Recession Planning

Your clients may be worried about an upcoming recession.

Why not prepare for it now.

Just like in the early days of COVID, in a looming recession, servant leadership is a great strategy. We want to serve our clients & prospects but also lead them.

Here are 4 things you can do:

(1.) Brainstorm ways to help them reduce costs, increase revenues, & retain their customers. Inefficient processes, bureaucracy, products and programs that don’t make a business contribution are all costly and may have been ignored. Brainstorm first with your teammates & then with your client. Ask for a “recession planning meeting”.

(2.) Prepare for a fee reduction request. Better to get a jump on this than react to them calling you to lower their bill. Your goal is to protect your margins.

If you do have to reduce fees, make sure you trade for something like an extended contract (to keep it fair). But first, reframe fee reduction to overall cost reduction. And ways to increase revenues and retain their customers as well.

If you’ve got an upcoming contract renewal situation, prepare to be more flexible in your terms while still making sure the deal is fair to both sides.

(3.) Focus on your client’s prioritized needs. To use the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs vernacular, now is NOT the time for self-actualization proposals. Your proposals should focus on safety & security. Help them find out what those are.

Pay attention to what they need right now. Until they get those immediate and near-term needs under control they won’t be open to anything that helps them in the future.

By the way, this is your opportunity to make new contacts and build relationships in other parts of the organization by being proactive, thinking of them. When you do all this, you and your main contact will look like heroes.

(4.) Suggest solutions & workarounds. If you’re recommending changes in the way they operate, make sure to fully explain the reasoning.

If you have solid, concise, online training that addresses issues they’re concerned about, point them to the links.

Offer to lead an online meeting with your subject matter experts where you address multiple issues.

You could even sponsor a meeting where you brainstorm ideas with other clients in your portfolio, especially those that have gotten to know each other.

Now that’s servant leadership.  

Have a great weekend!

Bob

P.S. Starting next week, I’m going to start publishing on LinkedIn during the week. I’d love for you to follow me. And, if we’re not 1^st level connections yet on LinkedIn, send me a request so we can be. Here’s my URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boblabarbera/