Hey, this is a topic that a lot of people are thinking about, but not a lot of people want to articulate. So I thought I'd jump right into it and get your minds dealing with the economy, and how the economy is changing, and what some people think is going on, and how it's going to impact them personally. It's an idea that no matter what the economy is, you should always be thinking about it. But if the economy tends to be shrinking a little bit, if your markets are feeling pressure, a big topic for that environment, and that is a simple idea.
The best place for your competition to prospect, is that of your best accounts. Why wouldn't somebody who's feeling their own accounts, not as active, not as willing to buy, why wouldn't they go out and try to steal your best business?
If you think it's not happening, I've got to tell you, you should wake up and smell the coffee. When you're out there doing your day to day work, you should always have an eye on maintaining the best relationship, the best communication, the best open and honest conversation about what's going on, because as sure as I'm standing here in front of this camera, your competition is trying to get in the door at your best account.
I want you to think about this idea. A - you have got to learn how to play offense and defense in the business development arena. Offense, go get new business! New business isn't always new accounts, it's more business at your best accounts, it's maximizing an account opportunity, it's playing offense with your existing customer base. That's one part of growing your base, it's 10 x more efficient, more effective to sell to your existing clients than it is to get a new client. So work smart, work easy, work offensively, but then there's play defense. Sometimes playing defense means you've got to be willing to go in and get creative in the type of opportunity or the type of business agreement that you can create with people. If your competition sucks at selling, they're probably going to lead with the only bullet that they have in their gun. And that is they're going to go low price, low deal, give it away to get the business, and you've got to be ahead of the game when that stuff happens.
So you may need to look at your accounts, look at any vulnerabilities and find a defensive strategy that keeps your people open, honest, and committed to you before your competitor gets too creative and too desperate to do the things that make the conversation hard to resist.
Take care of your best accounts, grow your best accounts, and play defense to protect your best accounts. Your competitors are looking at them every day trying to figure out what we can do to get into that piece of business that's been off limits to us until now. Defense and offense. Do it. Go take care of it.
