How To Sell During a Corporate Disaster

I've been thinking about those poor saps that sell for British Petroleum at the B2B level. It's got to be difficult to keep your sales cycle going when your company is creating a major ecological disaster. As it happens, a few years ago I interviewed some sales gurus about "how to sell during a scandal". Here are the four best answers I got.

• STRATEGY #1: Get Your Corporate Story Straight. "If you leave it up to the sales force, you will have 100 different messages, so the most important thing is for management to put together a message that is not defensive, is factual, gives the best side to the situation, and explains what they are going to do about it. Ideally, you should come up with a message that benefits the client in some way." (Source: Linda Richardson, author of Perfect Selling)
• STRATEGY #2: Be Honest, but Mitigate Risk. "Honesty is the best policy for sales people. They need to be prepared to address the past "head on" and combat it with a positive plan for the future. Acknowledging the past, reiterating lessons learned, and positioning the company's updated strategy and plan to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself is critical. Keep in mind that the reason that the "scandal" becomes an issue from a buyer or customer's perspective is risk. They are concerned that doing business with this company is risky...so the sales person's responsibility is to mitigate that risk with actions and plans." (Source: Julie Thomas, CEO of Valueselling Associates)
• STRATEGY #3: Rehearse Your Delivery. "Remember that both the customer and sales professional will have emotions connected to whatever is happening. Therefore, it's important for the sales professional to rehearse what to say and how to say it, so that the response is almost automatic. Of course, the specific message may need to be tailored to the needs of the individual customer, but you can't afford to flub the message and leave the wrong impression." (Source: Sharon Daniels, CEO of Achieve Global)
• STRATEGY #4: Consider Finding a New Job. "If the company is going down and you question the viability of the company you need to look for a new company in your free time not make sales that may hurt you and your reputation in the long run. If it is an issue that doesn't impact product quality, costs or service then address it head on and get the curiosity out of the way, ensure the customer that they will not personally be impacted and move on to what you are selling." (Source: Jerry Acuff, president of Delta Point)