What’s Your COVID-19 Response? Bridge the Social Distance
Efforts to halt the spread of COVID-19 by using social distancing are forcing all of us to work differently. Sales included. Gone (for now) are face-to-face sales calls; trade shows to present our products and solutions; and conferences to meet vendors, suppliers and industry experts. Many businesses now require personnel who can work from home to do so. Social distancing is today’s new normal — if you can call anything associated with a pandemic “normal.”
For those of us who rely on social interaction to drive sales, today’s technology allows us to sell effectively and face-to-face, but not in-person. Here are a few suggestions.
- Hit the phones – Use the time you might otherwise be traveling to call your customers and prospects. Set up meeting times and stick to your schedule as if you were making a visit. Use your calendaring app to send e-vites and appointment requests.
- Leverage conferencing tools – For face-to-face meetings, use tools like Uberconference or WebEx. Both offer generous free personal plans. If you need something more robust for your business, these services plus GoToMeeting, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts Meet enable you to meet without the travel costs and provide a range of ways to share files, screens and presentations.
- Use your time for research – This is a good time to research your markets, prospects and competitors. You can use target company websites, LinkedIn, competitors’ websites and sites such as Dun & Bradstreet to gather valuable information including target company names, contacts at prospect companies, products and services, market trends — the possibilities are enormous.
During this challenging period, you can “bridge” the social distance by being creative in finding avenues to reach your customers and prospects and by doing research to discover new sources of business.
Wallace Management Group helps companies drive sales success. We can help you drive revenue growth in good times and in bad.
