Building Revenue Confidence: Know Your Risk and Recognize Your Potential
Devin Golden, Senior VP of Sales at Dun & Bradstreet, and Chuck Merrill, Senior Sales Specialist at Dun & Bradstreet, joined Scott Barker from Sales Hacker for a candid discussion on today’s B2B sales landscape. Watch the webinar
A New Workplace
The new home workplace is certainly impacting how sales gets done. Working from home brings a new set of distractions – among them are kids, dogs, meals, and interruptions. Sales teams have to work harder to stay focused and maintain their momentum.
Additionally, at-home workers typically put in more hours – by some estimates, an average of two hours a day additional – leading to a higher risk of burnout. Distractions may certainly be adding to the need for longer hours, but the fact is, it’s just too easy to keep going back to your computer, especially without a dedicated work area set apart from the living space.
New Team Dynamics
With the sales team more widely distributed in their homes, the communal nature of sales has been lost, where teams could interact freely, collaborate, and learn from one another. In the office, a quick “drive by” to ask for an update was the norm. Now leaders need to find new ways of communicating and stay connected to their team. This may require more discipline and rigor on leaders to maximize their time each day.
Interacting with Customers
While it’s not necessarily a shift for small businesses and tele-sales, enterprise sales rep’s have traditionally relied more on face-to-face in-person connections. The savvy sales pro needs to find new ways to maintain that personal touch.
Changes in buying process
Sales teams are navigating changes in the buying process – new personas, new buying groups, and more frequent interaction with leadership. And, understandably, there’s going to be more scrutiny on spending. Just be aware that this additional scrutiny could elongate the sales cycle, and there may be additional asks for concessions and terms.
Resources to Keep Focus on the Right Customers
With entire industries disrupted, whether positively or negatively, it’s important to ensure that your sales team is focused on the right accounts and opportunities. While it’s natural to look for additional ways to help your existing customer base, there is opportunity in revisiting pipeline to identify new customers who could now benefit from your products and solutions.
More than ever, it’s important to do your research and understand both the risks and opportunities of working with an account. Resources such as D&B Hoovers™ can be especially valuable to help sales organizations identify companies in growth mode and provide insights such as growth trajectory and spend capacity.
Beyond financial health or industry trends, other factors need to be considered to prioritize targeted strategies during the pandemic. An adjusted go-to-market plan is required where ‘risk’ is added as an additional dimension for account selection. This helps sales teams prioritize their time more wisely. Dun & Bradstreet’s Pipeline Health Scan that can identify locations and industries impacted by the pandemic to inform opportunities as well as risks.
See all the resources that can help your sales team and company manage risk and enable growth during this time.
Watch the Sales Hacker webinar for a candid discussion how the current economy has impacted sales teams, customers and pipeline.