Ok for many of you, so much has changed this year.  Sometimes, things are even better.  Sometimes, worse.  Sometimes even, not so much worse as just crazy.  No matter what, different.

If your bookings dropped, if your churn went way up, then … it did.  Things changed.

One thing is now clear: you have data.  You know what your New Normal is like, mostly.  From the past 30 days.

Maybe you are only growing 20% now.  Maybe bookings are down 50%.  Maybe churn has gone up.  Maybe that new VP of Sales just didn’t work out and made a mess of things.

Whatever it is, you now have a new baseline — at least for right now.  And even if you don’t love what you see, it’s your New Normal.  The team is now ready to adjust.  They may not be 100% ready, mentally.  I’m not sure even I am.  But they are ready at least in part to adjust.  Just like we’re half-adjusted to shelter-at-home, most of us have now adjusted to new metrics in bookings, retention, and downgrades.

So I have a very simple suggestion.

Your new plan for next month is just to do a little better that the past 30 days.  E.g, maybe:

  • To learn a new empathy-driven sales process.  Maybe get them into a free pilot, instead of a hard sell?  A new SDR script?  You have to be able to do better here than in the past 30 days.  At least a little better.
  • To learn better how to retain customers better under stress.  Maybe auto downgrades?  Maybe extending payment terms?  You must try some new ideas.  At least 1 or 2.
  • To learn how to evolve your marketing.  Maybe more marketing about how customers are dealing with change?  Or perhaps, no charge for additional seats in some cases in the next few months?  I don’t know.  You know better than me.  You must have 1 or 2 ideas here.

Whatever has changed has, for now, changed.

Your team knows that.  And they may not have all the answers.  You may not either.  But everyone now knows calmly how to do 10%-30% better than the last 30 days.  Challenge them to just come up with that small plan.  How can we not bounce back, per se … but just improve.  Improve what we are doing in the New Normal now.

I bet your team can do this.  They know your customers and your markets so well.  And now, they know their pain.

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