During COVID-19, many companies are turning to business mentors for advice on boosting their revenues during an economic crisis. For its first webinar as part of the #futureproofyourbusiness series to support businesses, Jupiter Business Mentors asked two sales experts, both of who are platform mentors, Michelle Strydom and Mohammed Sami, to shed light on the topic. 

Below are the major ideas shared during the webinar. 

First things first: Instil mental toughness 

Seasoned Sales Mentor Michelle Strydom acknowledged that fear and uncertainty dominate the business landscape today and that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant psychological challenges to entrepreneurs. 

However, she stressed the importance of resilience when becoming an entrepreneur. Referring to resilience as “an essential sales skill,”  Strydom said this distinguishing quality will help businesses thrive through the crisis. She added that millions are affected by a pervasive sense of loneliness. It helps to reframe the experience as a shared phenomenon and practise gratitude to maintain a positive mind set. 

Strategic use of downtime

Moving on to more action-oriented steps, Strydom recommended that entrepreneurs capitalise on their increased downtime to devise and deploy marketing strategies for their business to remain top-of-mind for their current and potential customers. 

“History tells us that economies always come back. When it does, will you be ready for it?” she asked. The effort put in to push your company’s messaging will pay off when consumers eventually regain                                                                                        their buying power. 

Don’t hit pause on business development 

Strydom also dispelled the myth that there are currently no clients out there. She quoted several interesting statistics to support her claim, such as a survey that showed that “83% of its respondents said that they had more time to talk than ever before.” 

She suggested that businesses should appeal to their clients’ emotions by demonstrating empathy and compassion, as opposed to relying on traditional hard selling methods, to attract business in the current era. 

As a Sales expert, Strydom was able to share other useful tips for earning clients, such as demonstrating value to potential customers by sharing how your company has helped similar clients or other valuable information (e.g., news about relevant digital innovations or global industry trends), asking current clients for referrals and wooing away competitors’ smaller clients who may feel neglected. 

Keep solving problems, making sales

Sales Mentor Mohammed Sami, who has 15 years of experience in the Middle East, Europe and US markets, built on Strydom’s points about the relevance of empathy as a sales tool. He said that many businesses neglect the ‘why’ of their products and services and do an inadequate job of drafting sales plans when they solely focus on their products’ USPs, and not features and benefits in their marketing activities. 

Sami stressed that human behaviour is motivated as much by emotions as it is by logic and reasoning. Loss aversion is also a major driving force for our actions. Expanding on this idea, he said that people work twice as hard to avoid a problem than to achieve a positive outcome. 

Therefore, it is crucial for businesses to study their potential customers’ pain points and focus their marketing efforts on how their products and/or services can alleviate those pain points. Businesses are more likely to earn clients, even in these cash-strapped times, in this manner. 

Navigating the cost-cutting culture

With most companies paring down expenses and rival businesses slashing their prices in response, it appears to be a difficult time to make money as a business. However, Strydom reframed the current business scenario, drawing attention to the desire to save personal careers rather than business money as the primary motivator when engaging a new contractor or agency for a job. 

She shared research on buyer influences that indicated that buyers are 8 times more likely to hire a company if they believe that the decision will reflect favourably on them. When pitching corporate clients, it is thus necessary to subtly emphasise how your business can help them advance their own career. 

In response to a later question about price concessions, she said that discounts can be part of a sales strategy but a business must always know and remember their walk-away price during negotiations. Sami chipped in with other related suggestions, such as offering deferred payment plans instead of discounts. 

Is it the time to diversify?

When asked about whether product diversification is a good idea, Sami said the decision depended on the nature of the business. If the business operates in a thriving sector, such as e-commerce, then expanding is a good idea. If it only supports short-term business goals, such as quick cash, then the investment put into the product development and launch should reflect that. 

Sami reiterated that a match with the core business is key, as the introduction of the new products should not dilute the company’s image. And when launching new products, it’s very important to communicate to customers the exact needs fulfilled by the new product. 

Get adept at virtual communication

It may be some time before sales teams can meet with clients face-to-face. COVID-19 has forced sales professionals to develop a whole set of new skills in order to effectively win over clients using video conferencing tools. 

Strydom notes that in addition to the absence of the “luxury of social connection”, where neither body language nor spoken and unspoken cues can be observed, sales teams also have shorter timeframes for establishing rapport with clients and discovering their pain points. 

She therefore stressed that research is more important than ever, and suggested using social media. With lots of information about clients available in the public domain, sales professionals can develop a more targeted line of questioning for uncovering their pain points while also finding it easier to match their personality style. 

Whether you are an individual or a corporate enterprise, you can benefit from advice on sales for your business besides financial advice, and risk management consulting to help you reboot and take you through your post-pandemic revival. 

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