The experts are predicting a 3% growth in the economy this year, the United States manufacturing sector has expanded for eight months straight, and Business Roundtable’s measure of CEO optimism is at it’s highest level since 2006. There’s no longer any doubt about it. The experts all agree: the economy is starting to recover.

Okay, but then why are my sales statistics still down

Unfortunately, the sales world has yet to catch up with the trajectory of the general economy. For most of us, sales levels are down, profit margins are lower, and sales cycles are longer than ever. And in many cases, sales people put months of work into a big deal only to see it end in non-decision. This is because while the economy may be improving, the general attitude that most prospects take towards purchasing is still very conservative.

The good news is that there are still ways to make sure that your sales team is able to take part in the economic recovery.

But you are going to have to adjust your thinking to make this happen. The CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt, said something last year that I think will help bring this into perspective. He’d noticed that business people seemed to be sitting around waiting for things to “get back to normal,” that is, for the economy to start working the way that it used to. But things aren’t going back, at least not any time soon, because “normal” is already here! We are now in “The New Normal” as Immelt calls it, the new normal state of affairs. And in this “new normal,” sales people are required to have a much higher level of expertise, they will have to find ways to communicate with people higher up in their prospects’ organizations than before, and they will have to make better use of their existing customer base. Essentially, you need to stop waiting for “normal” to come back, because it’s already here. Only now, it’s “the new normal.”

But how can sales people achieve success in the new normal?

Well, the first thing to be done is what we call an “installed base audit,” going back to your successful deals and finding out just what made them work. Only now that we are in the new normal, anything that you did before the recession started is rendered irrelevant. You need to go back to the few deals that you’ve made since the recession began and find out just what went right.

Go talk to the customers who have bought from you recently and ask them why they chose to buy. What essential executive level problems did your product solve for them? Their cash flow must have been tight just like everyone else’s, but for some reason they felt that it was worth it to purchase from you anyway. But why? In most cases, your customers will be more than happy to tell you. But make sure to actually speak to the person who was the final decision maker in the deal.

Now, that you know what types of new-normal-era problems your product solves, you can begin to look for further prospects who share these same issues.

The second thing that you can do to get your piece of the economic recovery pie is to change the way you communicate value to your prospects. This means basing your ROI predictions not on the value that your solution can produce, but the value that your solution can product over and above any other solution that your prospect might consider investing in. In the new normal, discretionary funds are much lower than they used to be. This means that you are no longer simply vying for the same funds as your direct competitors, but also against companies selling completely unrelated solutions. For example, if you sell a particular software solution, you might be competing for the same funds as someone selling a new line of printers to your prospect, even though these are two completely unrelated solutions. Your prospect is going to buy the solution that has the highest short term, low risk return.

There are a couple of very important implications of this trend. First, you can no longer assume that if your product is the best of its class this guarantees a sale. Second, this means that you need to be more aggressive about getting to the ultimate decision maker in your prospect’s organization. Why? Because you need to ask this person the following question:

“Of all of the solutions that you are considering buying, which of them has the highest return on investment?”

Once you have the answer to this question, you need to show your prospect that your solution will provide a rate of return that is even higher. Subtract the ROI of the other solution that they are considering from your predicted ROI. Then subtract the value of any solution that your prospect already has in place that might overlap with your solution. The resulting figure is your “Sales Economic Value Added” or SalesEVA. This number is the return that your prospect can expect from your solution over and above any other solution they are thinking of purchasing. Therefore, it is also the amount of money that they will lose if they don’t buy from you. You’ve now made them an offer that they’d be crazy to refuse.

Congratulations, you’ve just cut a nice thick slice out of the economic recovery pie, all for yourself!

-Zebra Jeff