Sales Prospect “Facetime” Has Collapsed Over Covid.What’s Next As We Pivot?
66 %.
That’s just how far into the “sales cycle” researchers say a sales prospect will be these days before they ever speak to a sales rep. Wow!
And then along came Covid to “upend” things even further.
With the explosion of new social platforms plus customers sharing everything and anything online, sales prospects do a lot of their homework before finally talking V2V with a company trying to sell their products and services these days. It’s tough!
Time was only a few years ago when a company looking to buy a new product had a sales person “guide” them through all the facts and features, customer reviews (always favorable, of course!) and so on form the very beginning of the “sales cycle”.
No more.
So, with the traditional “face time” with a prospect now collapsing – really shortening – where are we today? What’s sales’ new strategy?
What kind of “adjustments” do we need to make as we pivot post Covid?
Obviously, sales has to make every “decision moment” count, right? I mean with the traditional “win -rate” remaining at 30% (1 out of 3) for even the top sales folks, knowing how to “supercharge” customer value at every sales decision moment has become paramount!
As I always do, let me now give you a few business tips now below for operating in this new environment post Covid.
Business Tip # 1. Analyze sales patterns over the last 6 months to better understand “where you joined the decision cycle” for the most part, especially with prospects that you turned into customers – you know, that 1 in 3 we were just discussing above? Lots of impressions have already been set in the prospects mind, right?
Tip # 2. Lay out your company’s “Customer Decision Map” so you’ll begin to see how much time you need to make up. Salesforce predicts that 37% of companies will start implementing “ Customer Journey Mapping” this year – time for you to do yours!
Hey, that’s all I got today!
Looking forward to sittin’ around the table with you next time.
Ciao.