Keep your sales team in shape – 5 ways to help them in lockdown
Working from home is hard. We all do better and feel more focused, when we have our colleagues around us and can speak to our customers face to face. As sales people, who thrive on personal contact, it’s very hard to keep motivated and not let our skills get rusty, as we sit out what might be a lengthy lockdown.
There are plenty of ways to minimise our isolation and use this time to get ready for the great day when we can get back in the field.
The five things every salesperson should do while working remotely:
1) Update your customer records (CRM) and tidy up all your data and back office information. Remember those incomplete notes you didn’t have time to flesh out? Now’s the time to revisit all those and make them really comprehensive
2) Make your activity plan for getting back to business and resuming normal life. Be clear on your strategy to pick up and win business again as soon as the doors are open
3) If you’re lucky enough to have a sales playbook, now is the time to overhaul it and make sure its contents are in tiptop shape – if you don’t have a sales playbook, review your documented practice and consider how a sales playbook would be more effective and efficient
4) Commit to a regime of self-improvement. An empty diary is depressing and increases anxiety and the feeling of isolation. Whether you want to take on some e-learning, brush up your sales skills or sales management, diarise it, make it a regular appointment and stick to it
5) Get together with your sales colleagues online and hold regular meetings to share what you’re learning, talk about how you’re beating the lockdown blues and practice your pitches, negotiation and closing skills
Human contact is so important to us as social beings, and this necessary isolation is robbing us of the opportunity to feel like a community. We can all take action to combat this by meeting online and making sure we’re ready to bounce back strongly when we get the all clear.