The economy is slowing, and hundreds of layoff announcements are in the news, including Goldman Sachs (3,200), Pratt & Whitney (900), United Furniture Industries (2,700), and Meta (11,000). If you’re a B2B seller and your customers are cutting costs, what should you do?
Setting Your B2B Sales Strategy in a Downturn
Shifting mindsets create new risks — and new opportunities.
January 11, 2023
Summary.
Large companies (especially in the tech sector) are conducting layoffs and cutting costs. For sales teams selling to clients in cost-cutting mode, this requires new tactics. B2B sellers must recognize that a slow economy creates different kinds of opportunities: that buyers’ time horizons become shorter, their willingness to take the risk of working with a new vendor goes down, and their focus on core, profitable business units go up (making it harder to sell to experimental or peripheral businesses within a larger company). Sellers need to avoid a spread-the-peanut-butter approach and instead concentrate resources on the most promising opportunities.