We are in a very difficult situation right now. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be successful. Success afterall is what we define it as. In this situation doing better than your competitors and taking market share can be a good metric of success.
In B2B organizations with longer sales cycles (which I typically work with), we should now have a good plan in place to maximize short-term revenue without completely compromising our long-term strategic sales objectives. There is a massive risk of long-term pipelines drying up as some sellers move all their focus to closing smaller and more transactional deals right now. My advice is to keep moving forward is you normally would, but make clear adjustments, which I’ll write about in this blog post.
In times of crisis, some organizations just increase their workload, hoping that will offset the situation. Instead of doing this, I highly recommend taking a more intelligent and calculated approach.
As ethically driven sales professionals we can only sell what is good for our customers and if right now is not a good time for some our customers to invest in what we are selling, then it's our duty to focus our efforts on the customers we can help the most.
Here are some steps to take in order to optimize your short-term performance without abandoning your long-term strategic sales objectives.
Step 1 - Analyze the impact of the crisis on your customers business?
How severely has the crisis impacted your different customers? Go through your customers one at a time. Is the impact minor or major? Are they bleeding and about to go bankrupt or are they wounded and will keep going? Rank your different customers from minor to major impact?
You’ll notice that everyone is impacted, but others much much more than others. Some may even have a chance to spin off new business models and even speed up investments in certain areas.
Step 2 - Analyze your ability to help your customer in this difficult situation?
Analyze your different customer segments and accounts. Who can you help more than others?
Are certain parts of your offering more suitable in this situation for a certain type of customer segment?
Rank your customers from low to high, high being the customers you can help the most.
Step 3 - Categorize your Existing accounts
Split your customers into two segments 1.Time out & 2.Pursue Actively
Time out customers - Keep these customers on the “back-burner”. Keep them warm and make sure you can help them when they start recovering. These will be your revenue generators for 2021.
Pursue actively customers - Give these customers even more effort than before now in Q2. Be empathetical, but driven. We are not here to sell, we are here to help.
Here are a few examples of organizations that should still be moving forward, despite the current crisis. Any of your accounts that are in these categories or provide services or products to these organizations may be in a good situation to put on your Pursue Actively list.
Health care
Grocery stores (especially their online delivery)
Public organizations and unions
Teleoperators
Cloud companies
Food delivery or any home delivery providers
Logistics
E-commerce technology and consultancies + digital marketers
Energy
To succeed with your existing accounts or new highly potential accounts, you will most likely need to train some of your sales teams to succeed at remote selling. Many sales leaders have overestimated the ability of their sales teams to succeed at remote selling, but now they have noticed the gap in F2F vs. remote meetings. For ideas on Remote Sales, read this blog post: Advanced Remote selling.
Resist the urge of discounting
Many will be tempted to offer discounts. Since discounts are being handed to many in dire need, that doesn’t mean just because customers now ask for discounts, that you should automatically give them because we are in a difficult time. Prefer using trade-offs of value instead. Defer payment terms or add something to the package that you normally wouldn’t do, but do not go down the dangerous path of discounting. Discounting always gets carried over into the future, which will be less profitable for you if you now start handing out discounts.
Summary
Focus on your strongest product-market fit and sweet-spot customers. Who can you help the most?
Go back to your mission and reflect on who can you serve now in the short term without compromising your long term goals.
Broaden your stakeholder reach within existing accounts. Start conversations now that will lead to future business together.
Develop new business in accounts where you already have great connections with the right stakeholders
Prospect as much as possible.
Those organizations who keep working harder than ever will come out of this crisis much better compared to those whose sales organisation start lagging or become complacent due to the situation.
When things pick up, we will notice which organizations did their absolute best in Q2 of 2020, and who was “coasting along” without vigorous execution.