I was talking with a company last week who are in a bit of a pickle. On January 1st this year, they had a good pipeline of business, 19 members of staff and were extremely happy. By the time that I spoke to them, at the end of June, they had 5 members of staff, projects only till the end of the year and no idea how they would continue beyond that.
One thing changed that caused all of this. It was something that they had no control over but it led to the cancellation of most of their work. They have spent most of the year reacting to the change and are only now looking up and wondering how they keep the company afloat.
They need to find new business but are not sure how to go about it. They wanted to talk to me because I have knowledge of the wort of work that they do and have a background in sales. The problem is, they have a maximum of 6 months to save the company and in three of those months, (July, August and December), people are not usually very interested in talking about new projects because they are in holiday mode.
Added to this, they provide fairly niche services that not many organisations would want to buy. Their client list will be fairly short and they do not have anyone dedicated to developing new business. Paddles and creeks come to mind!
This catastrophic loss demonstrates the need to continually be investing in sales activity. Business may seem to be healthy but when you are over reliant on one revenue stream, it can very quickly change. You can never stop looking for new work, no matter how long your pipeline of new business is.
So, what could you do in this particular situation?
There is no time to find completely new customers, build a relationship and win new business. The only way to keep going is to focus on existing customers, or recent customers, with whom you already have a relationship.
You need to get out to see them. Sending an email is not sufficient, it is too easily ignored. Have a meeting, understand what their current work programme is and see how you might be able to support them.
Ask for recommendations. Who can you existing customers introduce you to that would be interested in your services? While they are new for you, there is a transfer of trust from your existing customers that gives you something to build on and the potential to win work.
You probably need to be creative commercially. Can you work with existing customers to extend your current work at attractive rates? Can you tie them in longer than the end of the year to give you further breathing space?
Can you expand your offerings into adjacent areas? While you have distinct expertise in your field, this limits the number of customers that you can have. Can you find other markets that would welcome your skills but where you are not currently working. This may take too long to bear fruit but it might be possible.
It is a very difficult position to be in, demonstrates why sales is so important and should never be left as an after thought. While “Always be closing” might not be so appropriate these days, you should always be selling.