When times are tough, many companies hunker down and rely on their customer base to see them through. Working your customer base harder is a good idea, but a no-prospecting strategy is apt to come back to bite you.
Good times or bad, you lose a certain percentage of customers every year. Prospecting is necessary to replace them; you have to keep running just to stay in place.
What’s more, in bad times, customers are likely to buy less. Even if your number of sales remains the same, your dollar volume is likely to drop.
Keep your eye on the size of your 12-month buyer file. If it’s not at least staying steady, adjust your prospecting to make up the difference, or you’ll find yourself in a downward spiral of your own making.
