by Marvin Double

Created on: January 27, 2009   Last Updated: February 13, 2009

There is a famous double edged Chinese saying, "May you live in interesting times"; a polite method of wishing the recipient a difficult life.

It's an understatement to say that from a business perspective, these are indeed interesting times; especially so for companies that sell technology products or services.

As the economy falters and lurches along owners, CEO's and Marketing VP's everywhere are trying to find ways to keep up sales in shrinking markets and tightening budgets.

Everyone is looking for effective ways to retool marketing plans to deal with these interlocking problems. Following are ideas and suggestions to help improve your marketing and sales efforts. These have been gleaned from marketing execs across many different sectors.

Talk to key customers to determine what their actual needs will be short term and long term? Get to know the problems your customers face and build a marketing plan around providing solutions, not just products.

Look for pockets of demand; that is to say, a clearly identified, specifically defined area where there is obvious demand for a product of service, which ideally is under serviced.

Such areas of demand might appear as territories open when competitors become insolvent and go out of business.

Brainstorm with your staff especially sales and marketing people and mine sales figures for patterns and trends which may be useful in redirecting sales efforts. Use this opportunity as an exercise in team building and to instill staff confidence.

Carefully review how well your company is positioned in the market? Do you have products, prices, position and promotions that reflect current market conditions or customer needs? If not you should evaluate your lines; drop those products that don't sell well and add lines where there is a clear demand.

Find ways to stretch ad dollars such as the use of targeted co-op advertising programs with suppliers or joint venture programs with other non-competing companies.

Distinguish your company from competitors. Use digital newsletters to create a unique corporate identity. Use this forum to maintain contact with customers and most of all use it to offer solutions to their problems.

Stimulate sales by offering extended terms on purchases. Add incentives such as free or customized software or reduced costs to help generate orders.

Work with your suppliers to create a lease to own program for your products instead of a straight purchase, especially on large ticket items.

Considered one off, limited time promotions on specific key items? Such promotions afford your sales staff a chance to maintain important contact with clients. Promotions such as these can also offer a point of contact for new potential customers.

10. Look for opportunities to undertake mutually beneficial cross promotions with non-competitive companies.

There is no single one size fits all solution to selling technology in a down economy. These interesting times require steely determination, squeezing maximum return out of every cent of working capital and perhaps just a bit of lateral thinking.

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