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Marketing in a Downturn

Our friend David C. Baker graciously offered to host a webinar exclusively for the Newfangled audience. The content is focused around his thoughts on how to best endure as a business during trying times like these. David outlines the measures you should consider taking to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to weather this storm, and offer a few quick, immediately applicable tips for new business wins. The recorded version also includes the Q&A section.

One of the themes that arose during the Q&A was firms wondering how to behave in this downturn from a sales and marketing perspective, and we’ve been hearing a lot of these same questions from our clients and peers lately. The answer is this: the fundamental rules of sales and marketing have not gone on hold due to the crisis, they have been magnified.

Empathetically and generously educating the specific audience you serve is what marketing is. You need to do this, now more than ever. Sending safe emails about being there for your audience in this time does not fall under this category, articles that pretend to be empathetic but then end up being a sales pitch do not fall under this category. Doing nothing definitely does not fall under this category.

If you are an expert firm, you have an important voice that needs to be heard in your marketplace. Your audience needs you to be the firm they hired, the firm they learn from, the expert who can see farther into the future than they can and is most equipped to help them handle some of their toughest challenges, which have just gotten a lot tougher. They need you to model positive, confident leadership that they can draw strength from. They need you to maximize this time to think deeper and more creatively than you ever have about how you and your firm can create the most possible value in the marketplace, today.

That’s what positioning is. That’s how you create value for your clients. That’s how you build a firm that can weather storms like these.

The same goes for sales. It’s not only OK to follow up on your active sales leads, it’s critically important that you do so. Be human, be thoughtful, but also be the confident, courageous expert your audience needs right now.

Anyone who says they’re not scared is a liar, no one knows how this is going to play out. Courageous confidence doesn’t mean pretending everything is OK and having all the answers. To paraphrase Dan Sullivan, “Fear is wetting your pants. Courage is doing what you need to do with wet pants.”

I hope you enjoy the webinar, and continue the great work. Our economy is depending on it.

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