“Covid!” “Lockdown!” “Adapt!” “Pivot!”
How many times have you heard those words over the last year? Is it all getting a bit tedious?
How about: “lost sales”, “tough times”, “slower market”, “recession”? Not tedious, but worrying, even ruinous for many as we saw millions of dollars wiped from sales results due to Covid lockdowns.
What was the difference between ‘A’ Players and average salespeople during 2020?
The ‘A’ players did NOT find the word “adapt” to be at all tedious. They embraced it while others just waited for everything to reopen. Here’s what some did:
- Rewrote their sales process to incorporate screen to screen selling. Then …
- They did ‘crash courses’ on screen to screen selling mastery like their lives depended on it.
Convincing ‘A’ players to rewrite their sales process to incorporate screen to screen selling and to get Zoom accounts was easy.
Why? ‘A’ players have a “growth mindset” as opposed to a “fixed mindset”. This was certainly tested and proved among so many whom we worked with.
Here’s just one great example:
The home construction design and build industry is typically dependant on face to face selling. Customers walk into display homes, meetings follow in the showroom and plans are even rolled out over the customer’s dining room table in evening meetings after work. When the lockdowns were announced almost all of the industry ground to a complete halt. There they sat and waited for the economy to reopen … except for one company of ‘A’ players.
As soon as a lockdown was announced this construction firm immediately amended their sales process and got all of their eleven salespeople to open Zoom accounts. Their rationale was that although their customers were mainly Mums and Dads, some of whom don’t use Zoom at work, most would already be familiar with ‘Skyping’ or ‘FaceTiming’ their families. So, buying a house over a webcam would be a very small leap in their thinking.
The sales team trained and practiced using Zoom, setting up virtual appointments, sharing plans on screen, taking clients through virtual 3D walk throughs, and even using ‘DocuSign’ to close them virtually.
The result? They did not lose one sale. Business kept going while their competitors sat still.
What’s more, their sales cycle became much quicker and efficient. No longer did they have to wait for a spouse or partner to come home to meet together. They could Zoom in from anywhere. And those long distance drives were now a thing of the past. Even post lockdown, business continues with a high webcam component due to this lower cost of sale.
So What?
Here’s the point: screen to screen is Covid immune. And in this case, it also proved to be ‘B’ player immune. What about your situation?
Can you make your sales process more efficient with technology? Can you shorten your sales cycle? Can you lower the cost of the sale?
The average salesperson spends only fourteen percent of their time in front of customers. The rest of the time they’re either stuck in the office or in traffic. If you adopted screen to screen selling, how many more customers could your sales team see in a day?
But a word of warning: some have tried this and done it very badly, retreating back to the old ways as a result. Remember, the home construction company trained, practiced and perfected their performance until they became Zoom ninjas. And that’s another thing ‘A’ Players do – they practice even when perfect.
