Forum

I recently attended a breakfast hosted by Forum with about a dozen senior sales executives in a boardroom in the Financial District of Boston.  As a group, the executives represented some of the world’s leading brands in insurance, banking, professional services, and so on.  As Forum people shared some insights on successful selling strategies in economic downturns and all of us shared what was going on in our respective worlds, you could tell that the initial reserve of this group of strangers was giving way to a warm sense of camaraderie—the kind that comes from shared pain!

We quickly came to realize that we were all facing very similar challenges, regardless of the industries we represented and the kind of customers we courted.  For example, we talked about customers who do not put much stock in value-added services and long-term relationships anymore, who are unwilling to commit to large deals, who are making smaller commitments instead,  and who are taking longer to make buying decisions (if they make them at all).  Of course, we heard stories about customers asking for unheard-of discounts and demanding that we tear up existing agreements and provide even deeper discounts and better terms.  As we went around the table telling our stories, we found that, despite the vast differences in our products and services, we actually had more in common than we would have ever imagined.

But an even more important insight began to emerge as the breakfast went on; that is, the world has changed forever in the wake of this economic downturn.  Customers’ buying behaviors have changed dramatically and will most likely not return to the “good old days” of 2 or 3 years ago.  We need to look at the current market not as an anomaly or a one-off situation that will go away soon, but as the “new normal.”  Customers and their procurement departments will continue to demand more and more of their so-called partners.

So a question emerged in the group that morning:  Do we figure out ways to combat this trend, or do we decide to embrace our customers (recognizing that their own customers are putting the same pressures on them) and work together to define the new rules of engagement for our mutual benefit?  The answer to this question seemed obvious to us all.

What’s your opinion?