Selling in Challenging Times (2020)
A pandemic-era introduction to an innovate+grow client survey on keeping B2B sales active during lockdowns.
- By
- Gopal RajGuru
- Originally published
- May 4, 2020
- Source
- Read the original
Written in May 2020, during the first COVID-19 lockdowns, this post describes a moment when borders were closed, travel was restricted and many clients had cancelled or postponed in-person workshops. It introduced a survey the innovate+grow group carried out with clients across industries about how they were coping, with a focus on sales.
Key takeaways
The situation at the time
Salespeople were confined to home. Some clients moved training online to keep skills sharp and prepare for recovery, and the post thanks them for continuing to invest in their people.
The limits of video
The post notes that video conferences compete with e-mail, messaging and social media for attention, making it harder to get the value of a face-to-face workshop.
The purpose of the survey
The stated goal was to help organisations create their own “Digital Sales Framework” so they could keep selling through the crisis and restart once it passed.
This piece is kept as a historical record of 2020. It does not describe current conditions, and the survey report it introduced is not reproduced here.
From the archive: published May 2020 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.