I consistently see companies unable to get meetings. I consistently see that relationships are the easiest way to get meetings. I consistently see sales people and business owners letting their relationships wither.
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We are starting to reopen but it’s pretty clear things will be different.
Things will be some kind of new but not the same as before. The good news is that some things will be better than before. Sometimes it takes a big kick in the pants to change people and this crisis has certainly been that for many of us.
In the sales domain, this big change has accelerated the trend to digital selling. As sales forces have been sent home and told their clients won’t meet them with them in-person, they have had to use new digital tools just to keep doing their job.
Much of this should have happened in the old world but many people did not change their habits. In the lockdown world those people have no choice but to dive in. Some of those new digital selling habits will stick. Many will be better off because of it.
Here are some areas to consider using digital selling, now and after the crisis is over.
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If you didn’t believe that we humans are connected before COVID-19, you should now.
As you know, the virus has been transmitting itself exponentially through populations around the world. The only thing that has slowed its progress has been implementing some form of social distancing.
Social distancing is all about breaking the social network.
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I have to admit that I’m doing this right now.
I am looking for contact information in some target enterprise accounts. It takes time. If you’re not careful, a lot of time.
And I’ve done this many (many) times in my sales career and used many (many) hours of time on this. And I know many senior sales people that have spent lots of time on this too.
If you’re going to sell an enterprise account, you have to do this contact research, so what’s the discussion? This is just the cost of doing business.
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There are some green shoots of spring out there. Some sales inquiries are finally coming in. Maybe the end of the world is not nigh. Time to breathe again.
It’s possible that we are climbing out of the deepest part of the COVID-19 trough from a business perspective. Perhaps it’s time to breathe a huge sigh of relief and get back to partying like it’s 2019.
But that would actually rather suck.
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Don’t panic. We will return to normalish, at some point.
We will start selling at some reasonable rate again, soonish.
Budgets will be back in place and buyers will need things, in a little whileish.
When all this happens, you may easily forget the lessons of this panic/pandemic.
One of these lessons I believe is that big customers are good.
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