Obviously, the pandemic forced the buyer/seller relationship online and the organizations who survived the best, and are even beginning to now thrive again, are the ones who most quickly adapted and transitioned. The reality is that digitisation was always going to happen - it has been a long anticipated inevitably - and COVID simply accelerated its arrival by about five years.
There are those who believe that selling is going totally inside, others foresee the arrival of a hybrid frontline sales professional, who will totally embrace all the advantages that technology provides but, at the same time, are being prepared for face-face sales events, when their prospect/customer/client requires, possibly reserved for important milestones in the buying process, like the initial exploratory meeting, the final contract negotiations, quarterly business reviews. etc.
So, the question for business captains is not when will sales go back to “normal,” but rather, how quickly can they modernize so they can embrace the future of sales and come out of COVID ready to take on the new, fast, always-online, customer-centric, content-rich, and technology-enabled world of modern buying and selling. That obviously includes ensuring that their sales teams have the appropriate skills to be able to embrace all these changes.
What will this new frontline sales professional look like?
Jonathan Farrington hosted a highly experienced and eminently qualified panel including, Bob Apollo, Lisa Leitch, David Mattson, Meridith Elliott Powell unfortunately couldn't make it.
