Selling during Covid-19

It’s not a secret that Covid-19 affected the whole world. Countries locked down, Jobs were made redundant,  companies went bankrupt, Brick and mortar stores closed, and many more changes happened; with that being said, how can companies/corporations adapt to all these rapid and sudden changes?

And how can salespeople improve their numbers at times where the demand has become extremely low?

From a business standpoint, the equation remains the same, the more a company sells, the more profit it makes. Surely the demand has decreased drastically for some products and services during the past few months, but that doesn’t mean that companies and salespeople should just give up or sit and wait for the market to bounce back.

Salespeople have to start thinking outside the box and work on finding ways to hit their targets even during a pandemic. Without achieving their sales targets, their companies would start to lose and might be forced to downsize or even close; so not only are the salespeople responsible for their own job security, but also for the job security of their colleagues in other departments.

The first thing that salespeople need to do is to take advantage of the new meeting norms during Covid times, which is meeting via zoom/skype/or other video apps. Previously the average salesperson used to conduct around 3 to 4 business meetings a day, nowadays through the online meeting tools, the number of meetings could be doubled or even tripled, which automatically can increase the chance and probability of closing more deals.

So salespeople need to ensure that they are taking advantage of their full day and increase their cold calling and meeting requests.

Another thing that the sales teams need to do is to acknowledge the pandemic and its effect on everyone and then it’s important to remind the clients that these times will pass; at the end of the day, nothing lasts forever.

Finally, it’s very important to mention and focus on the point that now is the best time to buy simply because when the market bounces back the demand for everything will increase which means that prices will in turn increase. Nowadays many companies are lowering their prices and offering additional features or add-ons to their products just in order to sell, and that’s why the clients need to take advantage of the situation. It is important to advise and enlighten the clients and not only just try to sell them.

The above are just a few pointers that companies and specifically their sales teams need to focus on during the current times, but surely the list will become bigger and bigger with time, and the whole selling techniques as we know it will most likely change. The lifestyle post-covid-19 will never be the same as the lifestyle pre-covid19. With that in mind, we must always understand that life moves on and we cannot just think about the past and how things used to be done. We now have new norms and we have to adapt and change and be ready for more changes to come.

Written by Adham H. Fayad.