When the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the world in early 2020 it was nearly impossible to imagine the effect it was going to have in our lives and how it was going to affect our businesses and livelihoods.
Since March 2020, we have been tracking what’s happening with a range of businesses across markets and what they are doing, or not doing as the case may be, to adapt their sales processes, sales teams and strategies to stay in business, attract and retain customers, and sell better in the New Normal.
Having engaged with hundreds of leaders, including SME business owners and corporate CEOs, mostly across Australia and some internationally we’ve found some interesting trends including where they have been exposed and left wanting during the crisis.
So where have businesses been exposed during the crisis when it comes to sales?
Our findings have exposed the cracks and gaping holes that exist in businesses’ sales systems including:
CRM – The lack of quality and accuracy of customer data
Many have found that their CRM data bases are full of partially completed, out of date, inaccurate data that has made it very difficult to prioritise what clients and prospects they want to reach and engage with during and beyond this crisis. One business had 30,000 contacts which sounds impressive on the surface but upon closer inspection they had less than 500 contacts that were actually usable and relevant. In a situation like this, any digital marketing activity done to engage clients and prospects is essentially useless and costly.
No Sales Strategy – zip, nothing, zero
There are businesses that have realised they have no formal discipline, knowledge, awareness or process of how to do really good targeted sales strategy and sales market segmentation on a regular basis. Instead, they have been relying on old channels and markets that may not be operational any more. They have no awareness of new or emerging or alternative markets so are unable to pivot or adapt to the new, quickly.
Sales strategy is a dynamic process and usually needs to be reviewed and reassessed at least every 12-24 months under pre-COVID conditions but now it would be every 3-6 months. If you’re not doing this at all then you’re just reacting to the market. Like the saying goes “if you don’t know where you’re going every road will lead you nowhere”.
A reactive and short term approach to sales
Many have discovered that they have no articulated sales processes that can guide people as to ‘how we sell around here’ which also leads to inconsistent sales skills and capability across the sales teams – so lots of random acts of sales with inconsistent or poor execution and no steady sales pipeline.
No proactive prospecting activity, capability and discipline
Some sales teams simply stopped selling when COVID-19 hit and seemed immobilised; especially those field sales teams who used to just pop in to see their clients have been caught short. Many salespeople don’t know how to prospect effectively. This was brought home at a recent live webinar attended by 84 CEOs. In the Q&A section there were still many comments and questions about ‘my salespeople are not able to get appointments. What do we do?’
Lack of support and training for sales team to help them keep selling while at different stages of lockdown
On the other hand we see many eager sales teams wanting to keep going and although businesses owners and sales leaders have the same intentions, they are not providing their teams with the support they need to keep selling remotely. Selling and prospecting remotely require additional skill sets from the ones required for face-to-face selling.
An overreliance on networking events to get sales leads
Professional services firms especially have been exposed here. Many professionals do not know how to prospect or sell i.e. call people to ignite opportunities beyond a networking event. See items above.
Only focusing on cost management instead growth management
Whilst this crisis has meant we have had to manage costs, most businesses have not put in the same amount of effort into managing growth. Main reason? See all the items above. As they say ‘you can’t cut your way to growth’.
Ill equipped and poorly skilled sales leaders
Managers, especially sales managers are struggling to lead teams remotely, especially if they have been the default ‘super salesperson’. They have been found wanting in terms of coaching, mentoring, strategy, crisis management, educating their teams and so on.
Too internally focused and not genuinely customer centric
Businesses who are not genuinely customer centric are losing customers out the back door because they never really had the customer at the centre of their business operating model in the first place. So no amount of platitudes will cover the lack of genuine customer care.
Too bureaucratic, not quick enough to adapt to new markets
Business that take weeks and months to make decisions are losing customers and market share at the expense of faster, more agile and adaptable current and emerging competitors.
Waiting for to it all to go back to the old normal – this is a certain death wish
Yes, we have heard this more times that we care to admit. We call it ‘hiding under the doona of gloom’ or ‘fingers in the ears going la la la la la’ hoping it will all pass.
What have been your observations?
What has your business discovered?
Let us know in the comments below or using the contact form.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
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Will ‘Selling Remotely’ become the norm for field sales teams post COVID-19?
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