Fast Forward Sales People

We were good and maybe we’re superb. 

But all of a sudden, we were pushed to FAST FORWARD to do much better. We had to tune ourselves to some new learnings and had to pause some other skills meant for those “in person client meetings”. This is what happened when we woke up to the pandemic in 2020.

Sales people from different categories – B2B, B2C, D2C, channel sales,  retail sales, all have experienced this shift but the impact was more in cases where the buyer was working from home and their availability for in person meetings was zero. The buyer adopted digital shopping behaviour calling for new skills from the seller.

To put it simply, here is how sales people work transformed.

Pre – Pandemic

Leads from Inside sales + cold calls on field by sales guys >> face to face meetings >> in person presentations >> personal rapport with prospects > and take the journey to closings.

Post Pandemic

Inside sales + Sales person wears inside sales shoes as those cold visits no longer possible >> new skills acquired on digital front >> started online meetings >> managed constant surveillance as digital meetings are recorded >> missed scope for building personal rapport with clients(over a cup of tea) >> all follow up meetings done via digital channels >> and take the journey to closings.

Stepping into the future is inevitable but the pace it happened was just like pressing a fast forward button and here are some pros & cons of it.

Pros –

• Pandemic made our in person meetings minimal or nil and pushed us to acquire new skills. 
• Tested our abilities to achieve those online selling skills more quickly which otherwise would have taken probably a decade or so.
• We got better by being more confident and more adaptive to changes in market trends.
• We are seeing meetings are less exhaustive and happening as per schedule now for reasons 1) less travel  2) client side delays in participating meetings are less due to awareness of the value of screen time.
• Opportunity to upskill ourselves by enrolling into online professional courses or pursue our personal interests. 

Cons –

• The first few months were more than a struggle and beyond stressful with fears of non performance, job losses and exposure to the virus.
• Work hours got stretched due to clients offering meeting slots(online) after the normal work hours citing their busy online Work From Home schedules 

Conclusion

Amid the chaos thrown by the pandemic,  we proved to ourselves that being in sales we continue to be dynamic, adaptable and will never lose focus on achieving our business, come what may.
- Kudos to the Sales spirit.

Happy selling!