The years 2020-21 werr unique and challenging for almost everyone in the world. It was the first time that all the people living on earth had experienced something like the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect it had on our day to day lives. The initial days were the toughest because everything was under a flux. While the lives worldwide were brought to a standstill, the livelihoods still had to continue. With the exception of a few, everyone on the planet had to continue to be at work to sustain families, societies and countries. The sales industry was among the ones greatly feeling the pinch. Sales inherently is a profession where you are supposed to meet people. CFT or ‘Customer facing time’ is a parameter that is watched and measured in plenty of organizations. So when that avenue closed due to the ‘stay at home’ or lockdown orders, everyone was left wondering on how they will sustain. The situation I and my team were facing was not very different.
In a previous blog I have mentioned as to how this pandemic could have been much worse if not for the advent of technology. After recalibrating for a few days I decided to double down on the known methods that have worked in sales for time immemorial, not just for me but for all the successful sales professionals who have worked on earth. The only difference was that it needed a bit of ingenuity to put those practices in the context of the situation we were in and with the tools at our disposal. The methods used below ensured that I and my team had the best financial year we had thus far. When you read about the activities, they are not that different than what usually would be done in a ‘normal’ environment. It’s just how we did it, that made all the difference.
So here are the three things:
- Stay in touch with the customers: A time when there is uncertainty on how to proceed with life itself, it is quite important that the regular interaction between you and your customers remain, and this should be born out of a genuine desire to know their well-being. The last thing you want to do is reach out to ‘make a sale’. As mentioned by me previously, the most important trait of a sales person is that he/she should be trustworthy. And this comes with empathy. Treat your customer like you would want to be treated yourself, and you should be on your way to achieve that quite comfortably.
- Video calls: It has been established that your brain forms connections each time you interact with a person. So the more you get in touch with someone, the chances are that your bond will grow stronger with time and interactions. This is more pronounced when you are able to see the person physically. With the pandemic, the physical interaction was amiss. That didn’t stop people from connecting with others. While everyone was at home still interacting with folks over the phone, the one thing that was sorely missed during the lockdowns was physical interaction, which essentially was the lack of visual interface of the person you are talking to. The best way to tackle this was through video chats, calls, conferences and meetings. Remember, It’s not always easy to get the customer to talk to you over a video transmission, and that’s ok. But if this activity is performed regularly enough, the affinity that is usually formed in a physical setting, is overcome quite a bit.
- Reach-outs: If there is one thing that differentiates a sales person’s success, it’s ‘Prospecting’. How often and well you prospect for new clients will be your differentiator. During the pandemic phase, people tried to stay in their comfort zones, so much so that the interactions with others who were outside their known circle, was fairly limited. While this phenomenon was understandable for sales folks who had accounts to manage and interact with their usual customers, what this meant was that newer set of customers were largely ignored. Something I noticed early on. So we mixed our strategies a bit, while there was continued focus on our existing customers, we increased our reach-outs to people beyond our circle. The results were through the roof. If you are a sales person you know, that largely your reach-out mails and phone calls get ignored. But the same scenario was quite diiferent than ‘normal’ times. The response rates and people willing to meet you for a meeting were much higher than they used to be. And, once the connection was established, the sales cycle took over.
Like I mentioned earlier, none of the steps I have listed out are quite drastic or revolutionary, but it is an important reminder for sale professionals to continue to do the few basic things and do them as a discipline. In our case, with these three activities, we were able to roughly double our portfolio in a matter of a year.
