What Will Outside Sales Be Like After COVID?

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If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we are so much more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for! 

Sure, everyone had some tough times with the transition period, but just think about how the entire population of outside salespeople suddenly had no idea what to do! They couldn’t travel or visit customers in person, and going to the office was certainly not an option. 

But, business still got conducted, and money still flowed through - slowly, but it flowed. 

After a few months, we settled into the rhythm of the COVID world, and continued trying to keep in touch with our customers. 

Now that COVID is almost over, we have even more uncertainties ahead of us. 

Will customers accept in-person visits anymore since they are so used to video calls and don’t see the value in a non-virtual meeting?

Will the cost of travel remain high which will make business travel much more expensive?

There are so many uncertainties, and I have no idea what the future truly holds for us, but I have a few theories! 

Companies May Put in Place a Non-essential Visitors Policy 

This is just my personal opinion, but think about it. For more than a year, business all over the globe has been conducted virtually, and primarily on video and phone calls. The salespeople are used to it, and so are the customers. 

When all the COVID restrictions are lifted, and things go back to “normal”, will customers actually see the value in meeting with a salesperson in their office?

Why would the customer need to have you there in-person if they can just see and hear you on a Zoom call? Before COVID, your customers probably never used Zoom before, and they didn’t realize what that technology is capable of doing or how easy it was. 

Now that they are used to it, it’s possible that they will feel more comfortable keeping it that way moving forward. 

Also, having a salesperson in the building does not benefit your customers’ company at all. Not even in the slightest. I’m not saying you are not valuable, I am saying that there is absolutely no benefit to having you physically in their building. 

If a company can have an excuse to have a blanket policy that doesn’t allow sales calls in their building, they will most likely use it. 

The sad part is, whoever makes those “NO SOLICITING” signs is going to be out of business within a few years!

Travel Cost Could Increase Significantly 

This actually makes total sense, and if you think about it, why wouldn't travel cost increase significantly? 

Hotels, airlines, restaurants, rental car services, banquet halls… All of these types of businesses lost a tremendous amount of business when COVID hit, and some of them have yet to recover. 

Once the restrictions are lifted completely, people are going to start travelling like crazy! There is so much pent up demand for going back to normal that I foresee a huge increase in travel for the general public. 

Well, that’s the perfect opportunity for the aforementioned businesses to recoup their losses!

That said, it is going to cost a company much more money to send a salesperson somewhere, and they may start decreasing travel requirements across the board. 

But, what does that mean for the salespeople? 

Virtual Meetings Are Probably Here to Stay

As much as I hate having to type this as I sit outside on a gorgeous May afternoon with the birds chirping in the background, having to conduct virtual meetings with customers is most likely going to become the norm. 

As much as people are sick and tired of it, and even if other companies do welcome sales visits, your company may not want to pay to send you to the customer, and that means you’ll have to resort to video calls. 

Not just video calls, obviously there will be an increase in phone conversations as well. 

The point is, and I need to work on this myself, you need to start paying attention to how you appear on camera, and how you interact with the customer while on camera. 

That may mean having to buy some professional lights, and learn how to do some basic video editing to make some interesting graphics pop up, or something that will keep the customer’s eyes on the screen. 

In fact, there are definitely a lot of things to do, but I am not an expert in that. If you are good at webcam presentations, let’s chat! 

It would be unfortunate if this were actually the reality moving forward, but I just have a strange feeling that’s the way it’s going to be. Who knows, maybe simply because I am writing this, I am manifesting it into reality! 

Say Goodbye to Cold Calling!

Don’t get too excited just yet! You’ll still have to make cold calls on the phone to generate new business. 

I’m talking about in-person cold calls. 

Say what you want about them, but I have actually had a lot of success on cold calls, and I have turned cold calls into yearly revenue! It can happen, and it’s a lot of fun. 

When I was still “on the road”, I would actually bring a list of prospective clients with me, and I would cold call on them in between my scheduled meetings. It was a great use of time, and it was actually a fun part of the job! 

I also travelled all over the country, so it was also the best use of my “free” time. 

Sure, you get a lot of “no” or “we don’t use that here”, but it can be fruitful if you do a good job with your prospecting work (the research part). 

However, because of COVID, and what that has done to public opinion, I could foresee companies just not allowing cold calls to happen anymore. What I mean by that is, unless you have a scheduled appointment with them, you’re not getting through at all, and you’ll be asked to leave. 

Yes, that was also true in the “old world”, but sometimes you could actually “sweet talk” your way into getting a couple minutes with the person you need! 

I don’t foresee that happening in the future, unfortunately. 

That’s actually bad for salespeople because it’s a great way to stay productive when you have no scheduled meetings, and you could uncover some really great opportunities! If for nothing else, it’s always a great way to network. Even if a prospect is not interested in becoming a customer, you could still ask a few questions about their company and products. 

If you want to be really clever, it’s also the perfect opportunity to try something new in your pitch! 

CONCLUSION 

As a friendly reminder, this is simply my opinion, and in no way is this article based on facts or statistics. However, it’s also a gut feeling, and I trust my intuition more than I trust anything else! 

The point is, I think the entire landscape of sales is going to change significantly moving forward. The amount of travel will decrease, and the need for telesales skills will increase. 

Luckily, I can help you tremendously with your telesales skills. I could help with in-person meetings as well but that isn’t the point of the article. 

It would be a crappy reality because I love to travel, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get into sales in the first place! It won’t be entirely gone in the future, but I think it will be significantly reduced - for business anyway. 

All in all, sales will still remain a solid career choice, but it will just be a bit different. Just like how it was different when COVID started. You’ll adapt, and thrive just the same!

I’m curious, what do you think?