No more waiting… It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to get selling.
This headline may seem insensitive to some people. ‘It’s too soon’ I hear some people saying.
It is perfectly understandable that when a *Black Swan Event -such as what we are living through now with Covid-19- happens, people stop in their tracks to first deal with the immediate shock and then try to make sense of ‘what the hell just happened?’ People’s mental and emotional energy are focused on the here and now – it’s about how to survive.
Which is why when organisations are in major crisis, key decision-makers are relentlessly focused on the immediate challenges such as how to manage costs, keep people in jobs or let them go, managing crisis communication, and hopefully putting people’s minds at ease and providing some certainty, at least for the short term. It’s also why all optional or discretionary opportunities get put on hold, regardless of how meritorious they may be. This is why most people only start to look up and ahead when things start to look more favourable as we enter the recovery phase and things get back to normal – BAU – business as usual. I say this it too late. I say this for a number of reasons:
There are always opportunities in a crisis
There are the short term opportunities like switching your business to make hand sanitiser. Then there are those businesses that see change coming long before the Black Swan event arrives and have prepared their businesses for the emerging markets that are showing possible promise. They may have a primary business but also developed new offers that can now take off under the new circumstances.
Case in point: we at Barrett have been promoting and delivering online, remote and longitudinal sales education for several years now but not on a large scale and not to mass markets because most businesses still wanted traditional classroom training. But now because of physical distancing more and more people – sales leaders and their teams – are finding themselves open and able to adopt remote and online sales education to stay sales fit. We are also finding that more and more SMEs and sole traders are wanting to look at how they sell remotely. This has accelerated our one-to-many sales education strategy.
Disclaimer: we didn’t develop the online sales education programs because we knew there was a pandemic coming (or any crisis besides climate one, for that matter). We did it because we knew it was the way forward from a sustainability point view: it implied no printed manuals and workbooks, and less or no travelling. We were also being asked by our clients how to get sales education for their teams in a more cost-effective manner.
We cannot stop selling or our businesses cease to exist
Selling is the vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people to prosper. At the very least all businesses should be working out how to stay in touch with their clients, members, patients, etc. Keeping them informed of what is happening and how they intend to get back into the business of serving their customers. If you don’t do that then someone else will capture their attention.
Finding new ways of doing business
I’ve been a ‘What if’ kid all my life. What if we do it this way? What if we look at it that way? In time of crisis we need to be looking at everything from all sorts of angles. There’s likely to be opportunity in there somewhere for your business to adapt. Enter Green Swans. The early signs of this crisis and what is emerging from it are showing that we aren’t going back to normal and instead we are moving forward to a new world, a world where Green Swans are emerging, where it is Business as Unusual.
What is a Green Swan?
A Green Swan is a profound market shift, generally catalysed by some combination of Black or Grey Swan challenges and changing paradigms, values, mindsets, politics, policies, technologies, business models, and other key factors. A Green Swan delivers exponential progress in the form of economic, social, and environmental wealth creation.
John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development and author of Green Swans: The Coming Boom In Regenerative Capitalism where he sets out a compelling vision for our economy to become truly responsible, resilient and regenerative.
The sight of Green Swans on the horizon should get us all looking up and ahead.
And at the risk of too many birds here, all of this reminds me of the saying “The early bird catches the worm.”
So make sure someone in your business is looking up and looking ahead at the early signs of opportunity.
So no more waiting… It’s time to look ahead. It’s time to get selling.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
Author: Sue Barrett, founder and CEO of Barrett and a leading strategist, educator, writer, researcher and business consultant specialising in Ethical Sales & Business Strategies, Systems & Ethos for a Sustainable World. Here’s an interview she did with Alan Kohler in 2019: Sue Barrett Talking Business with Alan Kohler about all things sales on Qantas Inflight Program – 12 minutes
*The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalised after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after black swans were discovered in the wild.
If you like, join us for Staying open for business: a Barrett and Moral Fairground initiative
In the spirit of helping businesses stay in business and keeping people in jobs, Moral Fairground, a social enterprise community and events business devoted to promoting sustainable and fair trade business practices, and Barrett, a business consulting and education firm specialising in ethical, sustainable sales and business strategies and practices, are working in collaboration and created a remote/online program for social enterprises, entrepreneurs and many other businesses to support them through COVID-19 and help them explore strategies and actions in ‘How to Stay Open for Business’.
The Moral Fairground-Barrett program is open now closed
The program consisted of 4 live webinars, plus 8 week access to the new Barrett Sales Essentials Online Crisis Toolbox and Training Program.
Program details:
- 4 live webinars to work through and build a go-to-market action plan to deal with this crisis and have a positive social impact
- Sales Essentials Online Crisis Toolbox and Training Program to provide additional insights, tools and tasks to work on your sales strategy, market analysis, leadership challenges, selling remotely, customer communication, mindset and other topics relevant during this crisis
Date: 4 x 1 hour live webinars scheduled each Monday and Friday over 2 weeks: 11th / 15th / 18th / 22nd May 2020
Time: 9:30AM – 10:30AM (AEST) each live session
The online program can be accessed 24/7 for 8 weeks, via desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Location: This is an online applied workshop that runs over 2 weeks. A link for the meetings will be sent after registration and access to the online program will be available from 11th May.
Early Bird is $225 GST finishing on the 1st of May 2020
Fee after 1st of May is $295 GST
Book your tickets here
Related topics
We have published a few posts to help tackle some of the practical and emotional challenges brought about by the current situation:
- Finding sales opportunities in the Supply Chain of Supply Chains during COVID-19
- Necessity is the mother of invention: how to keep selling during COVID-19
- Open for business – how to keep selling and doing business during COVID-19
- What to do when there is panic in the air – get focused and get selling
- How are we selling and buying when the house is on Fire?
- How to stay open for business: Selling Better during this crisis and beyond.
- Organisations are nothing without communication and relationships
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