The art of salesmanship is the absence of salesmanship I have heard time and again. The truth is that if you really believe you can help your customer, you are poised to become a superb sales or business person by establishing yourself as a problem-solver, rather than just a person trying to sell something. Now is perhaps the time to test this.
If there is one function that has been fairly challenged due to the pandemic, it is sales. A recent global Saleshacker report of sales workforce reveals that a majority of respondents are closing approximately 30 per cent lower deals due to the pandemic.
The fuelling pump behind any business, the sales teams, have typically relied heavily on the face to face meetings, industry conferences, and customer site visits for engaging clients and prospects. But due to the trend of remote work, business managers are rethinking the way they are doing new business and adopting virtual platforms instead.
Broadly, COVID-19 has pushed the world to adopt remote working protocols especially the traditional industries. Even though video conferencing and instant messaging are allowing for business continuity, mental fatigue has crept in and several challenges have emerged.
Developing trust and a working relationship has always been an important part of kicking off any new business engagement. Mostly the executives have depended on physical interactions or face to face meetings to develop a camaraderie.
Considering social distancing will be here to stay for a long time and the fact that there is no playbook to do new business in the current times, business managers are now trying to figure out how to attract business interest in the remote age.
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There needs to be a way to foster a stronger bond at the very beginning of the conversations. Physical meetings coupled with digital outreach shall create a hybrid sales model that will set the course for the future.
Closer to home just like the rest of the world, the sales bell hasn’t been ringing enough and continues to lack momentum. The country’s open and trade-dependent economy has been hit hard following lockdown measures around the world aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Recently, Singapore’s government allocated another S$8 billion (US$5.8 billion) to support the economy that has come under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.
Singapore retail sales fell 8.5 per cent in July as COVID-19 continues to pummel certain sectors. While the retail, travel, and hospitality sectors have suffered heavily owing to coronavirus induced restrictions, the technology companies are able to sell virtually. Despite this, it has been a challenging time, especially for the B2B sector.
They are having to devise outreach programmes that replace their traditional methods to keep their sales pipeline running. What intensifies the problem is the fact that the prospects have been postponing decision-making and adopting a wait-and-watch approach.
Thereby, a key question facing decision-makers in Singapore and beyond is how to sell successfully during the current crisis and as we head towards the road to recovery?
There have been cheerleaders for a remote selling model. According to Deloitte, the shift towards virtual sales will not only safeguard short term revenues and profit but also move companies beyond flattening the curve and enable long-term profitable growth.
Also Read: Sell a vision and not a product
Here are some easily digestible and applicable tips:
You need a clear plan of action
If you do not have a vision of where you want to go and how chances of getting there are minute. You need concrete points for planning and realistic targets to be able to overcome the tide. Expect a decrease in conversions and longer sales cycles. It is a tough game so ensure you drive your team’s motivation and commitment.
Looking inwards will help
Generally, there are two main ways of increasing the pipeline – generating new leads from external sources, and secondly, scouting for them internally within your existing company connections. When external opportunities dwindle as would likely be the case during these times, one key direction is looking inwards and executing a lead/opportunity revival campaign. To do this you need to digitise, centralise and visualise your past connections, be it business cards or referrals, analyse this data to chart categories, work closely with marketing teams for targeted nurture campaigns, and drive thought leadership and education through tools like webinars.
Virtual events and tools will set you up for the future
Virtual exhibitions with augmented reality have been grabbing a lot of eyeballs lately. In the circumstance that people cannot touch, feel, or experience the product or service physically, virtual reality experiences are helping companies keep their audience engaged through an alternate channel of interactivity. Creating such experiences for your customers can add a wow factor to your brand. As business professionals continue to adapt to video conferences, virtual exhibitions, and other digital ways of interacting, they are also adopting new-age networking tools like virtual business cards. QR code scanning is not only being used for safe entry check-ins in Singapore but also as a means of exchanging contact details during webinars. In this virtual age, foresee backup plans and shift to a phone call in case there are unanticipated connectivity problems, have pre-recorded demos, and extra communication lines.
Have the right mindset to sell remotely
Your existing customers expect you to reach out and be there for them during these tough times. Likewise, for new sales prospects, there might be requirements that you are able to satisfy remotely, thereby this needs to become the new reality. The trick is to get comfortable selling virtually. If your sales teams are awkward in their sales pitches and do not showcase confidence, your potential customers would be awkward and less trusting too. You need to keep your team and yourself at the forefront of your prospects/leads’ minds.
Raise the online profiles of sales and customer success teams
With everyone going online in these times, how do you further stand out in the digital crowd? You need a stronger digital profile. The key is to strengthen your voice when you sell. Salespeople should be visible in relevant platforms and online communities where your target market would likely be looking. To get validation of how a salesperson is doing, he or she can run the LinkedIn Social Selling Index tool to learn about their score which is measured out of 100. Beyond LinkedIn, make sure you are visible on other web platforms.
Be close to the salesforce and intensify the drumbeat
Are you organising monthly sales meetings? Make them weekly. Are you having weekly 1-on-1s with your sales reps? Turn them into short daily check-ins. Everybody will be outside of their comfort zone, so as a sales or business manager, you will have to act as a coach now more than ever.
Also Read: iSeller secures Series A from Mandiri, Openspace to expand its omni-channel sales SaaS platform
As we move forward, face-to-face interactions will be a mainstay of many industries in which there is often a costly and lengthy selling process. Even the Zoom CEO has been recently quoted as saying that the future of work is a hybrid model, not a completely remote one since that would be unsustainable.
The business executives must strive to liberate themselves from the pandemic’s trap, the key for which lies within cloud adoption and digital engagement. It is important to remember that the investors will be watching out for companies that are retooling their sales efforts to meet the COVID-19 challenges.
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Image credit: LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash
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