Ok, so the economy is in the toilet; everyone is running scared; nobody is buying; companies are hunkering down and waiting for things to get better.

Do we all just wait out the storm? That seems to be the strategy for many companies these days, but at Logan Consulting we have taken a different tact. We believe that this is an opportune time to ramp up our marketing and sales efforts and build our business. And guess what? It’s working! So far, in 2009, we are well ahead of 2008, which was a significant growth year for us as well.

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “how did we do it?” Well, one thing we realized is that our current customers were our life blood. If we could continue to serve their needs and help them to succeed, we would benefit from their success. Understanding their needs during these trying times and helping them to streamline their own operations and processes has helped them, and us, to hold their own despite the dire business news that we all see every day.

And, while investment in technology solutions seems to be difficult to justify for the most part, our internal processes and pipeline management has helped us to add new clients who share our positive attitude about the future.

So, you may ask “how can I leverage these ‘opportunities’ to come out ahead in these difficult times?” With an investment in CRM, you can maximize your return on your company’s investment in sales, marketing and service, maximize the value of every existing customer relationship and have visibility of all customer-facing processes in your company.

Sales – with CRM you gain a single view of your relationship with existing customers and an understanding of what they need next. You can establish processes for retention and growth. For new business, get a better understanding of your strengths and what types of prospects are best for you. With CRM, you can also establish and utilize a process for the sales cycle that will help you win business.

Marketing – CRM gives you the tools to not only execute marketing activities, but also understand the effectiveness of those activities. With an understanding of your return on marketing investments, you can focus your budget toward the most effective activities.

Service – CRM will give you visibility into issues that your customers face and help you to quickly and effectively resolve issues and maintain high customer satisfaction. With a service process in place using CRM, you can build a knowledge base of issues that can streamline the service experience for you and your customer.

By investing in and executing a comprehensive CRM strategy, using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you will be in a position to keep your existing customers and gain new ones, especially if your competition is sitting back and doing nothing. While the increased market share may not represent huge revenue growth due to the economic slowdown, when the economy bounces back, and it will, that increased market share will mean significant revenue growth.

Contact us today to discuss how Logan Consulting has beaten the recession and how we can help you to do the same. And check out our website www.loganconsulting.com regularly for more ideas about beating the recession.