A 4-Point Checklist for Export and Sales Teams in Tough Times

These are tough times — for the many companies we advise in Türkiye and for the world economy generally. The Chinese love proverbs, just as we do, and they have a good one: 有失必有得,有得必有失 — a loose translation: for every customer gained there is a loss, and within every loss there is a gain. For export teams and company owners, I recommend working through this four-point checklist to make productive use of a period full of losses.

01Use CRM and Data Tools to Ease Time Pressure and Tension

I consider this the most critical point. Because hard economic times, without proper stress management, mean frayed nerves, finger-pointing, and raised voices when things are not going well.

Being able to think with data lets us make decisions that are objective, fair, and profitable.

Are you a business owner saying, "My export team does nothing all day"? If your CRM is used well, you can see at a glance which team member spoke to whom, when, how many times they tried to make contact, and how many emails they sent.

Are you an export professional who gets a price objection on every call? Used properly, the CRM lets you see the big picture instead of drowning in individual customer objections — and answer questions like who in your portfolio you should focus on and whether you need new market research.

02Review Your Sales Strategy and Targets

Let me start with a joke: first, you need to have a sales strategy. All jokes aside, every business has a sales strategy, written or not. It may not be called a sales strategy, but through trial and error alone, a company knows who it can sell to, which products are selling well, and which are not. Hard economic times are exactly when you need to put these questions back on the table:

• Are my most profitable products still my most profitable?
• Are my best-selling products still the most in demand?
• Is my marketing budget being spent efficiently, or does something need to change?
• Are my target countries still the right ones, or do I need new market research?

Here again it all comes back to thinking with the right data. Did I mention the importance of the CRM? :)

03Focus on Retaining Customers

Focusing on the customers we have worked with for a long time is another critical issue. I think it matters for two reasons.

First, we risk losing them — and losing them means a bigger loss than losing an ordinary customer. We would lose a partner whose habits we know and with whom we have a trust-based relationship, and finding a new customer to replace them is especially hard in an economy that is already difficult.

Second, if your business has critical-customer dependency, losing them can carry life-threatening risk. If your export revenue depends on a handful of customers, protecting them demands a special effort.

Here again it all comes back to thinking with the right data. Did I mention the importance of the CRM? :) :)

04Strengthen Your Presence on Digital Sales Channels

Are our digital sales channels — our website, social media accounts, and ad accounts — actually productive, or are we in a "the guys are doing something" situation?

Digital sales channels are still, in general, the weakest area for exporting businesses.

The best thing about these tools is that you can see their performance in data. You can see how many visitors come to your site, broken down by country and keyword. In other words, you can account for every penny you spend and every investment you make.