Technology Sales Bulletin: How can sales leaders increase revenues and improve sales performance during the disruptive & divisive COVID-19 crisis?

Introduction

There is no doubt that while the COVID-19 pandemic poses a major challenge in the short run. However, it also offers the opportunity to transform the sales organization, improve salesforce performance and allow winning companies exit the crisis with more velocity. And while sales leaders have a duty of care to respond to the immediate health and safety needs of the sales organization the more savvy and agile sales leaders are already adapting to the Covid-19 environment and are re-evaluating their sales organisation & associated GTM strategies. As the dust settles and more research/insight relating to the state of IT and the technology market becomes available, it is becoming apparent that the ‘new norm’ will be a different operating environment. 

Q: So how does the COVID -19 crisis IT landscape look?

The most recent IT survey was literally published yesterday by the Evaluator Group (https://www.evaluatorgroup.com). The survey looks at ‘… how Enterprise IT is responding to COVID-19…’ The following are a few “short takes” from their research that summarize the more important findings: 

• Over 90% of respondents said they and their IT staff are now required to work from home 
• Over 40% said all current IT projects are being re-evaluated and future priorities are being re- set. 22% said IT decision-making will be slower
• More than 50% expect net IT budgetary cuts. At the same time, 25% expect cuts in some areas but also increases in other areas such as networking, security and VDI licensing to effectively support at-home workers. 
• Planned data-centre infrastructure upgrades/replacements will largely be put on hold. 
• Cybersecurity, data protection/DR & public cloud initiatives are most likely to gain a boost 
• 20% expect an increased in outside IT services delivery inc. public cloud and managed services & limited impact on hybrid cloud projects 
• Only 3% of survey respondents indicated they will reduce headcount permanently and only 33% expect no changes to IT staffing practices.

The ‘COVID-19 crisis’ driven sales transformation 

This crisis is undoubtedly acting as a trigger for Sales leaders to re-imagine and re-construct their sales organisation and associated processes. While the crisis will drive significant number of  irreversible changes, many of the core components of salesforce effectiveness and its integrated buying & sales cycles will endure.  

Step One: Run to your customers & listen! 

The first recommendation to sales leaders is to act quickly i.e. act NOW. Communicate openly with your teams that things are going to be different that the current mode of operation is about to change. In the current COVID-19 crisis the majority of sales organisations will, as part of their RAD  (Retention, Acquisition & Development) implementation will be compelled to focus on Retention & Development of their install base, where they’ll review both ‘customer lifetime value’ (CLV) - to identify ‘high value customer segments’ that can targeted & deploy ‘predictive analysis’ - to identify less-loyal customers. To better understand their customers COVID-19 crisis-based requirements the sales teams need to engage quickly to ascertain the most effective approach to increase wallet share via up-selling, cross-selling or purchasing frequency. A successful ‘Development’ strategy can help enhance both revenue generation & profitability. This customer feedback needs to be collected via a structured template that captures customers changes in purchase intent, spend priorities and decision-making process/unit & competition. It can then be packaged for the sales teams within their new COVID-19 crisis sales playbooks. In summary, for most companies the majority of initial COVID-19 crisis activities is likely to be focused on retaining & developing existing customers 

From a new business perspective, as acquisition strategies are typically more expensive, any/all new business activities are likely to be limited and based on replicating successful & specific solutions sold to specific vertical markets. Moving forward, new business opportunities are increasingly being developed by employing cost-effective inside sales models and data driven methods that deliver accurate data about the customer’s progress along the buying journey,

Step two: Establish & empower your cross-functional GTM change team

While getting the sales team to engage with customers quickly is critical, in parallel its equally important to establish a visible ‘senior cross-functional GTM team’ that includes marketing, sales, customer success, pricing, service and support teams. This cross-functional team needs to have the necessary authority to both design & drive change, as their role is to quickly assess the pandemic driven market & customer changes and establish a prioritised set of initiatives. The most important factor here is speed, as getting the key initiatives launched, communicated & executed is both time sensitive & critical.

Step Three: Re-analysing, re-segmenting & re-creating your ideal customer profile

Sales organisations effectively need to re-fresh/re-create their ideal customer profile (ICP) and determine how buying behaviour and customer journeys are changing. This starts with a detailed analysis, review & re-segmentation of the customer/install base i.e. based on which verticals & segments have been impacted. There will be significant discrepancies across verticals segments based their degree of exposure to the COVID-19 crisis. Some verticals segments are literally non-operational e.g. airlines while others are operating at 100% capacity (grocers). In addition to the segmentation variations, the sales teams need to initially be focused on existing customers, where they have the potential to engage faster and better understand ‘new’ needs & requirements. Armed with that information the ‘senior cross-functional GTM team’ can a) create new or modify existing value propositions/messaging b) deploy a new coverage model by aligning the right number/type of resources to market segments c) change the organisational structure d)  streamline and integrate processes and e) publish a clear communication plan. 

Step Four: Implementation, execution or ‘getting it done’ 

One of the more effective ways to successfully execute such a rapid sales transformation strategy is to set up a virtual ‘Sales War Room’ to assist with the delivery of a timely, well-coordinated and ‘customer-focused’ responses. The cross-functional ‘Sales War Room’ team needs to have: a clear mandate; high visibility; necessary authority and ability to over-communicate the company mission, specific objectives plus ongoing activity around demand generation and sales pipeline development. The overarching objective of the ‘Sales War Room’ is to ‘run the plays’ i.e. operationally control, manage the sales transactions and sales cycle progression by region, territory, vertical &/or customer.  This will entail creating COVID-19 crisis messaging and associated sales playbooks to ensure the required quality and quantity of customer and partner engagements and sales progression. The sales playbooks will include a new fresh narrative, newly crafted use-cases and solutions; associated commercials, contracts, pricing, lead times & competitive positioning. In parallel to sales playbook development , the sales enablement and productivity teams need to be compiling the post COVID-19 training materials and train the trainer schedules.  

Because customers are also having to operate in this ‘new’ environment with untested processes, procedures and deadlines - being close, agile and flexible will allow you to quickly re-align and optimise your resources and re-shape your GTM model across all functions.

Step Five: What goes down must come up - prepare for the rebound!

Whatever the economic environment, within a customer buying cycle or sales process - it comes down to why v how? In that, it’s almost always the sales team who understands why their customers are deploying a specific strategy, solution and associated investment that beats the sales team that just knows how!  

As sales teams and customers prepare for the post COVID-19 crisis world those sales teams that understand their customers’ requirements, buying preferences and mode of operation are the ones that will win. However, there is no doubt that current crisis has and continues to challenge the sales profession to transition and gear up around process and the adoption of advanced technologies that allow remote work at scale for sales teams.