Maintaining a winning sales culture during the pandemic

With over 25 million layoffs prediction, the invisible enemy has struck where it hurts organizations the most. This pandemic has left the sales fraternity asking various questions.

• How to protect the field-sales culture ticking and productive?
• What is the future of sales?

The real issue is that every day is different, with a rising number in cases, and the rules to curb the spread have left companies no other options but to close the shop or view alternatives to function at a break-even.

In these trying times, what can be done to maintain the influx of money and keep the current customer base acquired? After all, you cannot just lose them after spending “dollars” in the marketing campaigns, can you?

While the world is struggling with ostrich syndrome, sales leaders need to think of the strategies that will amplify their efforts and keep the revenue cycle alive; your business’s future depends on it.

With the whole work from home schedule, the impact is on the socializing animal inside human beings. The daily interaction with team members and higher authorities and the sense of accomplishment is being missed with the haphazard schedule that comes with remote working.

This pandemic has changed everything, starting from the physical presence of team members in the daily meetings to the discussions of various strategies over a quick cup of coffee or lunch!

Times like these define, build, and reinforce relationships be it with your audience or with your team members. When it comes to keeping the motivation level of your team members high, it is important to reach out to them via video conferencing or a video message.

When it comes to dealing with your customers and prospects your sales reps must position themselves as a trusted resource. This can be done by demonstrating respect and sensitivity toward your contacts.

In this article, we are listing out seven tips for maintaining a winning sales culture during a pandemic. So, let’s get on with it!

1. Avoiding hand-shakes

“Namaste; the new handshake!”

Yes, you read that right, the pandemic is far from being over, and even though the respective medical agencies have given permission to work with relatively lesser staff, you might want to avoid handshakes. Yes, in the pre-Covid 19 times, it was a major custom, but in the wake of this pandemic, many things have been tossed out of the “socializing” dictionary. Handshake is one of them.

And do not worry, your customer won’t think negatively if you do not greet them with a handshake. They will know that their health and safety is one of your priorities. There are many other ways of showing your gratitude to the client, a slight bow, a tip of the hat, or a virtual hello (high five) will also do.

2. Having a work buddy

Being a remote worker is not an easy task. You are not just an employee but you are also balancing the household chores-meeting-productivity cycle! And yes, you miss the hallway, cafeteria, and water station small talk with your office colleagues. This is where your virtual conversations with fellow teammates come in.

Yes, the new world order is too isolated, but thanks to technological advances you can manage the relationship with your coworkers using professional tools like Google Meets, Chat, Slack, Mattermost, and much more.

It is not just limited to one person, you can loop in many coworkers to be your work buddy and stay motivated while you are carrying out the tasks. Keep the communication cultural norms intact and reduce the negative feelings that isolation brings.

3. Using video conferencing

90% of respondents say video makes it easier to get their point across – lifesize

Train your sales reps to be presentable and cordial with the prospects and customers over the video call. It is a much more attractive option during the pandemic. It is even more important than your general phone call because now you are making a phone call to book an appointment. The video call is your appointment. Phew! One step struck out from the sales stages!

4. Leveraging the remote work tools

Your remote work tool stack is looking good these days. You have a combination of everything, tools for keeping a tab on your sales pipeline, customer communication, team inbox, video chat tools, and even your phone.  

Reading your prospect or customers’ reaction can be a challenge for sales reps on virtual meetings (yeah, you won’t be getting an outstanding bandwidth while you are home with other members of the family who are on the same wi-fi network as you!)

Start listening to every minute details that are shared by the customer or prospect over the video call. It can be ‘a nudge’, ‘a grunt’, ‘a sigh of relief’, etc. Make sure that you understand the prospect or customer’s view and needs before taking the communication to other mediums.

5. Adding value to interactions

It is not just you that has to adapt to the new norms of living in a post-covid 19 world, your prospects, buyers, suppliers, and customers also are doing the same. They are busy too!

Recognize the impact this pandemic has had on everyone living around you and plan every interaction that you are going to have with all of them in advance. Opportunities are rarely coming in this environment and when they do come, they should not rub off on customers or prospects that you do not value their time!

Use Salesmate and get customized notifications and daily digests regarding your calls, emails, or virtual meetings so that you are turning every moment of your sales time into golden moments with great efficiency.

Don't just connect, build rooted relationships!

Nurture your customers with Salesmate CRM.

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6. Using sales content

Automate your email outflow using smart emails and share important information about your product or service with your prospects (white papers, product specifications, service features, FAQ link, etc.)

Communicate your service or product value in a clear manner. Your prospects, like you, are busy or in a rush and want to get something important done. So, instead of leaving the task of figuring out the value proposition to your audience, summarize the crucial points, and make your value proposition visible to them! So, do not leave the treasure hunt to them and summarize the crucial points you want them to notice.

7. Putting yourselves in customer’s shoes

We would like to tell you a very simple thing, in this trying time, customers are an integral part of your business, more than ever. You must train your sales team members to practice empathy. You have to be aware that your customers or prospects are busy taking care of their loved ones and adapting to this new normal. Ask your sales team members to re-prioritize their sales targets by gauging their sales pipeline.

Conclusion: Move toward digital selling

The world has changed, and it’s very scary right now, sales leaders are going to need to coach salespeople on how to succeed in that new reality. – Craig Wortmann, Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management

Covid-19 has changed everything about the way businesses work, and the sales department is no exception.

Move your strategies toward digital selling. Create a transparent environment where your internal team (sales, marketing, and customer success) can come together to resolve customer issues without taking too much time. Use digital sales tools like Salesmate for keeping track of your customers and your sales pipeline. 

Extreme situations call for extraordinary solutions and with technological advancements, sales intelligence has moved one step closer to be digitized.

Salesmate is a smart CRM tool that has been developed to make the life of salespeople easier without putting in manual labor. With built-in telephony, you can stay in touch with your prospects and customers, no matter where you are. With team inbox feature you can involve your colleagues across different departments to solve customer problems, drop interactive voicemails, create your email drip campaigns and measure everything just with a click of the mouse.

Want to know more about using Salesmate CRM as a remote sales tool? Intrigued about the various other features that will help you keep a winning sales culture within your remote team? Take our 15 days risk-free trial and explore every bit of Salesmate!