The Time Of COVID-19: 5 Ways We Have to Adapt Our Business to the New Buying Climate

Though many businesses are reopening in at least a limited capacity, it is obvious that most of them will not be simply returning to “business as usual.” The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many of the inadequacies but also opportunities of the modern business model, triggering a new wave of innovation and digital transformation. The level of disruption that we’re seeing would have otherwise taken at least another five years under normal circumstances, but the rapid pace demanded of the current situation has forced business leaders to adapt in order to stay competitive and relevant. Our world continues to change quickly and the speed of this change is increasingly difficult to navigate.

By recent data, it appears that B2B companies felt at least 20% more prepared for the remote work experience than B2C given their digital transformation efforts. Although digital transformation has accelerated, has the highest positive impact on business, and has given business a large range of opportunities for continued success, 50% of B2B organizations are still cutting their operations budget. It seems to me that all companies are having to rapidly adjust how they interact with their customers, partners, and teams. But how do you do this effectively while managing cost-cutting, budgets, and a significant reduction in your customers’ ability to buy?

Here are five ways that businesses are changing in response to COVID-19 and how yours could benefit.  

1. Faster & More Efficient Client Sales Cycles

Since the start of COVID and even before now, digital touchpoints are preferred twice as much as traditional approaches but one aspect of business that I have seen change significantly is the length of the client sale cycle. At this time, by necessity, businesses need to work even smarter and become more adaptive. By narrowing focus and understanding specific client needs, organizations are now eliminating lags in the sales cycle - which often stemmed from a lack of vital information or an overabundance of unqualified leads. However, a number of new sales tools can help mitigate these issues: CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) systems have become a lot smarter over the last few years and automation tools allow sales teams to keep track of in-depth information far more effectively, especially if you understand your ideal customer profile. Additionally, this means that sales professionals can better allocate their time towards tasks that result in more sales and more profits. 

The first few months of this crisis drove quicker outreach to suppliers with more urgent needs and challenges. One knock-on effect has been a reduction in more traditional buying cycles. Less RFPs, not much time for big bulky procurement processes like reverse auctions. Ultimately though client relationships with suppliers hold significantly more value than ever. Sellers need to focus heavily on empathy and fostering collaborative buyer engagement. Trust becomes an even more important variable in the purchase decision. In a world where there is less in-person connection, there is less traditional opportunity to build trust. Trust has been found to be built best in person, the innovative seller will figure out how to navigate this in order to be best positioned to drive an effective buying process.

2.             Better Decision Making Through Daily Data Reports 

Businesses have increasingly relied on multiple sources of data in order to gain actionable insights into their operations, yet with the world seemingly moving faster than ever before, it isn’t enough to just review data on a monthly basis. Instead, we’re seeing more and more companies reviewing data on a weekly or even daily basis in order to evaluate the shifting needs of their customer base and business partners. With AI and other automated resources, it is possible to go through larger datasets at a rapid clip, allowing leaders to make smart decisions faster. 

Companies have now a thirst for data-driven decisions on near real-time data. But we humans can only digest so much. Start with the basics and layer on 2-3 critical areas of focus that moves the needle with your customers and teams. One place I would highly recommend getting a daily view on would by the frequency and quality of your customer engagement. If that’s too difficult, focus on your strategic customers. If your client budgets have been significantly cut, you must be able to focus on those clients whom both have the ability to still make a purchase and that the problem you are solving is critical to them.

3.             Stronger Connections With Customers & Clients 

Not only are businesses using new technologies to gain more in-depth insights into their client’s needs, but they are also using them to communicate these insights in a more dynamic fashion. The rapid pace of changes means that on a daily basis (at the least), staying connected and being accurately informed is even more essential.  73% of B2B sales leaders say engagements like Webinars are the most successful way of attracting quality leads. Whether through these well-researched webinars/digital meetings through Zoom, content marketing efforts, and the fair use of social media, it is easier than ever for businesses to remotely share information and discuss insights with all of their stakeholders. Platforms like YouTube are changing their capabilities to keep up with specific demands. Additionally, this focus on interconnectedness means that leaders can better create conditions that allow customers to be more helpful and be more helped, making customer relations more of a partnership than a one-sided service. 

One caution, Webinar engagement levels are on a decline. They certainly rode to a peak through March and April as lockdowns took hold, but now fewer of the decision-makers and key clients you want to engage are participating. The next wave of innovations here is underway and critical. This pandemic has taught us many things about the relationships with our clients. Perhaps one of the most important is that not only must you be looking around the corner and helping your clients see ahead, you must also be consistently checking in with them and following them on the journey of challenges that they are facing. It is no longer enough to be able to walk in your client’s shoes, you must also stay walking in those shoes. This rhythm of “slip-stream” like follow will most probably continue long into the future and be the center of how you market and connect to your client and prospect base.

4.             Accelerated Business Development Systems 

Companies are not only adopting strategies that can mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, but also those that would better position them for success when more traditional and direct business operations are possible. Now is a fine opportunity for businesses to clean up their customer databases, adjust system architectures, and complete data enrichment, ensuring that they are better able to perform business development outreach. Those that take the steps necessary to keep these systems clean and streamlined will greatly benefit as businesses return to “normal.”

Many of us have seen the collapse of budgets and the rapid shift of buying processes before. In 2008 and into 2009, I had the privilege to lead an incredibly high performing sales team in the company I worked at and we were the only group selling to hard-to-move CFOs at the height of the Great Recession. Imagine the CFO, pretty much all of whom definitely did not want to make a purchase decision when asking everyone else in their organization to stop spending. We learned a lot in that experience not least that insight-led sales were critical. At the core of insight-led selling is your company’s ability to bring insight on a critical problem a client or prospective client is having or even better does not know that they have. To do this well your need fully functioning business development systems informed fully by the data that you have about your customers. We used this approach to become the #1 sales team in the company. 

Our technology is not the only thing that should be getting a cleanup. Many of our business processes need to be shined too. For example, our new “Zoom” culture mandates an expectation of accessibility and closeness from everyone: teams, clients, suppliers. One core strategy to keep front and center is to maximize the return on the time your clients are engaged with you. Build this need into your business systems and take the time to coordinate across departments, surfacing ideas, and fly-wheel collaborations.

5.             Acceleration of trends

According to recent research, roughly 95% of both nurses and HR/IT professionals believe that it is important for healthcare organizations to think about the digital experience. Whereas information technologies were once just a “back office” side of healthcare operations, more often we’re seeing it used to provide real-time data to staff members, assisting in everything from documentation, revenue to patient safety. With elective surgeries and simple doctor visits slowly coming back from being on pause, we are seeing less resistance to remote patient care as people are not only seeing the benefits but also, its effectiveness.

This is just one example where digital transformations are accelerating. Almost every business is going to continue to be impacted by these types of transformations and at a faster pace. Be prepared for more innovation when it comes to all aspects of our lives but especially healthcare.

Many businesses have slowly implemented digital transformation plans over the past few years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has served to kickstart these efforts, while also showing the stragglers that they cannot afford to hold off on digitization. It’s hard to say what the post-COVID-19 business world is going to look like, but even now (and with a vaccine likely coming) it is obvious that it will be quite different from the way things were just a few months ago. The amount of innovation that is occurring across many different types of industries is actually quite staggering. COVID has in NO WAY been able to slow down Humankind’s ability to innovate. If anything it has, in fact, given us more urgency.

Regardless, it will be those who are proactive in adopting new technologies and smart business strategies who will see the most success in the near future.