How should your marketing change because of the recession? Harvard professor John Quelch has eight tips for "Marketing Your Way Through a Recession." (Hat tip to Steve Hughes.) Let me add to his wise remarks my own thoughts:
I don't have data to back up this claim, but I believe it. A former client had to downsize his sales staff in the last recession. The remaining sales people became order-takers, answering calls from repeat customers. They had little time for outbound calls, and when they did call on new prospects or former customers, they had little success. So they stopped trying.
At the same time, a competitor had some (probably young) sales people, too new or too stupid to realize that nobody buys in a recession. They made the sales calls. They followed up a month later. They stayed in touch with their prospects and former customers.
When the economy turned around, guess who got the business?