Keeping prospects and customers engaged during COVID-19

My last work trip abroad was on March 6th. In the ensuing weeks after I was supposed to travel to Sweden, Holland, Finland and Norway. Not to mention a, now aborted personal trip to Los Angeles during Easter. Two and a half months later, I have yet to book my next business travel and I think my passport and suitcase believe I’m unemployed. It’s gotten so bad I have even had to buy my own teabags…

Is this the new normal?

After the initial shock of the regional lockdowns, it was time to think about how to close business without the usual intimate contact provided by face to face engagement. Companies instituted policies forbidding in-person meetings and all of a sudden, I became a Zoom superuser.

At first, I was skeptical.

As time went on, it became evident that Covid-19 also presented some unique business opportunities. While some projects halted completely, other projects took on a renewed sense of urgency. With supply chains stressed, enterprises slowly became aware of the negative consequences of lengthy decision-making processes. These longer delivery times meant that projects that should be finished by the start of the long Nordic vacation period (i.e. summer) were now in jeopardy.

Budgets tightened everywhere, particularly in the private sector. Hence we adjusted and put more focus on our public sector projects as these budgets remained intact. Luckily, we had a healthy pipeline mix; this proved to be valuable.

As the dust settled three weeks into the lockdown, I noticed four trends start to emerge.

1.)  Increased interest in data protection - In particular, prevention of ransomware attacks became top of mind. As employees started working from home, there was more focus on the increased vulnerability as organizations had to balance providing secure access to keep employees productive while at the same time ensuring that systems were not more vulnerable to attack. We have seen some high-profile ransomware attacks in the Nordic region during the lockdown as bad actors saw flaws in the way operations were being run during lockdown, and as a result, an increased opportunity to profit.

2.)  More engaged prospects - We saw a major uptick on the number of new meetings and still do so now. I didn’t expect this, but effectively, people working from home seemed to have more time to explore and learn about new technologies and trends. I call this the ‘coffee machine effect.’ Remove the coffee machine meet-ups, gossip, and office banter you’d normally get, and you have more time to complete your daily tasks and learn about new things. Honestly, I think many IT Professionals have used the lockdown as an opportunity to sharpen their skills so they may return to the office with new ideas and inspirations. It makes sense on one hand, but the desire for people in our IT community to make progress is one I find inspirational.

3.)  Talk TCO to Me - As budgets tighten up, we had to be more explicit about the tangible benefits of our solution. The adage ‘price is what you pay, value is what you get’ has never been more relevant as we compete for eyeballs and budgets. Luckily, there are lots of points of value associated with Cohesity in terms of ease of operations, cloud enablement, threat detection/mitigation, improved service levels, and more recovery points, faster. This allows us to appeal to more stakeholders in organizations, helping us broaden our internal support base. Luckily our alliances partners such as HPE and Cisco have instituted impressive financing options to help enterprises who might be cashflow challenged, or who are really keen to make that switch from CAPEX to OPEX.

4.)  Skilling up and certified – We mobilized fast and changed our offline tactics into online ones. We used the lockdown to better educate our reseller network and have them come out of this as more informed partners. We organized a technical certification course over four afternoons with over 25 attendees. That was quite some achievement. It really showed that the classroom could indeed by digitized. My favorite piece of enablement were our Test Flights. These are hands-on labs where organizations could try out our technology for an afternoon, with secure help from a Cohesity professional on-hand, right there. One of our most exciting and rewarding cases came about as a result of an IT pro who was simply curious about our technology. He signed up and took the Test Flight, and less than 24 hours later brought us into a very significant project. We really got this one right. Really proud of our Marketing and Channel team for thinking out of the box.

Digital downsides and upsides

Have the past few months provided us with a challenge? Absolutely.

When you do not travel, nor drive to meetings, your calendar is effectively wide open for meetings. The expectation is that if you’re online, you’re bookable. And in reality that is true, but we are human, and we can burn out. Many employers have focused on employee productivity, when really they should be more concerned with employee burnout.

Lots of research suggests that drawing lines between our professional and personal lives is crucial, especially for our mental health. But it’s difficult, even in the best of circumstances.

One day in April I had nine Zoom meetings with one 30-minute break during the whole day. That is not healthy, and it is important to not pack as many meetings into one day as possible. Somebody actually coined the phrase Zoom Fatigue. I have now renewed respect for calendar blocking.

Sticking to a 9-to-5 schedule proved unrealistic this past few months. I encourage my teams to find a balance that works best for them. You also need be conscious and respectful that others might work at different times than you. For some it might be a child’s nap, for others it might be when their partner is cooking dinner. Employees with or without children can create intentional work-time blocks by adding an “out of office” reply during certain hours of the day to focus on a certain task. One of my colleagues in Europe just let others in his team know that he might be slower than usual in responding, decreasing response expectations for others. Simple common sense, but something we feel guilty doing.

In summary, never let a good crisis go to waste. It is during times like this that good companies can become great. Personally, I see this COVID-19 as a new challenge for me. Adding value in the midst of a crisis, what a great learning opportunity.

What lessons have your learned from working during Corona and lockdowns?

Have you survived, or thrived?