A short recorded discussion (SalesGlobe Sage with Mark Dinolo) about how the sales function may change after COVID-19. The speakers map likely environmental drivers (fear and social distancing, virtual availability, changing markets, altered role of face‑to‑face meetings) and advocate using sales design thinking—starting with stronger, organization‑specific challenge questions—to adapt strategy and processes; they note this is an evolving map and invite participation in recurring forums.
Chapters
Hey, it's Mark dinolo. I'm here in the sales Globe studio and we're talking about the post Covid future of sales. And we're thinking through what might lie ahead. And the reality is we don't know because there's a lot of uncertainty ahead. So the most important thing to do as we use a process called sales design thinking is to lay out the questions or the challenge questions to start to be able to build a basis for understanding where we're going ahead. So we're gonna have to be able to solve problems real time as we go. And I to share with you, the first part of this is how our environment might change. And this is not carved in stone, it's not carved in PowerPoint. This is really live and design thinking. So this will change and it'll evolve as we go along. But we'll show you the first leg.
As we get started.
Take a look.
So we're looking at the post Covid future of sales. And this is kind of a big nebulous thing. We need to figure out what this means. So rather than making a list, what I like to do is I like to map out the ideas. And we're doing this from the company perspective. And one of the big first questions is going to come out is how will the environment change? And that's one of the things that's really going to drive change. We have to look at these conditions for change. So things are going to happen in the environment that are going to move us in terms of a sales organization. For example, are we going to have continued fear? Will it come back again? And really, the root cause a lot of this is fear. Social distancing from COVID Is that going to be continued? That's a result of the fear. And will it come back again? Will the markets change? So you can see we have four big areas that we can branch off of now. There certainly can be a lot more, but this is initial thinking. Well, do behaviors stabilize if we have continued fear? So do people continue to operate the same way they do now, or do things start to stabilize and get back to normal? On social distancing? Well, customers could be taking fewer meetings, but the frequency and access could be up. People are more accessible now than they've ever been via video and via phone. They're not sitting on planes and trains as much. And the virtual and video connection could increase. So we may have a greater availability. Maybe we have greater efficiency if they're taking fewer meetings. What's the role of face to face meetings? It doesn't mean we're not going to meet face to face, but maybe those are more strategic and there's more of a reason for doing those at certain points in the relationship. Speaking of relationship, how do we create relationship? If we're doing a lot of things virtually, there may be key points that we need to build relationship in. How do we create value? So we're not just doing the relationship sale anymore. So what differentiates with less relationship? So if we can't just go have dinner, go have lunch, go play golf, whatever you do in your sales process, you may have to have other things that differentiate you. So what's the role of data driven problem solving? Maybe we're doing things that are backing us up more and we have more substantial types of problem solving than we do right now. So it makes us better in those ways. How can we work remotely? So the whole idea of how we work is a big thing. We kind of all jumped into it when this crisis started, but we're going to have to be more thoughtful about it. And then what changes in the markets do customers needs change?
So as you can see, this is an evolving situation. It's an evolving map. This is going to change as we go and we're going to update it. But remember the fundamentals behind sales design thinking. Start with a better challenge question, one that's fit for your organization and it's driven by your story, how you got to where you are right now and it's also driven by your solution vision. So that's where you want to be heading. So if you start with a better challenge question, you are going to come out with a different answer in the end because you're starting at a different starting point. So I think you'll find that kind of amazing, kind of provocative. We have forms every week. It's the same sales globe. Rethink Sales Forum. You can join us. They are open mic, open camera. It gives you an opportunity to talk to other leaders, ask questions, get ideas and help inform your solution development.
