Selling in a Post Covid World: Strategies for Success in a More Digital Landscape

A lot has changed in the past 3 years and the start of the COVID pandemic. We sheltered in place for the better part of 2020, limited in person interactions and traveling in 2021, then began to transition into a new way of doing business in 2022. There were many stumbling blocks along the way as we learned to adjust to less, or no, in-person meetings, adopted virtual meetings as the new norm, experienced the challenges of building or maintaining a culture with limited in person interactions, and many, many more.?

Just like any challenge in life, we kept moving forward and learned from our mistakes, all while redefining how to operate our business in this new world. One area that changed drastically is selling.?

Selling in the healthcare industry is heavily relationship driven; regardless of whether you are selling to brokers, providers, health plans/payers, or employers. That’s not to say that what you sell, how you position it, and all the other pieces that go into a great sales process don’t matter. In fact, they matter more now than ever because the days of just grabbing someone last minute for lunch or dinner are mostly a thing of the past.

What’s changed?

Let’s start by identifying what has changed. This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive list, but to merely highlight what changes have impacted the sales process.?

Substantial growth in work from home has changed how we work, where we work, what’s important (and not important), and our willingness to meet in person.?

People relocated at record numbers because no longer do I need to live in a specific city where the office is located if I can work from anywhere.?

Technology adoption has enabled most of us to work from anywhere and be as productive as ever, and potentially more efficient.?

Our behavior, and how/why we buy things, has changed as a result. What was important to us before Covid is now different. Our lives, perspectives, values have all changed. No longer are we willing to spend 10 hours a week commuting to the office when we can work the way we have the past 3 years and still get our job done. We have traded that commute for more time with family, increased time focused on our health, community service, or more work.?

How has this affected the sales process?

When, how, and where you meet your prospects or clients has changed. Having been in a national sales capacity for years, I remember the times when I could simply plan a trip to a particular city or state and line up meetings with prospects simply by saying I would be in town and would love to grab a meal or cup of coffee. People would jump at the opportunity to get out of the office for a “work meeting”, regardless of whether they saw value in what I or my team was selling. This was great from a sales perspective because it allowed me to quickly build a network and begin to develop a relationship with key stakeholders.?

Those trips and impromptu meals are a thing of the past now. With the rise of work from home, the vast majority of people are, at a minimum, working from home part time, and many are full time work from home. Those prospects you want to take out for a drink the next time you were in Denver, may not even live in Colorado anymore. If they do, it’s not as easy to get them to meet in person because they are likely working from home part of the time. Whereas getting out of the office for a “work meeting” was enticing, now they have to decide if they want to leave their house for that same meeting. Do they want to put on “real” clothes, drive into the city, leave their pets or kids, get ready to go out? Only if it’s necessary and they see value in that face to face meeting.

The rise of the virtual meeting has firmly taken hold for both internal and external meetings, and there’s no going backwards. Zoom, Teams, Webex, they are here to stay so you need to learn how to effectively establish credibility, build relationships, and create value virtually. This is easier said than done. Nothing beats face to face time (without a computer screen between us) for developing a relationship.?

Having a successful meeting virtually is much harder than when we had them in person. It’s challenging to read the room when we are on Zoom - or impossible if people have their cameras turned off. There’s less interaction, likely because people are multi-tasking during your meeting and checking email. What are the non-verbals of my prospect saying? Are they leaning into the meeting showing interest, or sitting back and looking around for an escape plan??

Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of value and efficiencies that can be driven by the use of virtual meetings. However, there’s no doubt that selling is harder when the vast majority of the sales process is virtual.?

How to be successful in this new world of sales

We must adapt to how our world has changed and how our prospects have changed the way they do business. In order to successfully sell in this new environment, you must be an expert in these four areas:

1. Clear and concise pitch. Remember those 100 slide presentation decks you would fly through at an in-person meeting? Well, they were never a good idea, but now they are a terrible idea and a guaranteed way of eliminating a follow up meeting. People have much lower attention spans when a meeting is virtual compared to in-person.?

• Condense your pitch to 10-15 impactful slides. There are 2 reasons why organizations buy solutions - it makes them money or it saves them money. Your pitch needs to clearly identify how you can do either, or both.?
• Limit your meetings to 1 hour max, preferably 30 minutes. It’s natural for the audience to speak less, ask fewer questions, and be less involved when the meeting is virtual. If you need more than an hour to pitch your product or service, you need to re-think your pitch.?
• Don’t predetermine your meeting. I’ve seen this all too often. A rep will practice their pitch so much, knowing exactly what to say, when to say it, when to add a pause for effect, what question to ask on slide 7, etc. Yes, practice makes perfect, but don’t ever memorize your pitch. Be prepared to adjust your pitch to your audience. Although you think you know what’s important to them or why they will buy your product, that could change once you get into the meeting. Regardless of how much discovery you have done before this meeting, everything could be different now so be flexible and adjust to your audience.?

2. Always be discovering. Any successful sales process begins with discovery. This is an opportunity to better understand your prospect, their needs, buying process, other individuals that should be including in future meetings, etc. Due to the rise of work from home, teams are not getting together in a physical room as often, so you will frequently have new participants in meetings as the sales process plays out. Plus, people and organization’s needs change quickly, so always be discovering.?

When you are in a discovery mindset, you ask a lot of questions and are actively listening. You need to take this approach into every meeting, especially when they are virtual. This engages the audience, confirms your understanding of their needs, allows you to learn more and adjust your pitch accordingly, and gives great insight into what’s important to each person in your virtual meeting. Different people on the same team will value different aspects of your product. You must understand what is important to each person so you can explain how your product or service fills that gap.?

3. Leverage in-person events such as conferences. How do you meet new prospects in person when people are generally less interested in meeting for lunch? You have to meet them where they are. What conferences or in-person events do your prospects go to??

Attending a conference where your prospects are not only attendees but also speakers, is a tremendous use of your time. There’s no better opportunity to take one trip and spend 2-3 days meeting multiple contacts - it’s also an efficient use of your travel budget. People are attending conferences in record numbers and craving those face to face interactions that used to be far more frequent.?

While at your conferences, be attentive to who is speaking and what they are saying. It will provide great insight into what is driving your market and if you have clients or prospects speaking, that is a great way to better understand their organizational priorities.?

4. Develop life-long relationships. Relationships are more important than ever, they are also harder than ever to initiate and nurture. So how do you build relationships in an environment where there is far less “wining and dining?” It’s simpler than you may think . . . always do what’s best for them.?

• Don’t ever sell something they don’t need or you don’t believe in, regardless of what the short-term impacts are to you (such as a bigger paycheck).?

I’ve been fortunate in my career that I have always seen the value in what I was selling. However, there have been many times when I could have upsold a feature or product for the betterment of my paycheck, but I never have, not a single time in my life. It’s something I am very proud of and a principle I will always live by.?

Trust is key to a long term, productive relationship and you can’t have that if you are not always acting in the best interest of the person or persons sitting across from you.?

• Responsiveness is critical in developing life-long relationships - my rule is to respond within 24 hours. That doesn’t mean you have to provide the answer or solve the problem within 24 hours, but you must respond to their request quickly and set expectations for how long it will take to answer or solve.?
• Be accountable - do what you say and only say what you can do. Why would anyone want to work with you if you are not accountable? If you always follow through and do what you say you will do, it will set you apart from 95% of others. It seems basic, and it is, but far too many people (the vast majority in my experience) don’t follow through on everything they say they will do. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t set unrealistic expectations, don’t tell them what they want to hear, these will all set you up for failure. Be honest, set reasonable expectations, and do what you say you will do. ?

The past 3 years have presented a tremendous opportunity to organizations that are willing to adapt to the new way of doing business, a more efficient and effective way of growing their business. However, organizations and the people within them, especially those on the front lines of client interactions, must adjust to the post Covid world and learn how to sell in a more digital landscape.?