When Business Is Slow, It's Time to Work on These 16 Things

Perhaps you're not hitting your revenue predictions or having difficulty with cash flow. Secretly, you're concerned that business is slowing. However, these things alone may not be enough to indicate that your organization is not humming along as usual. 

After all, other factors could be at play, such as increased expenses or inaccurate forecasting, and it's important to make business decisions based on more than just a feeling. 

Here, we'll take a closer look at the symptoms of a slow business, what external factors could be impacting your bottom line, and 16 strategies to jump-start your revenue growth.

Symptoms of a Slow Business

How can you tell if business is naturally ebbing or if internal factors are at play, affecting your bottom line? The answer: eliminating variables as you troubleshoot from your bank account backward. 

Here are some symptoms of a slow business that may be factors to consider: 

Reduced Revenue

This is the big one to check since it's closest to your bank account. Compare your revenue numbers to previous periods: last month to this month, last quarter to this quarter, last year to this year, year-to-date to the corresponding period the previous year. 

This helps confirm a known revenue drop and when it occurred. If revenue dipped outside of regular seasonality, or if it fell more than you expected, you'll be able to find the cause — whether it's business slowing or something else. 

Reduced Profitability

On the other hand, if there's no revenue drop, you'll want to look at profitability as a culprit to confirm whether business is slow. 

Did you hire new employees, invest in new tools or equipment, or take on additional overhead in another area?

If not, you'll want to investigate the performance of your more profitable products against those less impactful ones. It's possible that business is slowing for your "money makers" but staying the same or increasing for other offerings. 

Dry Pipeline

If revenue is down, the next step is to figure out why, and that begins by looking at sales. 

Check your sales team's closing ratio against other time periods. Has the percentage of closed deals increased or decreased? 

A decrease may indicate an issue with sales or marketing performance rather than a business slowdown. However, if the closing ratios are healthy, you may simply have fewer deals in the pipeline — which is a potential symptom of slow business. 

Before you make this conclusion, you'll have to ensure your team's sales activity matches or exceeds that of previous periods. If they are not prospecting or calling as much, this can also dry up the pipeline. 

Reduced Traffic

Now the question becomes whether traffic is enough to sustain your sales pipeline. 

For online businesses and those with an online presence, decreased website traffic could indicate that business is slowing — especially if you see a decline you can't contribute to marketing issues or a Google penalty. You can check your website's traffic data through Google Analytics or other marketing analytics software. 

Measuring foot traffic in brick-and-mortar establishments is a little harder, particularly if you don't have previous benchmarks. 

Business Trends Are Negative

Another symptom to consider is the broader scope of your market: 

• Is it being disrupted by innovations in technology or your competition?
• Is general interest in your offerings declining? 
• Is there a wider economic downturn or crisis affecting consumer attitudes? 

These wide-spanning variables can be hard to quantify, but you can start with Google Trends to gain some insights.

In Some Cases, It's Okay If Business Is Slow

Mark Zuckerberg once said, "Move fast and break things. Unless you're breaking stuff, you're not moving fast enough."

However, that attitude in startups can lead to burned-out sales reps and a business ill-prepared to scale.

That's why the goal shouldn't be to grow fast but to grow better. So when you experience slow business, remember that slow and steady growth wins the race.

How can you grow better and experience deliberate growth?

Below, you'll learn why slow business can be a good thing and what to do when business is slow to grow better.

Why is Business Slow Right Now?

Your sales department can be experiencing slow business for a variety of reasons. Here are some examples of factors that can affect business: 

Holidays

Just as some businesses explode during the end-of-year holiday season, other businesses slow down, particularly in the B2B space.

Holidays can greatly affect whether business is slow, so it's important to measure business performance during these times versus similar periods rather than linearly. It's comparing apples to oranges if you compare the holiday season against your busier seasons.

Seasonality

The holiday season is one example of seasonality, though not all seasonality has to do with holidays. For instance, some industries, such as pool servicing or HVAC, tend to do better in the summer months, while others (i.e., retail) have busy seasons around the holidays. For this reason, it's not beneficial to compare your slow season to your busier season, so make sure to measure business performance accordingly.

Weather

Consumer spending habits can change based on weather patterns, as well. For instance, if you sell AC units and a heatwave is around the corner, you're more likely to get a surge of people walking through the door.

Another example: when I worked marketing for a roofing company in a dry climate, there would always be a spike in business if it rained since rain would expose leaks and other problems. During dry spells, repairing or replacing a roof isn't top of mind for consumers. This applies to a number of industries.

Economy

The economy is probably the biggest factor on this list for affecting business. During economic downturns, consumer attitudes change. Those who lose jobs have less money to spend, and even those who retain work may change their consumer behavior as their positions seem less secure. The average buyer may make fewer luxury purchases and try to extend their dollars the best they can.

Consumer Trends

Consumer trends change based on generational attitudes, economic prosperity, current events, and more. These trends can affect a single product or a whole industry.

An interesting example is the case of fidget spinners. Its popularity skyrocketed in late 2016, eventually accounting for 17% of online toy sales. But as competition grew and consumer interest fell, the craze quickly cooled off.

While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates the boom and bust cycle of trends — and how certain industries are more vulnerable to it than others. 

Legal or Legislative Changes

Legal or legislative changes can force a business to shut down, change its entire operational model, or adjust the type or velocity of marketing that it does. For example, cigarette ads were banned in 1970, and this restriction had a big impact on their bottom line.

Disruption

With the advent of the internet and recent innovations in technology, there are many industries that can easily be disrupted with emerging (and perhaps more efficient or convenient) competition entering the market. Just as Uber disrupted the taxi cab industry, other industries can slow down due to disruption or competitor innovation.

Some of these factors can be weathered through, and some require more inventive solutions. If you can predict the periods of slow business, you can prepare accordingly. However, even if you can't predict when you'll experience slow business, you can use the list below to help scale your sales process.

What To Do When Business Is Slow

1. Analyze your CRM.
2. Align your marketing and sales.
3. Focus on upselling and/or cross-selling.
4. Revisit your sales training.
5. Refine systems and processes.
6. Create a sales enablement strategy.
7. Develop a future-proof sales plan.
8. Avoid burnout.
9. Work on professional development.
10. Perform a competitive analysis.
11. Brainstorm new products or services.
12. Conduct customer interviews.
13. Automate your sales process.
14. Set goals.
15. Practice sales strategies.
16. Collaborate with other sales reps.

It sounds counterproductive, but slow business can be a good thing for your team. When you're experiencing slow business, it frees up your time to address weaknesses and focus on prospecting and connecting with potential leads. Here are several ways to innovate your strategy when business is slow:

1. Analyze your CRM.

During periods of slow business, you can analyze the contacts in your CRM and examine the performance of your sales team.

For example, your sales reps can ensure their contact details are completely filled out. Do they have the company size, location, and vertical of all their prospects or clients? These details are important for closing deals.

As a sales manager, you can use data in your CRM to see how your team is performing. How long is the typical sales cycle for your reps? How often do they close-win deals versus close-lose?

To help you monitor your team's performance, you can create a dashboard and keep track of metrics including:

• Activity Sales Metrics
• Pipeline Sales Metrics
• Lead Generation Sales Metrics
• Sales Outreach Metrics
• Primary Conversion Sales Metrics
• Channel Sales Metrics
• Sales Productivity Metrics
• Rep Hiring and Onboarding Metrics
• Sales Process, Tool, and Training Adoption Metrics

These analytics will enable you to make decisions for your team. You can use CRMs like HubSpot's Sales Hub to create reports and dashboards for your team's performance.

2. Align your marketing and sales.

Sale and marketing are two sides of the same coin, but they often find themselves at odds. This misalignment can have big consequences, like lost revenue, wasted budgets, and gaps in the buyer's journey.

Of course, sales and marketing alignment doesn't happen overnight, but it's worth the effort. Salespeople at companies with aligned teams perform better. On top of that, 28% of salespeople say it improves the customer experience, and 26% report stronger lead quality.

As a sales manager, you'll want to work with your marketing team to generate leads. You'll also want to inform marketing on common pain points and questions from consumers, which can improve their strategy and approach. 

3. Focus on upselling and/or cross-selling.

More than a quarter of sales professionals say existing customers took priority over finding new ones in 2022 . This underlines a common truth in sales: a customer's revenue potential doesn't end at the initial point of sale.

One way to prioritize existing clients is through upselling or cross-selling — and focusing on these efforts can have a positive impact on your bottom line. For example, 72% of salespeople who upsell and 74% who cross-sell say that it drives up to 30% of their revenue.

4. Revisit your sales training.

If your reps continue to miss targets, it may be time to revisit your training and coaching initiatives.

Training is integral to setting your team up for success, yet most organizations take an informal approach — and it usually ends once someone finishes onboarding. As a result, 26% of reps are unhappy with their training.

As a sales manager, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Are your new (or junior-level) employees starting on solid footing, or could they benefit from more training?
• Are your more seasoned reps up-to-date on the latest technology and strategies?
• Are your reps leveraging your CRM to its full potential?
• What areas need the most improvement (prospecting, nurturing, etc.)?

Your answers to these questions should guide your future training initiatives.

5. Refine systems and processes.

To sell successfully, your sales team should have a refined system and process in place. How does your sales team keep track of their prospects? How do they monitor the deals in their pipeline?

During slow periods, you can take a step back and analyze your sales systems and processes. According to Cambria Davies, product manager at HubSpot, she says"consider what is and isn't working for your reps and prospects to tailor your new process to better fit their needs, so more deals are closed and more customers are delighted."

You can analyze your sales process by observing your reps. Ask yourself questions like, "What do their deals look like from beginning to end?" or "How much time elapsed between each step?" Once you've looked at the process, consider what moves prospects from one stage to the next. With a complete understanding of your sales system, you can analyze what's working and what isn't.

6. Create a sales enablement strategy.

A whopping 88% of sales professionals who use sales enablement content say it's moderately to extremely important to making a sale.

Sales enablement is the process of providing your reps with the resources they need to close more deals. For instance, marketing can provide reps with various content to enhance their interactions with prospects, including videos, product guides, blogs, and more.

On the flip side, sales can communicate with marketing about which types of content are missing and could benefit leads throughout their journeys.

When it comes to helping salespeople win deals, product demos, customer testimonials, reviews, market research, and social media content are most effective, according to HubSpot's 2022 Sales Strategy & Trends Report.

7. Develop a future-proof sales plan.

To prepare for the future, you need to create a sales plan. If you don't already have one, your sales plan should lay out specific sales strategies for your team including objectives, tactics, target audience, and potential obstacles.

For instance, you might consider sales methods your team can use to close more deals. How will your team qualify leads? How does your product compare with competitors? Answer these questions and develop sales tactics and team structure that will set your sales team up for success.

When business is slow, it's a good time to take a look at your sales strategies in order to plan deliberate growth.

8. Avoid burnout.

According to a recent Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees, 23% of employees reported feeling burned out at work very often or always, and an additional 44% reported feeling burned out sometimes. When employees feel burnout, not only is their performance impacted, but it could affect your workplace culture as well.

Make sure that you're checking in with your employees to ensure reps aren't suffering from burnout. When business is slow, reassess how happy your sales reps are — are they talking with their mentors, do they have the right tools for success, do they have smaller goals, and are they motivated?

If you find that some sales reps are experiencing burnout, work with them to fix the issue. You can create a performance plan, encourage them to take a day off, or offer more training. Being proactive, especially during slow periods of business, will set your sales team up for success.

9. Work on professional development.

When your sales reps have time, it's important to work on professional development. During slow periods of business, have your reps:

• Take courses
• Get certifications
• Read industry blogs
• Attain product knowledge
• Update their online presence
• Attend conferences

Professional development will help your reps grow, develop, and be more active, engaged, and productive in their roles. This can set your team up for long-term success and happiness and increased revenue.

10. Perform a competitive analysis.

When business is slow, you can perform a sales competitive analysis so your salespeople can better position your product during their sales calls. A sales competitive analysis helps your reps learn how your product compares to competitors. A competitive analysis can:

• Identify gaps in the market: Look at what products or services competitors offer. Ask yourself questions like, "Are there gaps in their offerings?" and "Do we offer a product or service to fill that need?" These gaps can help your sales team position your product.
• Uncover market trends: If you find that a competitor has an offering that you don't, think about why. Is a new trend emerging in your industry? If so, you might want to consider how new trends will fit in your offerings and/or disrupt your sales process.
• Sell more effectively: Get a look at how competitors are selling their products or services. Learn about their sales process and use it to inform your own process.

To conduct a competitive analysis, you can answer questions about your competitors like:

• What does their sales process look like?
• What channels are they selling through?
• Why do customers choose not to buy from them?
• What is their revenue?
• What do their programs or products look like? Do they work with partners?

During periods of slow business, understanding how your product compares to competitors can help you strategize for future success and growth.

11. Brainstorm new products or services.

Sales reps have the best pulse on what's happening with customers. In their conversations, they organically uncover gaps in your services and offerings. During periods of slow business, utilize your sales reps and ask them to brainstorm ideas for your product team. What products or services are missing from your offerings? How can your product team improve your existing products?

By brainstorming with your sales reps, you'll learn more about your customers and how to sell to them. Also, this can help your sales team grow better.

12. Conduct customer interviews.

During periods of slow business, spend time learning about your customers. Conduct customer interviews and re-engage with your audience. This can do two things: help your sales rep understand your buyer persona and help you collect customer stories.

Collecting customer stories is also helpful for creating case studies and testimonials for your sales reps. Your reps can use these stories to earn trust with their prospects and validate your product or service.

To conduct customer interviews, you'll need to reach out to customers first. Find customers who have found success with your product and send them a quick email introducing the idea. If they're open to the idea, you'll need to write interview questions, conduct interviews, and gather their stories in a digestible, distributable format.

Interview questions could include something like, "What were the major pain points of your process prior to using our product?", "How does our product help your team achieve its objectives?" or "How are our companies aligned (mission, strategy, culture, etc.)?"

13. Automate your sales process.

Do your sales reps have enough of their sales process automated? If not, periods of slow business give your reps the opportunity to generate templates and snippets that can save them time during busy periods.

Aja Frost, a HubSpot Sales Blog contributor, says a few processes in your sales cycle that can be automated include:

• The follow-up
• Adding opportunities or leads to your CRM
• A long sales cycle
• Working on cold leads that aren't likely to convert

Within your CRM, you should be able to easily automate the rep outreach process, follow-up emails, log prospect activities, organize and track your prospects, and save time on your sales cycle. During periods of slow business, use this time to automate parts of your sales process.

14. Set goals.

Sales reps typically operate on a monthly quota or sales goal. However, these aren't the only goals they should have. During periods of slow business, develop other goals including:

• Mentor goals: Meet with a mentor once a week
• Activity goals: Asking more "Why?" questions
• Win rate goals: Closing a certain amount of deals
• Incentivized goals: Implementing bonuses

You can even plan promotions to help your sales team reach their goals. Developing smaller goals, such as a number of phone calls reps should have with a prospect or sending more prospecting emails each week, sets your team up for success. Take the time during slow business periods to develop these goals for your reps.

15. Practice sales strategies.

A simplified version of the stages of a sales cycle includes prospecting, connecting, researching, presenting, and closing.

During slow business, have your sales reps practice their techniques for these stages.

Reps can practice prospecting by using different techniques including social media, warm emails, or personalization through research.

They can also connect by asking more "Why?" questions during the exploratory call. Why questions include, "Why is this problem a priority today?" or "Why haven't you addressed this problem before?" Why questions will give your reps context and see if this prospect is a good fit.

Salespeople can brush up their research skills by using different platforms for their research including LinkedIn, social media, or even press releases. Researching press releases will give your sales reps insight into what is happening in the company and can provide topics of conversation during a rapport-building conversation.

And they can practice presenting by trying out roleplay or public speaking. If your company doesn't provide opportunities for this, connect with colleagues on your own to set something up.

Lastly, reps can practice closing techniques by attempting various ways to close deals including soft closes, assumptive closes, or sharp angle closes. Each deal will require a different closing technique. A soft close is when you lay out the benefits, without making a demand or sudden request to close the deal right away. An assumptive close is when you ask questions like, "Does our product meet your needs?" or "Does this sound like it would solve [pain point]?" Finally, a sharp angle close is when you change direction and catch your prospect by surprise by trying to close the deal.

16. Collaborate with other sales reps.

Collaborating with your team is one of the best ways to grow better. During periods of slow business, you have the time to truly collaborate with your sales reps. Set up film reviews, where reps can provide and receive constructive feedback. Set up a mentorship program between new sales reps and experienced reps. These collaborative opportunities will ultimately help your sales team increase revenue, while also implementing productive work to develop in their roles.

Slow business can actually be a good thing for your sales team. You can use this time to grow better and strategize ways to increase your revenue in the future by creating a sales plan.