’s pitch and value prop.

You have set them up for success – if success was about using awkward, forced rapport building that leads into the least amount of discovery questions that would set up a full on ‘show up and throw up’ of features and benefits all over the prospect.

Post demo they see their job as overcoming objections so there is nothing in the way for the prospect to say yes. And if they don’t say yes, or want to buy now, the salesperson can throw in a deal or discount to encourage urgency.

Not sure why that has become the default sales playbook, but it doesn’t work anymore for a lot of reasons. The main one is that customers don’t need your info, demo, features, and benefits. They need guidance and help making the right choice. For them.

If you want to win now…not sure in 2025 and beyond when things start actually getting tough for sales teams…ensure that you are providing way more than just product training. Use this as your jumping off point – it’s all about H2H (Human To Human).

Your humans (again, your salespeople) need to become masters at communicating, understanding, and persuading other humans (prospects) in ways that will actually lead to long term success for both groups of humans. Understanding how to sell on the phone is just one aspect of these selling skills.

Want to know where to start? Active Listening skills. Deep level of Curiosity. Using Empathy. What it means to be a Sales Professional. Did I mention Active Listening? Understanding personality/behaviour types – especially so your salespeople stop trying to sell like they like to buy (Golden Rule is such bad advice in sales!). And don’t forget, Active Listening!

For those who might be more reserved, consider focusing on sales tips for introverts. This can help them become more comfortable and effective in their roles.

5. Understand The “Amazon Effect”

You sell B2B. You believe you’re special and that your product is amazing. You think that your buyers are different (again, since you sell B2B) because they are professionals and they work for a company, versus someone who sells to consumers – like a car salesperson, insurance agent or financial planner.

Your customers put on business pants (or remote working, virtual video meeting shorts/yoga pants) – so they are different.

Nope…and yes, sort of.

Let’s start with the nope part first. They aren’t different. In fact, they want to do the same things as a buyer that they do in their personal life. They are spoiled by Amazon, Google, Uber Eats, and every other modern app or tool that makes it so they (all of us) can search, research, and find what we are looking for. Without talking to a human. Especially without talking to a salesperson.

My wife and I recently bought a car through CarMax. We found the car we wanted, paid to have it shipped to our local dealership, made an appointment online, went in and got the keys. Finished our self-directed test drive, and the only thing I needed from the ‘salesperson’ was to process the paperwork with my own financing I had arranged before arriving.

I didn’t need him to tell me anything about the car, how it worked, the features, how car buying worked. Nothing. Just needed an order taker to process the paperwork as quickly as he could.

Buyers like me then go to work and expect the same ability. To go online, research solutions for what I need help with. Be able to get pricing and details. And THEN I will engage with someone if I need help with a) the right decision or b) I can’t buy it online, self-service.

So many sales organizations think that buyers like me suddenly change when I need a demo for a SaaS platform. We are all human, and people want to buy how they like to buy.

The ‘sort of’ part is that the one thing that is true is when someone does put on their business pants/shorts/yoga pants they have to consider more than just making a bad purchase and what it means to them personally, but also to their role and status at the company. This could affect their career, income, livelihood, and so much more.

This means there is a higher level of pressure on that person to make the ‘right decision’, or no decision at all. Which means they will do more research before talking to your team. They will want more details, more testimonials/case studies, more assurances.

Bottom line – look at how people want to buy in 2024 and stop making friction points with your company-determined sales process and hoops you make potential buyers jump through. More friction = less sales.

Just like when I shop on Amazon, your customers view you as a commodity. They think everything/everyone in your category does basically the same thing. They don’t care how special you think you are. They only care about themselves.

So, make sure you are meeting them where they want in THEIR buyer’s journey so that you can then show them how special and different you are from the competition, and how valuable you are to them. Part of this process involves planning the perfect sales day and knowing when to build your script to engage effectively.

Now what…

There are no guarantees when it comes to the economy or policy shifts under a new administration. But by proactively shoring up your business' core areas like sales over the next several months, you'll have a much better chance of surviving and thriving amid the post-election shakeup cycle.

This also includes keeping an eye on sales basics the phone call and understanding the process of buying insurance leads. And of course…the above five items should be done with or without an election coming up, with or without a potential economic downturn. They will be good for your business. So, start working on them now.

Want to disagree? Let me share a story.

I was at a performance lead generation conference, in the pre-conference ‘Buyer’s Summit’ workshop. That meant the audience was business owners and leaders who bought leads/marketing to feed to their sales team.

At the round table I was at, were some guys I knew from years before. The owner and chief legal officer of a consumer financial services related company. I updated them on the consulting and training I was doing. The paraphrased response was “Our reps could use that. We know they don’t close enough deals and miss a lot of opportunities. But they are doing well enough and we are making money. And we know they don’t like change, so we don’t think it would be good to bring you in.”

I sat there in shock that they would basically be saying – we are making enough money to ignore anything that might disrupt our mediocre sales team. No reason to rock the boat, right?

My response: “Makes sense, for now, while the economy is good and it’s easy to close deals. But at some point, the economy is going to stop being up like it is now, and then it turns, it’s going to hurt.”

The response: “The economy is going to keep doing well. If anything does happen, it might slow down but we will always do okay because the economy won’t completely stop.”

I shook my head, internally and externally. Was shocked and bummed because I knew I could have helped them.

Yes – the economy was good at the time. Yes – no one thought it would crash, maybe just a little correction. But that was June 2019 – things were looking pretty good after many years of good.

Not saying another once in a century pandemic will hit again, but why would you ever just assume that mediocre results is a good, long term success strategy?

Now for the call to action

Step 1 - Do you know where your sales team, tech, and sales op gaps are? If not - let’s discuss the Scalable Sales Gap Analysis or a free Sales Tech Audit to find out what is needed to get you ready for 2025+.

Step 2 - If you know your reps would benefit from more sales-related training, let’s see if there is an alignment with how you want them to sell and our Selling Effectiveness Workshop.

Email, call us at (239) 206-1919, or fill out the Contact form.

Download the PDF File below to start helping your sales team prepare for economic shakeups
 

Like the check engine light in your car that doesn’t just ‘fix itself’, don’t assume that your team will figure it out on their own and be ready for what could happen.