“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...”

The above is a quote from President elect Obama’s chief-of-staff-designate, Rahm Emanuel (pictured left), while speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO conference.

These words also apply to your sales department. What do Rahm’s words have to do with sales and selling more? Everything!

Your sales and sales management departments are competing for business in a market driven by fear and noise from the current record breaking financial crisis. Competition will come from like companies, and from every other alternative use of your prospects available discretionary capital. Don’t waste this sales crisis—retool your sales department now!

These five tips will help your company survive, stay focused, and find a position to achieve long-term growth.

1. Focus where you create verifiable value: Executives don’t want to know what you can do, they want to know what you have done—over and over again. Executives buy based on value and comfort. Expertise helps create comfort. Stay where your expertise is so strong that you have answers to questions that they don’t even know to ask! That is our definition of expertise.

2. Quantify your value: Utilizing industry statistics based value claims about your solution is weak. Specific knowledge of the business issues your solution solves, and the subsequent value generated when you solve them are paramount in this environment. Buyers want to know that your advertized results are repeatable for them.

3. Partner to verify your value: The number one reasons executives do not purchase cost justified solutions is because they don’t believe their own people “can do it”. Partner with the process and solution owners your executive decision maker trusts, to gain an understanding of the organizations readiness and ability to implement your solution. Leverage this understanding and build a proposal that has everything you know will be needed to be successful.

4. Present the EVA of your solution: In these tough economic times your greatest competition will be apathy (non-decision). Your project will compete with ever other use of the available capital dollars. To overcome apathy and fear, present the classic ROI and payback period, but also learn to present the economic value add (EVA) of your solution. EVA is the most prolific form of value claim because it demonstrates the value your solution provides over-and-above the best project return your prospect is considering.

5. Build a “force success” proposal: What amount of education will your prospect need to be successful? Include it. Are independent partners providing part of the solution? Then you will need partner management. Include it! Include a change management component in your solution. To ensuring your customer is successful and that you help “Force that Success” your proposal needs to include all of product, education, consulting, executive management, change management, partner management, and overall customer service and support needed to all but guarantee your prospect will achieve the expected value.