How many times have you experienced this scenario what I call the good, the bad and the ugly of sales? Be honest. If you are honest, the answer is at least once and unless you have a strategic plan along with a sales plan, the answer is probably more than one time. Small business owners and entrepreneurs face this challenge of balancing sales against marketing every day of the week.

Do you have cycles in your business when sales are incredibly good? You are so busy you just cannot take care of all those new customers fast enough. 

Then, something happens and sales start to go south because you have been so busy engaged in activities related to those sales that you have ignored your marketing funnel.

Now suddenly sales have turned from bad to ugly. There are no sales. No one is calling you. And all those leads that you failed to follow-up on are now your competitor’s clients.

How many times have you experienced this scenario what I call the good, the bad and the ugly of sales? Be honest. If you are honest, the answer is at least once and unless you have a strategic plan along with a sales plan, the answer is probably more than one time. Small business owners and entrepreneurs face this challenge of balancing sales against marketing every day of the week.

Today, I spoke with two different small business owners. One was experiencing the bad and the ugly with too many employees and sales being down. The other one was experiencing booming sales and could use a few extra hands. The only difference was that the first business owner did not have a plan while the second had one. I know this because the first one told me that she did not have a plan since this was a repetitive issue – same thing happened last year. The second one was my client and had a plan. They had achieved their goal growth in spite of some significant bad and ugly moments because they planned around those seasonal experiences.

Here are some sales strategies and marketing strategies that should help you deal with the inevitable bad and ugly while you are living in the good of sales.

Make sure that you have a strategic plan.

Make sure that you have a separate marketing plan.

Make sure that you have a separate sales plan.

After you have these business growth action plans, you need to also change your beliefs especially about planning and goal setting. Then, you will begin to see your attitudes change. Now you will start thinking about planning for this event or returning to your plan when something unexpected comes up instead of being reactionary.

Finally, you will begin to see your behaviors change. Behaviors will not change until the beliefs and attitudes are changed. It is the behaviors that you want to change, especially the unhealthy behavior of “reacting” to the bad and the ugly.

Now your behaviors are working with the bad and the ugly knowing that it may be historical or cyclical or just an unexpected obstacle. Your behaviors demonstrate that you are in control of the future of your business.