Virtual Selling in the Context of Covid-19

Buyers are now needing to make important financial decisions despite not physically meeting their suppliers. Selecting a new supplier versus a known incumbent carries even more risk in the current environment, where it is challenging for buyers to build trust with salespeople virtually.

Building on our research into how buyers make decisions to invest in solutions, and select the suppliers of these solutions, we have identified several unique challenges that salespeople are facing across the world right now:

• Fewer stakeholder meetings, thus limited opportunities to influence stakeholders
• Increasing difficulties in differentiating against the competition – especially if the competition is an incumbent and/or more skilled in securing and executing virtual meetings
• Rising pressure on margins; as with limited opportunities to influence and create value, price becomes the most important selection criterion.

Sales teams need to be equipped with new skills and behaviors to use virtual meetings; it is no longer acceptable to just wait for the current crisis to recede and hope that everything will go back to normal.

The first area to focus on is the development of critical engagement skills. Our Mastering Virtual Presence workshop enables salespeople to apply psychology and behavioral economics to deliver impactful virtual meetings.

To defend revenue and even grow through the current pandemic, salespeople then need to develop specific Virtual Selling skills, such as how to build momentum with buyers to decrease the number of sales lost to ‘do nothing for now’ outcomes.

However, with many salespeople struggling to adapt their mindset to the current situation and adopt a resilient, proactive approach; developing sales teams alone does not address the whole picture.

Our Virtual Sales Management workshop focuses on the skills of managing and coaching virtually, whilst being mindful of the fact that many Managers are experiencing high workloads and handling financial issues.

To find out more about how we can help you to improve your Virtual Selling and Virtual Sales Management, please Contact Us.