The Forgotten Challenge In Crisis
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
Henry Kissinger
Although this sentiment probably rings true for most senior executives, when crisis does strike, it hits quick and hard, with blithe disregard for your calendar. Its effect on your people, operations, and sales can be brutal.
Too often, when crisis strikes, revenue generation gets left out — forgotten and ignored. Selling is not a priority because everything else must be. Lawyers, accountants, consultants, financiers, customers, employees, the media — everybody and anybody — demand priority. Your most vital resource — time — seeps away.
Experience shows that preserving sales has to be viewed as vital. But it can be too easily put off, with often devastating results. A recent study conducted by Lazorpoint concludes that almost half of companies, even in a relatively simple "crisis" situation such as an earnings restatement, experience a revenue drop over 25% the first year after the crisis has hit. For almost one fourth of those companies, the sales slope is even more severe in the second year, with the sales decline hitting 40%. Sales becomes victim to crisis — publicly, immediately, and often drastically.
During crisis, or any significant change, internal and external perceptions of your company shift. Externally, vendors question your credibility, customers question the quality of your product, investors lose confidence in the corporate leadership, and associates wonder if you will tarnish their reputation. Internally, your sales force is forced to interact with hesitant customers, your manufacturing team faces a morale issue, your public relations and marketing departments are feeling the brunt of the public eye, and you must confront the shareholders. Unfortunately, each of these factors can have tremendous negative impact on current and future revenues.
So, how do you maintain your sales momentum during a time of crisis? How do you keep your sales team aggressive and focused when everyone else in the organization appears consumed with the fallout? Below are eight critical tips to shield your sales in times of crisis.
1. Take Time to Learn How Everyone Involved Perceives the Crisis
Your sales team can provide invaluable front line data on both the real and perceived impact of the crisis. Actively solicit their perception on customer reactions and uncertainties. Discern the level of trust or credibility the organization has with its sales team. How committed is the sales team to its company? Do they feel connected or disenfranchised? How are virtual sales people, channel representatives, and other customer-facing individuals feeling and reacting? What stories are they telling — and how do those stories relate to the stories you wish told?
Augment that "insider information" by asking your customers and channel partners questions that ascertain how credible they see your now "in crisis organization. Discussions with outside analysts and other influencers can provide similar value. Is communication clear and consistent? Does the organization seem to be ready for change? These insights, taken together, will paint a picture of the key vulnerabilities of your company. It can frame and guide your next steps.
2. Focus Explicitly On The Sales Team
Your sales team is in limbo. They don’t know who to trust, what information is real, who to blame, or what the future holds. At home, kitchen table discussions are tough or even embarrassing. Spouses, significant others, and family members want to know "What will we do if you lose your job? How will we pay the mortgage? What if you don’t get your bonus? Does your company’s leadership know what its doing?" Public perceptions matter. Not just to customers, employees, and owners. But to the many obvious and not so obvious publics that influence your success.
Your sales team’s careers are tied to the company’s reputation and brand — and now that brand is tarnished, beaten up, or at least not what it was before. Headhunters, competitors, and even customers know that now is an opportune time to poach your best and your brightest. Recognize this fact, and ensure open dialog with your sales team. Stay attuned to how they are handling the situation. Tell them what you can. Provide them with the knowledge, communication tools and support that will allow them to deal confidently with customers. Where needed, offer incentives to encourage the team to stay on board. Keep the dialog constant throughout the crisis and in the aftermath. The end of the crisis may just mark the beginning of your sales challenges.
Be clear on who the "sales team is. At a minimum, it's all of the people who interface with the customer — more than salespeople, it includes engineers, consultants, maintenance personnel, executives, and call center teams. All of them must be confident, informed, and eager to "fight on through the crisis. Forget these people, and you can forget your business.
3. Refocus Marketing and Public Relations
Your sales effort will need support from all; specifically from the marketing and public relations staffs. Current efforts spent on overall branding and advertising may need to be redirected, for the short term, to a more targeted sales channel focus. Budgets may need to be bolstered or reallocated. Communication must be swift and aggressive in securing customer, prospect, and analyst confidence. Key customers should be "touched often. Internal marketing will be just as important. Ensure "shielding sales" is on every employee’s agenda with frequent and cohesive communication.
4. Guarantee Your Best Stay Committed At All Levels
There are key individuals, at all levels, who will be essential in ensuring the success and survival of the sales organization — and the company as a whole. Identify the key people who must be on board if you’re going to survive the crisis. Then, assure they are. Talk to those individuals and uncover what they need in order to remain part of the team. It’s not always, or even usually, money. More likely, they’ll have questions that relate to the post-crisis management structure and individual careers. But don’t open a dialogue if you don't begin with a commitment to carry it out.
5. Let History Guide Your Expectations
History will play a large part in the reaction and actions of your sales team, and of the organization. Does past experience consist of broken promises and garbled communication? Has the brewing crisis been ignored? Has the sales team been "blamed for not meeting goals without any recognition of the landmines buried in its path?
The same is true for customers, suppliers, and the public. What is the reputation of management? Fairly or not, is management seen as high integrity, or not? What reaction have customers had? If there has been a crisis in the immediate past and the perception is that things weren’t resolved adequately, admitting mistakes or just recognizing failed attempts will be a powerful influencer now. The same is true if history tells a better story. If a previous crisis was managed effectively, use that history lesson as a confidence builder.
6. Re-Assess/Refine Performance Measures
Your sales team has agreed to quotas and measurement criteria based upon pre-crisis factors. Now, to some extent, that has changed. Do performance measures need to be adjusted? Do quotas need to be lowered? Is your sales team forced to "put out fires rather than sell?
Recognize these changes, and adjust the sales team’s compensation measurements accordingly. Keep measures simple with clear expectations. Define what needs to be achieved over a period of time. Most importantly, make the change, don’t deviate or waffle. Launch a plan and stick to it. Constant changes and shifts in compensation structures will themselves erode the credibility and trust of your sales force.
7. Keep Senior Management’s Door Open
Your executive team may be inundated and embattled. Especially in crisis. Lawyers, accountants, consultants, and turnaround specialists may have cornered executive attention. Despite it all, keep senior management’s door open.
Your sales team is fighting on the front line — dealing with tough questions, sweating through uncomfortable calls, and enduring to drive the company forward. To the extent possible, make the senior team available to them for sales support, executive calls and questions. Provide the sales team with an advocate at the highest level of management. Communicate with the customer-facing team continually and frequently. Be honest and direct.
And, don’t underestimate the power of a well-placed thank you or compliment. People are working hard, everyone is stressed. Now is the time for executive leadership of the highest order.
8. Don’t Forget the Obvious — Address What Got You Into Trouble In the First Place
In the end, the crisis, whatever it is or was, will have an impact on your revenue and entire organization. After surviving the initial impact, stabilizing and shielding sales, you’ll want to take a broader look at your organization. What got you into trouble? How did it happen? How are you going to fix it for good? More, how are you going to assure that it never happens again?
Corporate strategies, marketing positioning statements, communications, and processes, all may need to be altered in the wake of the new situation. For example, a product-tampering crisis may require new safety processes to be put in place. Or, a financial services company touting trust might need to reposition its communications message after surviving an SEC investigation. Be ready and willing to react to your new reality.
Our Conclusion
When crisis of any kind strikes — whether severe or everyday real or perceived — sales is often the forgotten casualty as attentions turn to everything but the business at hand. But because sales collapse is so predictable, it can be mitigate if managed. The key is keepin business focus alive.
Throughout the crisis, strive to build commitment from your organization — specifically, yo customer-facing team. Each action and reaction by senior management affects the trust and vulnerability of the organization — its credibility internally and externally. Keep that trust and credibility reservoir high. Manage it adeptly and aggressively. It w help mitigate the crisis and shield your sales — so you can return your focus to the business at hand.
