Accelerate – the Swift Eat the Slow

Look around you. It’s as if everything, along with the economy is just creeping along. This is a far different pace than in the boom years that preceded the recession. Some of this is understandable. When we are afraid, we want to take our time so that we make no mistakes. After we’ve been burned we move forward tentatively. We become more deliberate. We slow down. But is this the right course of action?

I have a friend who works as a sales director for a division of a large company. We like to get together from time to time and share war stories. In a recent conversation he told me about a paradox that was impacting the ability of his team to sell. He said that because of the recession his company was being more cautious about bringing on new customers. They had installed a new layer of approvals and it was taking twice as long as it had in the past to get new contracts approved. But at the same time he said he was getting tremendous pressure to sell more business because his organization desperately needed top line revenue. He threw his hands up, “What the hell do they want me to do Jeb? My salespeople are frustrated, our new clients are questioning our integrity, and though I know it is not intentional, the entire sales process is grinding to a halt.”

Unfortunately, this is not that unusual. During recessions we have the tendency to slow down. And slowing down is not just isolated to businesses – we do the same thing in our personal lives. Look around you. It’s as if everything, along with the economy is moving in slow motion. This is a far different pace than in the boom years that preceded this crisis. Some of this is understandable. When we are afraid, we want to take our time so that we make no mistakes. After we’ve been burned we move forward tentatively. We become more deliberate. We slow down.

But there is good news for the individuals and businesses that rise above this paradigm.

These are the people who will not allow fear to cloud their vision. With clarity, they can see opportunity where others cannot. And instead of slowing down they speed up.

Think about it like this. If you were driving a car on an interstate going 70 miles an hour and there was another car going 60 miles an hour one mile ahead of you, how long would it take you to overtake and pass that car? I won’t bore you with a high school word problem suffice to say it would take miles of driving to eventually catch up. This is what business is like in a normal economy. It takes much more time, effort and money to catch your competitors. However, what if you were in the same car going 70 miles an hour and one mile ahead of you there was a car parked on the side of the road stationary. How long would it take to pass that car? What if you were moving even faster?

This is the argument for accelerating during a recession. Businesses and people everywhere have pulled over to the side of the road and parked, hoping to ride out the recession in safety. Others like my friend’s company are creeping along in the slow lane. So right now, there is amazing opportunity to put the pedal to the metal and pass them while they are all standing still. Right now, speed is your greatest competitive advantage.

Now is the time to aggressively attack the market, adopt new technologies that improve productivity, introduce new products and services, and become more efficient. Now is the time to hit your competitors harder, invest in your brand, set new goals and create a new vision for yourself. To prosper during the recession, urgency is mandatory. Sooner or later, the recession will end and when that happens speed will give you a huge head start over your competitors who have been sitting on the side of the road.

Urgency and acceleration are about mindset. In many ways just a simple belief system that gives you the strength to trust in yourself and your talent. Acceleration in a down economy is about getting out of your comfort zone and letting go of the status quo. It is about accepting that things have changed, letting the past go, and then building a new future. I’m not saying this is easy because it is human nature to default to our comfort zones. But it is necessary if you want to thrive during the recession. Take time to set new goals. Get clear on what you want. Open yourself up to new possibilities. And then take decisive action to move forward one step at a time.

There is opportunity everywhere. And opportunity has always been here – it didn’t just get up and leave because the economy went sour. It is just different opportunity. But you can only see this opportunity when you look forward instead of backward. You can only exploit it when you replace fear with trust in the fundamentals of sales and business. And when you accelerate, moving faster, driven by urgency, always looking forward, I guarantee that you will be unstoppable.
This is Jeb Blount, the Sales Guy. If you have a sales question please send it to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.com.