Is There A New Way To Sell After Covid-19?

Sales has always been a challenge

Prior to Covid-19 the world of sales was different. Salespeople were going about their business, prospecting, selling, closing some deals, and supporting their clients. 

Let’s not pretend that salespeople were hitting it out of the park. Based on Sandler^®  research, 67% of salespeople were achieving 60% or less of their goal, and the biggest frustration of most business owners was the lack of productivity from their sales team.
 

Then March 2020 rolled in and things changed. Budgets tightened, the number of conversations went down, decision making slowed, we relied on virtual sales meetings and sales became more challenging. 

Sales has always been a challenge. Finding new conversations is tough. Creating urgency and getting decisions from prospects was always a top frustration of salespeople. Salespeople have always had to adjust to things out of their control. 

Did Anything Really Change?

The Salesperson’s Mindset

Mindset drives the salesperson. During challenging times, we must decide – will we stay and fight or will we give up?

These were the 2 mindsets that appeared during the early part of Q2 2020:

Mindset 1) This is going to be a crazy time, so let me minimize risk, protect my cash and hit the pause button. Why take chance?

Mindset 2) This too shall pass, let me double-down on my prospecting, I’ll embrace new technologies and find creative new ways to make connections and move forward.

There are salespeople who see everything that prevents them from selling and there are salespeople who see the world from a lens of opportunity.

Let’s face it – sales is a process. If you follow it, you can make some solid predictions about what the outcome will be. 

As salespeople, we get leading indicators that tip us off on what will happen next. For example, when a prospect refuses to put you on the calendar or says call me next week, you should recognize you’re in trouble. But salespeople see this as a challenge to be overcome and typically waste a lot of time and energy chasing deals that never come together.

When a salesperson follows a proven process, they’ll quickly start working on opportunities that give them the highest chance of success. That means identifying the “why” behind the sale, the “investments” it will take to win and gain access to key stakeholders who can make a decision. If we can gather these elements, we will better qualify opportunities – if we can’t, we may choose to move on. 

Prior to Covid-19, successful salespeople followed a sales process. Post Covid-19, a lack of commitment to sales process is even more destructive. 

In 2019, I remember meeting a group of high-level salespeople discussing a deal that one of their colleagues was working on. The discussion centered around a “large deal” where the prospect was “ghosting” the salesperson. Each salesperson offered up a suggestion on how to get the prospect to call back. When I asked how often this happens the entire group said pretty often. They loved this part of the sale – they thought it was “just a part of closing a sale”.

This team was chasing deals. They allowed prospects to hide, disappear and control the next step. We worked on getting clear, calendared next steps on all of their deals. When the next step went on the calendar, close rates went up. When they didn’t, close rates went down. The group learned to differentiate early on in the process which prospects were not serious and to spend time with more promising prospects likely to close. 

Leaders worked with the salespeople on making sure every deal in their pipeline had a clear calendared next step justifying further time and effort. 

Prior to Covid-19, salespeople won deals by qualifying good prospects and eliminating poor ones. Chasing and begging didn’t work then and it certainly doesn’t work today. 

Probably not. The weaker salesperson has been exposed. A salesperson who shortcuts these elements will certainly face a tougher road to win more deals. Those that double down on mindset, process and spend time with well-qualified prospects will find themselves best positioned to win more deals now and in the future. 

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David Trapani is the Owner of Sandler Training® Center in Princeton, NJ. He has over 23 years of sales, marketing and management experience.  Visit www.Sandler.com Connect David Trapani