Dave Gerry, Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Global Operations, WhiteHat Security.
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As the world slowly rolls out reopening guidelines, we will continue to be impacted by the life-altering effects of the Covid-19 global pandemic for the foreseeable future and beyond. No one knows exactly how the crisis will unfold tomorrow, let alone months from now, and sales leaders have been facing difficult decisions for the greater part of 2020 as organizations’ revenues have been disrupted and their ways of working have been fundamentally changed.
Through the turmoil and unrest, sales reps have been — and continue to be — in the eye of the storm. They are essential to driving future growth, evangelizing the product to the market, and, most importantly, delivering value to customers. But how do sales leaders incentivize their teams to do so with the required vigor and enthusiasm when the world and businesses’ futures are so uncertain?
Struggles Faced
Capturing the attention of customers is always a challenge. However, in a global pandemic, that challenge can be amplified tenfold. Customers are distracted with dozens or even hundreds of vendors who want to sell them on their solutions and offerings — not to mention that there are many potential ramifications of the crisis on their health, family and well-being.
The sales team’s messaging is critical to solidifying a deal, but sounding tone-deaf or insulting to that market is a trap that teams can easily fall into. With a slip of the tongue or two, it can be easy to play into the fear that customers have as well. It's important for sales teams to operate from a place of empathy and understanding that people are distracted by the challenges of the moment in order to combat these nerves and to ensure that the message is received well.
There are other challenges to keeping salespeople engaged and avoiding burnout while they're working from home. In my experience, completely remote work can lead to feelings of isolation due to a lack of collaboration and communication with teams. This can lead to teams being siloed and becoming disjointed from one another and their common goal.
But when struggles arise, sales leaders must be solution-oriented. Desperate times don’t call for desperate measures — they call for bold ideas, innovation and efficiency.
Incentivizing Sales Teams
The way we talk to customers may be different now, but expectations are still the same. Ultimately, it’s important to understand what drives people to be salespeople. Typically, many individuals on sales teams are Type A and competitive. Often, they’re driven by compensation and an insatiable drive to win.
As sales leaders, we should find anything we can do to tweak compensation plans to motivate them based on the direction of the business. What are the goals for the business for that quarter? How do you align your sales teams around those goals?
One way to do so is to realign quotas. Leaders have to be mindful of the territories, coverage, and market trends in this new environment (like those highlighted by Statista). You have to make sure you have territories that make sense, are equitable and give all sellers have a chance to succeed. For example, we’ve seen that customers are using the digital streaming, technology and e-commerce-driven retail markets heavily during the pandemic, which could lead to a greater need for security solutions. Some retailers actually shut down brick-and-mortar stores and relied more heavily on their strong e-commerce presence.
While many companies are reducing spend across industries, a security firm could remind them that remaining profitable goes hand in hand with preventing data breaches and maintaining customer loyalty during difficult times. By identifying their ideal customers’ exact needs, selling companies can position themselves as strong allies and partners and avoid fearmongering. This approach can also keep salespeople focused, motivated and more likely to achieve success.
Lessons Learned — And Where We Go From Here
The biggest lesson that I’ve learned from facing these issues is to ensure there is a direct line between executives and day-to-day front-line salespeople. They have to know we are there for them and we’re thinking of them, and we need to relay our messages and goals so that the entire team is on the same page. For our sales teams, that has included the increased accelerators for going above and beyond hitting quota and virtual happy hours to socialize.
As a LinkedIn post from Forrester's Mary Shea explained, another lesson learned is that the most effective salespeople are able to tap into "humanization, empathy, and personalization within all selling motions and selling systems. A 'spray and pray' approach is very risky right now. The best salespeople are putting a pause on automation and taking a smaller-batch and more personalized approach to emails. The best salespeople are once again embracing the phone" and making connections with their prospects.
So what’s next? As we navigate the long-lasting economic impacts, some organizations may not exist anymore. Sales teams need clear messages, markets and knowledge of our ideal industries to sell to.
The lasting impacts will likely be significant. I’m not convinced that we will be back to normal by this time next year. Will offices want visitors? The answer might be no — even after we lift travel restrictions. It’s hard to predict anything, but there will be ups, downs, unforeseen struggles and more. Hard times of crisis have a way of showing what we’re made of, and they're when we all need to be at our best.
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