subject: Boosting Sales Performance During Tough Times [print this page] Boosting sales performance during tough times
The perfect storm has arrived, greatly slowing the salesperson's path to success. Powered by an economic downturn and strengthened by highly informed prospects, salespeople face a nearly impenetrable wall of resistance. When times are tough, it's harder to sell, yet the sales team must deliver.
One proven technique involves building relationships with prospects. However, gaining rapport often takes time and, sometimes, traveltwo luxuries that are no longer an option. Add the reality of budget cuts facing most businesses, and breaking through to prospects becomes harder. If salespeople are not able to quickly nurture relationships, their ability to build a valuable pipeline of opportunity is greatly hindered.
How can sales cost-effectively build relationships with prospects? Is there a way to accelerate sales performance without investing enormous amounts of time?
To meet these challenges, many sales organizations are turning to instant Web conferencing solutions. Designed to help build prospect relations without physically being there, salespeople are using instant Web conferencing solutions to accelerate the sales process, quickly demonstrate solutions and build stronger connections with prospects. This white paper will examine key sales challenges and reveal the many advantages of selling with instant Web conferencing.
Sales challenges during an economic downturn
According to a CSO Insight report, history proves that when the economy is bad, sales suffer because (1) buying decisions require multiple approvals to close a deal, (2) decision cycles are longer and (3) businesses tend to work with known and trusted vendors.1 These realities make it difficult to build trusted relationships with prospects.
The slowing economy has caused panic among many prospects and salespeople. "Even a strong, motivated sales force can only read so much negative financial data without getting down. When that happens, instead of making those 10 calls a day, it might drop to six and then three and then two and one and then nothing. And all of a sudden, even when things turn around, that's become the norm. And they're not doing what they were doing when they were successful. There's nothing like a downturn to turn good habits into bad habits," said Luke Kujawa, president of 150-employee Crystal Pierz.2
For the sales team, working the phone may be harder. Prospects are more likely to shun sales calls, making the first impression essential. Overcoming the initial distrust of salespeople is extra-challenging when all that connects a salesperson to a prospect is a telephone.
When a poor economy is coupled with highly informed prospects, the sales task is even harder. The Internet has made it easy for businesses to determine their own needs, fully bypassing salespeople. "If we are to reverse this trend, we are going to have to find new and more effective ways to interact with customers and prospects so they see the value-add of having a salesperson involved in their buying process," said a CSO Insights report.3
When the economy slows, prospects are less likely to engage salespeople, creating many challenges "You've got to get back to building relationships and getting yourself in front of people," said Kujawa.4
Fortunately, new technology is providing innovative ways for sales to build stronger relationships.
Reaching out and touching more prospects. An aspect of Sales Training methods.
For salespeople selling costly solutions, the sales cycle will likely stretch longer during an economic downturn. This means more prospects must be contacted to fill the sales funnel. It also means that building trusted relationships will become more important.
However, making connections will be harder. "During tough times, prospects feel like they're in a small boat floating on a big sea. Economic forces beyond their control are impacting their ability to move toward their goals. Their focus is to avert disaster and keep afloat, not build new relationships," said Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies.
For field salespeople, the travel and entertainment budget has vaporized. There's nothing like a face-to face interaction to build relationships with prospects. However, costly travel is no longer an option for many businesses. In the end, salespeople are forced to do more with less.
A brief examination of the history of building prospect relations provides further insight.
Brief history of sales relationship-building
In the mid-1990s, the sales process typically involved traveling to visit prospects and clients for face time. Booking airline flights, staying in hotels, renting cars and taking prospects and clients to events were common ways salespeople built trusted relationships. In addition, expensive print collateral was often sent or hand-delivered. These steps were time-consuming and costly.
By the late 1990s, the Internet provided new, lower-cost ways to connect with prospects andcustomers. Web sites expanded the reach of sales and often replaced brochures. With an expanding market came new competition. Many transactions still involved travel to clients. However, using the Internet to help close deals was growing in popularity.
By 2001, the Web became a central communication tool for sales. Email, electronic faxing and electronic document transmission began replacing physical communications.
A few years later, Web conferencing grew in popularity, allowing virtual meetings. Salespeople could show a PowerPoint presentation without being physically present. This opened up more opportunities for sales, but had its drawbacks. For example, getting prospects into a Web conference involved complicated downloads, often limited by client firewalls. These bandwidth-intensive Web conferencing applications were also very slow.
By around 2005, more sophisticated prospecting tools emerged. For example, next-generation Web conferencing allowed salespeople to share what was on their desktop, enabling them to perform live product demos remotely. As Internet speeds improved, the bandwidth limitations were largely eliminated. Now salespeople are frequently using this type of technology to immediately bring a prospect into a live demo in new and creative ways.
During slow times, sales must make contact with more prospects to keep the pipeline full. Over the last 15 years salespeople have moved from face-to-face contact to largely online communications with prospects.
