Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Ch-ch-ch-changes…for the past year salespeople have dealt with plenty of them because of the pandemic. And more ch-ch-ch-changes are on their way. While we can wait, wish and hope, it is unrealistic to expect those ole days of selling to return.

What’s Not Changing Back?

There is a sizeable segment of workers that will never go back to the office, so the days of drop-in prospecting will be more difficult than ever. It was already tough to do this in some large cities due to security measures that were enacted in 2001, such as guards, visitor monitoring, etc. Going forward, with fewer office workers and these measures becoming more widespread, drop-in prospecting will be near-impossible.

And what about those people who choose to remain remote, but can easily restrict calls from being forwarded to their cell phone? Will that make it more difficult to reach them via phone? Also, if you are accustomed to using conferences, trade shows, and other events to generate leads and business, what happens if those events never quite return to the way they used to be, and therefore your prime targets don’t show up?

Face the Music

As the lyrics in David Bowie’s classic song “Changes” say, “Turn and face the strange!” Sales teams must face whatever comes next head-on. As a sales leader, you are going to have to lead your team, motivate your team and expect your team to continue to adapt. If the selling landscape has changed significantly, which it has, they need your help.

If you haven’t yet led your team to proficiency in selling via video and remotely, it would be a good place to start. Below are some traits I reviewed of a database of 637,000 salespeople. I looked at the following elements and contrasted the top 10% to the bottom 10% of these people.

Let me explain each one:

Reaching Decision Makers is ever more important and is critical to future sales success. I cannot emphasize just how important it is to have salespeople who can reach decision-makers. Accomplishing it means they must have something of value to say that resonates with those decision-makers – salespeople with the ability to quickly build rapport, sell consultatively, and speak their language.

Embracing Sales Technology includes using a CRM to stay organized and focused. It also means incorporating Social Selling into one’s repertoire of selling tools and being Video Proficient. Even though most salespeople have had more than a year of practice working remotely, there is still a huge divide between performers and non-performers using CRM, video, and social selling tools. Those that are performing have jumped ahead of the pack.

Responsibility covers one’s belief that they are responsible for outcomes in their selling life as opposed to making excuses about those outcomes. Excuses might sound like this: “I can’t reach the CEO because he is still working from home.” Or “Once everything gets back to ‘normal’ I will have better success selling.”

Without these elements, the ability of your quasi or mostly remote sales team to sell to remote decision makers is doomed. So “face the strange” and get your existing team up to the task.

Hire the Right Way

When looking to add team members ensure they, too, have these elements. Keep in mind that the necessary traits can be evaluated but not with traditional interviewing techniques. And they can be assessed, but only one toolset specifically measures all these key traits along with many other customized selling-specific calculations that predict with accuracy how a candidate will work in your environment, selling your solutions to your market in the market conditions today. I’m referring to the tools from Objective Management Group. Check out a sample or contact us at info@boostprofits.com to gain access to a free trial.

Source: Objective Management Group