The overwhelming chaos that is our new normal in sales is paralyzing many salespeople from doing the business development they need to do. In these times, we have to go back to basics and think about how we can use our time management skills with our storytelling to get our message out there. The filters we all have in our minds about how we approach customers in the “old world” are obsolete - we need to think about the “new world” we are in right now. It would be easy to think:
There is no way people will buy during a pandemic!
There is no way to get hold of people because they are all locked down at home.
There is nothing that my product or service can do that will blow them away so much so that they would buy.
If this is your mindset, you need to change it.
Business still goes on and people have to make decisions. While some things may be temporarily paused due to the situation, it will not last forever. Salespeople can and should use this time to build a pipeline.
Where do you start? How do you prospect during a pandemic?
The first step is to identify your Individual Customer Profile (ICP). From there, for that persona and industry you just identified, determine your Unique Value Indicators (UVI) – think why would this customer have purchased from you in the past.
Once you’ve done that, use the Sales Gauge SG 1, 2, and 3 prospecting programs to build a call list and start testing which of the pain points and UVI’s is most effective. Time management best practices will allow you to focus on a list of similar clients, develop the call scripts and pain points for each persona, line them up and leave the message. If you use SalesLoft or similar tools, you can set up a cadence of emails and calls to this group to hit them with different reasons they should take a meeting with you. Remember whether you say you can or you can’t modify your behavior, you are correct.
Want to learn more? Watch our webinar from 5/27 to see this methodology in depth.