As the sales leader, you ask yourself: “How are the “troops” doing, working remotely?”
Your inbox has been loaded with ‘advice” on communication, coaching, and giving feedback and encouragement during sales people this unsettling time.
The customers/prospects are “playing defense,” meaning they do not want to lose their business. You want your salespeople to play “offense,” make the calls, adjust their traditional selling style to sell remotely. Strong leadership and management are needed now, more than ever. The Sales staff are now all set up to work from home, learned how to use Zoom. With this change in sales strategy, and each person working alone, without close supervision, in this new environment, what could go wrong?
What is the key for salespeople working remotely?
Three of the key attributes of working remotely are:
- Self-Starter
- Works independently
- Works without supervision
Information from our partner, Objective Management Group, and their data of assessing and evaluating almost 2 million salespeople has some publishable data.
This piece of data on working remotely comes from the evaluation of the more recent 60,000 salespeople:
The findings are that ONLY 41% overall were capable of working remotely!
As you can see in the table above, even a third of the best salespeople in the world are not suitable for working remotely! How will the bottom half perform? And when two thirds of the bottom half cannot effectively work from their homes, and (most industrial salespeople fall into the bottom half), there is cause for concern!!
You cannot make a salesperson who is not well-suited for working remotely, suddenly suitable.
A more remote salesforce will surely be a lasting byproduct of COVID-19 epidemic, as sales organizations retool plans, strategies, processes and hire the “right” salespeople when this winds down & the economy begins to re-open.
So, for now…you MUST interact much more with each person: one in the morning and once at the end of each day. No exceptions. Your leadership, interaction, motivation, and coaching (and role playing) are desperately needed
To discover other Objective Management Group findings regarding the Core Sales Competencies for your industry and your company click here.
