Originally published on Forbes in Jan 2026. This article has been republished here.
Are Your Biz Sales Stalled? Smart Moves For A Quiet Quarter
When the economy slows down, it may seem like your business revenue is at a standstill, but it’s actually the perfect time to revamp your strategic brand approach in the marketplace. Learning how to weather a challenging season is also a proving ground for long-term growth.
And throughout the uncertainty, the best opportunities are often uncovered when your competition pulls back to play it safe. Below, Forbes Business Development Council members offer some practical ways to improve on brand messaging, deepen customer trust and build positive resilience for what’s to come.
1. Concentrate On Creating A Pipeline And Demand
When sales are slow and the market is down, it is a great time to be intentional in creating a pipeline and demand. Take the time to define your ideal customer and develop messaging to attract them to your solution. The messaging must be relevant, insightful and a value-add to your target audience. – Julie Thomas, ValueSelling Associates
2. Pursue Market Share From Competitors Playing It Safe
In a down market, you must prioritize efforts with disciplined aggressiveness. You can do this by tightening execution, reallocating spend toward high-ROI channels, leaning into value strategy and proactively pursuing market share from those who choose to simply stay safe. Invest where others retreat, strengthen relationships and prepare to exit the slowdown with momentum and expanded market share due to your efforts. – Brandon McConnell, Delavan Lake Lawn Management LLC
3. Refresh Your Content To Increase Brand Awareness
During slower cycles, I double down on relationship-building and brand trust. Instead of pushing sales, I create educational content, share case studies, show client victories and strengthen long-term partnerships. Markets recover, but the loyalty you build in the quiet periods becomes your strongest growth driver when demand returns. – Valeri Manziuk, UFIRST Production
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4. Shift Your Focus To Leading Indicators
In a downturn, focus on controllable activities. End the daily obsession with lagging indicators (closed deals). Instead, focus sales coaching intensely on leading indicators, such as discovery quality, pipeline velocity and commitment progression. Leading indicators are the controllable inputs that build future sales and ensure predictable performance in a downturn. Coach activity, not just outcome. – William DeCourcy, AmeriLife
5. Test New Approaches For Untapped Segments
In a slow sales period, focus on what you can control. Tighten pipeline discipline, prioritize top opportunities and bring consistency back to the core processes. Use this period to test new approaches, exploring untapped segments or running focused sales sprints. Finally, reset the team’s mindset so they stay resilient and ready when the momentum returns. – Jani Hirvonen, Google
6. Refine Your Offer And Its Value
When the market is slow, the best approach is to focus on deepening relationships and ensuring your execution does not run into bottlenecks. Have your business development team check in with clients, and ask your marketing team to refine the offer and its value. When sales are lower, gaps arise, so it’s a time to tighten and close them, which becomes the runway for the next level of growth. – Wayne Elsey, Funds2Orgs
7. Pick Up The Phone And Call Your Prospect
Manual and cold outreach win the day. Anytime I see a slowdown, I start doing more manual outreach via email, social channels and PR. It’s never a bad idea to pick up the phone and have a traditional conversation with a prospect. You’d be surprised at how effective this tried-and-true method still is. – Brandon Batchelor, ReadyCloud
8. Invest In Staff Training And Development
Shift the focus from volume to value to deepen relationships with existing clients and agents. Market downturns are a perfect time for education. Invest in training that promotes ethical business practices, not just sellers. Diversify product mix to meet changing needs. While competitors pull back, double down on service excellence. When the market rebounds, you’ll capture shares from those who went silent. – Scotty Elliott, AmeriLife
9. Build A Larger Funnel
Markets in general tend to be cyclical and you will experience certain slow periods. A lot can be done in this period to ensure maximum advantage can be gained when the cycle turns around. Expand on your outreach to build a larger-than-usual funnel size, invest in both personal and professional development of existing leaders and their teams, identification of future leaders, coaching and more – Mustansir Paliwala, Zomara Group
10. Renegotiate Vendor Contracts
Protect cash flow by closely reviewing and reducing optional expenses, deferring avoidable spending and renegotiating vendor contracts where possible. Focus sales and delivery efforts on high-margin offerings that generate faster returns. Improve collections by timely invoicing, following up on receivables and offering incentives for early payments to maintain liquidity during the downturn. – Salice Thomas, Wipro Limited
11. Tune Into Work That Drives Outcomes
In a slow market, tighten focus on the work that actually drives outcomes. Use the pause to streamline processes, upgrade your tools and solve meaningful customer problems. Intelligent Work Management and AI help you clear the noise so you can accelerate the moment demand returns. – Michael Fritsch, PMP, Confoe
12. Tap Into Client Referrals
Sales cycles often run in different patterns. The best sales teams plan for differences by managing a baseline of sales performance so that they can create predictability. Since most effective sales come from relationship-building, during downturns, it is most important to focus on keeping relationships fresh and working from referrals. – Tracy Nolan, Humana
13. Tweak Your Services For Added Value
When the market slows, we redesign our offering to create predictable value without relying on constant new sales. That means stripping features customers don’t use, packaging the real core benefit into more affordable versions and turning one-off projects into ongoing service relationships. Instead of chasing harder, we make it easier for customers to say “yes.” – Bryce Welker, The CPA Exam Guy
14. Stay Curious, Visible And Helpful
Use slow periods to sharpen value. Revisit your messaging, deepen relationships and solve small problems for clients to stay top of mind. Momentum returns to the sellers who stay curious, visible and helpful when everyone else goes quiet. – Gary Lamach, ELB
15. Host Thought Leadership Sessions
During slower periods, we host thought leadership sessions to reflect on yearly outcomes and investment impact. Together, we align on future vision and quarterly strategy, explore innovative points of contacts and share industry trends. These insights help stakeholders visualize market trajectories, anticipate change and prepare for emerging opportunities. – Karn Srivastava, Amdocs
16. Tighten Your Ideal Customer Profile
Treat it like a pipeline rebuild season by tightening your ideal customer profile, doubling down on existing accounts, running short “problem-first” campaigns and using the downtime to improve messaging, case studies and onboarding. Keep activity high, but cut anything that doesn’t move deals forward. – Tomer Warschauer Nuni, PRIM3 Capital
