The pandemic is accelerating a lot of societal changes that were already underway:
- Online shopping has been slowly ramping up over the past two decades, but now has become a necessity.
- Having your groceries delivered to your home or your car has gone is no longer a newfangled novelty but a normal part of life.
- Meal delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash have expanded out from the big cities into small towns across the country.
- Telemedicine has gone from being something you have read about in magazines to something you’ve actually experienced.
- Working from home isn’t just a nice perk; it’s the how the majority of people are working.
- Now every meeting is a teleconference, and every friendship is an online friendship.
The organizations that began enabling these capabilities in recent years probably weren’t doing so because they were planning for a global pandemic. But they are certainly reaping the benefits now that the pandemic has arrived — and any competitors that didn’t are likely scrambling to catch up. You can be sure that the teams that spearheaded these new processes and technologies are seen as heroes right now.
What about you?
If you were involved in an initiative that is keeping your company productive right now, now’s a great time to be (humbly) patting yourself on the back.
Whether your company was well prepared or not, it’s also a great time to be looking at some what-ifs. What if you had done things differently in the months before the pandemic? What initiatives could have helped your company weather this storm better? What things would you love to have in place before the next big crisis hits?
We certainly hope we don’t see another pandemic like this one in our lifetimes. But living in the shadow of one is a good time to make the case for an initiative that would make dealing with it easier — and also have great benefits in “normal” circumstances. If you don’t have any idea what sales ops could be doing to help prepare for another emergency, here are some suggestions:
- Negotiation Training — In the aftermath of a crisis, every buyer is going to be pressuring sales teams hard for the best possible deal. Prepare your salespeople by Exposting the Secrets of Sales Negotiation.
- Data-Driven Forecasting — Many organizations make forecasts that are little more than one-time best guesses about how the current quarter or year might go. A true data-driven forecast considers all the relevant data and changes frequently so that organizations have an opportunity to adapt to emerging conditions — like a pandemic. Check out Developing Better Forecasts for more details on how to enable this kind of forecasting.
- Predictive Sales Analytics — New predictive analytics technology — enabled by machine learning — not only helps create better data-driven forecasts, it can also help you identify which customers could be buying more, pinpoint customers who might be at risk for defection, find the best prospects, and improve your pricing. All of which could leave your organization better prepared for a crisis of any kind. Learn more by watching the webinar on Predictive Sales Analytics.
- Price Optimization — Different types of customers are willing to pay different prices. If you can maximize the amount you charge each customer, you will optimize your cash flow — which is good any time but especially helpful during an economic downturn. See the webinar All About Price Optimization to get started.
- Whitespace Identification — During times of financial difficulty, you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of every opportunity available to you. But sometimes those opportunities are hard to spot. The Whitespace Analytics webinar explains how to go about finding the opportunities hidden in your data.
Psst. One more thing: If you decide to pursue one of these initiatives as a way to prepare for the next emergency, the Selling Your Sales Ops Initiatives webinar can help you convince the rest of your company to get on board.
We hope that you and your families are well. Stay safe!
Exposing the Secrets of Sales Negotiation
How do you protect yourself when your sellers are so outmatched in negotiations? How do you keep them from falling for every trick in the book? And what does your Sales Ops team need to know to provide another layer of protection?
Developing Better Forecasts
In this on-demand webinar, learn about the seven major ways in which leading teams are approaching sales forecasting very differently to boost speed, accuracy, and overall performance and results.
Predictive Sales Analytics
Predictive sales analytics has proven to be a powerful tool for improving effectiveness and boosting results at-scale. In this on-demand webinar, we demystify the core concepts and applications in sales environments.
All About Price Optimization
As more sales teams start turning to price optimization, it certainly helps to have a strong understanding of how it actually works and how it leverages elasticity and other metrics to calculate optimal prices.
Conducting Whitespace Analytics
What if there was a way to analyze all of your customers at once, identify the whitespace opportunities, and serve them up to the sales team on a platter? Learn the seven step process for doing just that.
Selling Your Sales Ops Initiatives
Even when your company is willing to invest in improved capabilities and infrastructure, you still have to sell your approach. How should you craft, package, and pitch your initiative to get the go-ahead from management?
