Sometimes you read an article that crystallises your own thinking and puts things into context. For me ‘Five actions to boost your sales organisation’s resilience‘, published by McKinsey, is such an article. Unlike much of the opinion that is kicking around at the moment, this article actually offers practical advice to sales and marketing leaders. Advice that you can act upon, rather than theory that leaves you cold. Let me summarise the five actions covered in the article, with particular emphasis on actions 3 and 4.
Five actions
We’re talking about the shape of your organisation after coronavirus. What to do to get the best out of your sales efforts in the light of the significant impact that the pandemic has had on us all. Here are the five actions to boost your sales organisation’s resilience:
- Reset and adjust expectations
- Rethink bonuses and incentives
- Invest in sales-force capabilities for the recovery
- Revamp tools and processes to support your salespeople
- Provide leadership with vision and clarity
Now all the research and insight referenced by the authors of the McKinsey article make for great reading but 3 and 4 are the points that grab your attention. As a provider of CRM and marketing automation tools, my colleagues and I at Collier Pickard have long advocated the shift to digital. In the light of Covid-19, McKinsey estimates that digital interactions will be two to three times more important to the customers of B2B companies than traditional sales interactions. So the call to “invest” and “revamp” are ones to think about long and hard.
Digital tech
If your mind has gone to Zoom, Teams and the world of video calls, then we are on the same wavelength. But these tools merely provide the vehicle for customer interaction and not the content. The content of a video sales calls is down to the skill and professionalism of the individuals in your team. It goes without saying that a well configured CRM system will help you understand the work that takes place through video calls and online customer contact.
The number of calls is easy to measure, as is the frequency of calls against the targets you set for the various categories of customers you have. So considering point 3 of the McKinsey article, you might say that your investment in sales-force recovery is high. Video conferencing, kit with webcams, CRM licences, maybe even new furniture to prevent people who work from home suffering back pain. But does that improve the quality of the digital interaction taking place between your sales people and customers? What measurement does this deliver that shows you where your resilience is coming from? What actions taken by your best people are right to roll out to everyone?
Is AI the answer?
These questions bring us to point 4 of the article: revamp tools and processes. Now for me this does not mean a more rigorous approach to accurately forecasting your up-selling and cross-selling. That simply measures the outcome of sales opportunities and not the customer journey that takes place therein. We need to be able to measure the effectiveness of the pitches we make and the collateral we use during these pitches. This will give step by step insight into what works and what doesn’t in remote selling and online customer interaction.
The AI tools referenced in the article are great, but not necessarily a low cost, rapid approach. Maybe a simpler method that quantifies what people do during a video call, how long they spend discussing the content of your sales and marketing collateral and your various pitch decks, how well the customer engages with this material after the call, maybe that’s all that is needed to help set the benchmarks for your future resilience.
This McKinsey article is worth studying in some detail. And it goes without saying that if you would like some help turning these concepts into reality, then get in touch with Collier Pickard or connect with me on LinkedIn.
To find out more about post-Covid selling, head over to our SalesMatik page. SalesMatik is a tool to support your sales team in a world where selling is changing.
