I read an article in The Age, Thursday 23 July 2020 about how some of the major banks are warning against jumping on the debt bandwagon to save businesses during the crisis, despite the tax payer backed loan scheme. I couldn’t agree more. Any self-respecting business, especially SMEs cannot and shouldn’t borrow more money if they do not have some certainty about where their business opportunities, customers, and sales revenue is going to come from now and in the future.
Earlier in the week I also read a press release by Kate Carnell, the Australian Small Business & Family Enterprise Ombudsman, which stated “Instead of getting the support they need to turn it around, small businesses too often find themselves on an express train to winding up with no control over the process… COVID-19 has shown that businesses need a mechanism where they can take stock of their situation and prepare for the re-opening of trade.”
Again, I couldn’t agree more.
The Big Issue & Gap No one is Talking About
However there is a big issue no one is talking about that can help businesses stay in business and keep people in jobs now and beyond the crisis: how have businesses adapted their sales operations to succeed and have salespeople been skilled up to deal with its impact.
The current measures on offer by all levels of government are only propping up businesses in the short term, but nothing is being done to help most businesses address their main issue which is how to keep trading by delivering consistent sales, revenue growth and cash flow.
What SMEs need now is revenue and cash flow, and lots of it. To get revenue and cash flow they need to be working and selling into viable market segments and supply chains where customers are buying – B2B or B2C. To turn any business around they need to know how to think about, design then execute very effective business, sales and marketing strategies, fast.
Sadly, the vast majority of business owners and leaders in SME have never been taught how to do sales strategy, sales market segmentation, go-to market strategies and the like, particularly not during a crisis. But what if they were? Imagine if business owners and their leadership teams could think and adapt quickly and effectively to pick up on the opportunities that are available in this crisis world?
SMEs need to think deeply about their supply chains, their capabilities, their go-to-market strategies and where the opportunities are, then how they may need to pivot in order to stay in business. In the doom and gloom, there is so much opportunity out there but you have to know how to think about it, how to look for it and to take decisive action, NOW.
It make sense doesn’t it?
However, even with all the government initiatives on offer, including Job Keeper, Loan Guarantee Schemes, Training Incentives, better insolvency processes, and grants galore, there is still no equivalent Federal, State or local government initiative or program to support SMEs to look at how to turn their businesses around and drive a better sales strategies, sales, revenue, cash flow that leads to a business growth recovery. At best some information about marketing but nothing about sales.
A Rapid Sales Recovery Solution
The good news is there is another way that we can assist businesses, especially SMEs, to turn their businesses around before it’s too late.
My team and I have developed the online/remote Rapid Sales Recovery (RSR) Program: an online, scalable program ready to go. It is designed to help SMEs avoid bankruptcy and stay in business, and delivers specific education, content, tools, coaching and advice to help SMEs:
- Assess their business viability in their current markets
- Identify and prioritise viable market and customer segments to pursue for business growth
- Make decisions about whether they can stay in business or not, and if so how they will do that
- Develop and execute a Rapid Sales and Business Growth Action Plan for immediate implementation
- Learn how to continue to implement and deliver sales and business growth strategies that lead to a sales revenue lead recovery for their businesses
It’s available for you to do here.
Make RSR a national initiative for all businesses
What we want to see is RSR taken up nationally alongside all the other government and industry initiatives. Our challenge and opportunity, as a SME business ourselves, is to get the attention of the likes of the big banks, industry bodies and relevant government channels and grants programs to pay attention and take the function of Sales Strategy, Customer Segmentation and Selling seriously by offering the RSR as a viable, scalable and ready-to-go program that will help businesses reset their businesses for a better, more viable future and hopefully avoid the insolvency tsunami.
Can you help?
Our goal at Barrett, during this crisis and beyond, has always been to help businesses stay in business and keep people in jobs.
Can you help us and other businesses achieve this? We’d welcome your support in getting this initiative in front of the right people: businesses that need this, and government agencies, industry bodies, grants programs, etc. that can get us all talking about the importance of selling and educating people in selling at a national level.
Please contact us or phone 03 9533 0000.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
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