The impact of coronavirus on the UK and world economy has yet to be fully felt. However, with a recession all but guaranteed, it's time to safeguard your business development strategy to ensure your business can continue making progress in sales. A recession does not mean you have to shelve your growth plans or go into damage limitation mode – far from it. This approach could be counter-productive. The lessons from the 2008 recession show that bold companies who streamline their operations and recognise market opportunities can still grow and thrive during a downturn.

Lockdown measures have left no sector untouched, and field sales are no exception. Businesses that rely on face-to-face sales have experienced large disruption to their operations, although the increased uptake of video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, have mitigated this and in some cases created new sales opportunities. In this changing landscape, it pays to understand emerging trends so you can identify business growth opportunities in times of crisis.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected virtually every business owner. Although lockdown measures are being gradually relaxed, things are far from back to normal, and as a business owner you may find yourself with extra time on your hands.

This is a great opportunity to put that time to good use and work on the five most effective ways of preparing your business for growth in the coming months as things start to return to normal.

Measuring sales performance is crucial to long-term profitability and growth. However, this may pose a challenge, since defining and tracking performance is complex and depends on various metrics – some of which will have more relevance to your business than others.

Effective tracking involves more than simply monitoring revenues in and out, and requires a proactive approach that anticipates obstacles to productivity. Owner-managers of small businesses may find this even harder due to the time constraints, which can easily lead to losing track of strategic objectives. Here’s a brief overview of the five best practices that will make the task easier.

Good sales performance is the lifeblood of businesses of any size. With the growing power and accessibility of marketing and sales automation platforms – HubSpot being the leading example – improving sales has become an increasingly data-driven process.

These affordably priced platforms have placed an advanced sales management toolkit at the disposal of even small businesses, enabling ambitious sales strategies without huge staff and operational expenses.

With travel restrictions and the banning of large public gatherings, 2020 has been a non-starter for the traditional face to face networking events on which so many businesses depend for sales. Conferences, trade shows, seminars and expos – from the international to the local scale – have been cancelled or postponed around the world.

The coronavirus pandemic has left most businesses with no option but to adapt to remote working practices. You may have found the experience liberating, or it may have been a struggle. Either way, remote working has posed some unique challenges to the way businesses nurture leads and make sales, especially for businesses whose sales strategy is heavily dependent on face to face meetings.

Whenever the concept of mindset is addressed in the context of business and entrepreneurship, it refers to personal beliefs and how they influence one’s journey to success. Business leaders, SME owners, and decision makers with a growth mindset are more inclined towards putting efforts to achieve something, even when it is challenging.

People with a fixed or self-limiting mindset, on the other hand, are comfortable with their status quo. They believe that what they have now is enough for their business to succeed and that it is unnecessary to increase efforts in pursuing a goal. This mindset is often enough to limit your results from sales initiatives and prevent you from fulfilling your true potential as a business.

Regardless of the potential of a business, there are always periods of unprecedented slowness, over which you have little or no control.

Economic downturns happen for many reasons – in this case due to the disruption caused by Coronavirus lockdowns – and can last for months or even years. In a downturn, you may experience a sudden plunge in your revenue or cash flow difficulties, or it may be harder to make sales.