It is now an established fact; the world is in recession. Most of the industry sectors are facing serious sales & marketing challenges. Unfortunately most of the young sales-marketing professionals have never experienced recession.

When I look back at the last recession, I recollect many key things we did while handling clients. These few steps helped me in making a reasonably correct judgment; whether the client will really do business with me. It also helped me to judiciously invest limited resources (Time, Money & Manpower).

During these unprecedented market conditions, the key areas one must investigate further, while interacting with your clients would be;

1: Macro economic conditions: What is the economic landscape of your client's business sector. What type of situations might affect their decision-making? How would they view your offering? How do they feel about their own firm?

2: Contingency plans: What are the what-if scenarios they have thought of? How do you fit into these scenarios? What is your plan B?

3: Likely Objections: What is going to cause them to wait forever (from your perspective!) ? Are these the real objections? How does your offer address the objections, which never existed in good economic conditions?

4: Ability & intentions: Ability (e.g. having good funds position) does not mean there is an intention to buy. Are you speaking to the right people? Are they capable & willing to decide on your offer? Or under the difficult market situation, decision making has gone far higher in the hierarchy, where you don't have easy access?

5: New decision making style. What are the changes in decision making style? Do they look at ROI, Savings more critically? Do they link payments to performance? Do we need to think of innovative payment terms?