2020 has shown that in business you must be versatile. This means that we have to be able to adapt in order to continue being successful. Recently, businesses have had to adjust quickly to virtual working environments. Clients were suddenly reconsidering their budgets. Whilst sales cycles were expanded and Pipelines emptied, continuing to show adversity to be essential in business. 

In a 2020 survey of over 500 sales leaders, Hubspot found that 40% of the sales leaders surveyed missed revenue targets. For others, depending on a number of factors including what industry you’re in, the story was entirely different. Others kept calling, kept prospecting, and kept getting sales. In this blog post we look to show some predictions for your sales development strategy adapted to the current times of uncertainty.

Leadership

It is important now more than ever to adapt, create, fight negativity, and manage rejection, with experts predicting continued market and economic disruption in 2021.  Boosting your sales will require a sales growth strategy in order to create breakthrough solutions during these strange times.

Things to now consider when leading your sales development:

• A focus on connection, personalisation, and education is important for your sales development representatives as pipelines are now longer.

• Ensure communication and follow-up are constant as business relationships are now more important than ever.  Make sure your prospects are the priority by helping your team to reconnect with the jobs in the middle of the “pandemic fatigue” everyone is experiencing.

• Develop a culture which includes innovation, agility, and adaptability. In a new McKinsey capability-building survey which included global leaders and teams, adaptability was one of the top two capabilities identified by senior executives as crucial for supporting their organizations’ growth and recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Multichannel Communication

This should be obvious with virtual tools having increased greatly in popularity due to social isolation throughout 2020. As most of us have now experienced, virtual communication is different to in person communication with things such as lighting, Wi-Fi and distractions to now consider. Businesses must now ask how we can make this new form of communication more effective than it already is.

Important when considering communication with your prospects:

• Increasing clarity on knowing your prospects, finding out what it is they need, want, and how they like to communicate

• Using multichannel communications (communicating on several different channels, including, social media, email, and phone)

• Try communicating using new means, including sharing videos

• Making sure to follow a consistent follow-up cadence

Focus on Value

To get the best results, help your team focus on the work that matters most; prioritize, cut bureaucracy, optimise what you already have, and connect to purpose.

Much has changed:

• It is possible clients may prefer virtual working now as it can be much more convenient.

• Priorities have shifted meaning that if you’re aligning a sales process to that of the buyer’s process your priorities have changed also.

• Clients now need security, confidence and the ability to move quickly and efficiently.

• Many have now adjusted their buying circles due to the need to trust more digital sources online now.

2021 & Your Future

Try to look at the events of this past year, the ways in which they have affected your target market and look to address those things in order to make life easier for them in 2021.