The Value Forward Group, a worldwide CEO management consulting firm focused on business performance improvement best practices recently published an article in their newsletter, Value Forward - BDM News, which provided best practices for companies to use to grow their revenue during a recessionary times.

5 of these 10 tips are:

1. Spend more on marketing for lead generation but force your team to quantify your ROI.

During a recession, many companies cut back on marketing expenditures. This is a strategic mistake. During a recession, marketing is cheaper to buy and lead generation becomes more important because you need to find buyers who are in a buying cycle now. But any investment, including marketing, must have a definable Return on Investment.

2. Don't blame the sales team.

When sales are down, it is easy to blame the sales team because it's their job to generate revenue. However, revenue capture is a company responsibility -- not just the sales team. During a stable recovery, there are always buyers who may buy anything because they are flush with cash -- even if they never use your offering in detail, but in an unstable economy, the true value of your product or service is tested and if there are no buyers, it may be that your offering strategy is wrong.

3. Hire slow, terminate fast.

Less professional salespeople move prospects freely between their sales pipeline and their sales forecasts co-mingling who is qualified and who is not qualified and inflate their sales revenue capture success. During a recession, you cannot afford to carry salespeople who are not hunters. During a recession, hire slow and terminate unproductive salespeople fast.

4. Don't waste marketing expenditures on branding ads.

In the business to business marketplace, branding is hard to quantify. Focus your marketing budgets on tactical marketing programs that can create leads (direct mail, thought leadership educational events, email campaigns, etc.).

5. Make salespeople cold call.

To increase sales success and reduce sales capture costs -- salespeople must cold call new prospects. It is the cheapest and most direct way to find buying prospects.

To review the other 5 recession revenue capture tips visit: BDMNEWS.com