Stop Blaming COVID

The reality of Q4 is upon us. 

For many professionals, this year has felt like a gut punch. I have seen good people being forced to make hard decisions. These decisions were a mix of realizing the pain of the current reality and a hope for a fast return to normal.

The consequences of these decisions have left my LinkedIn feed filled with green halos around talented people reading “Open to Work.”

It is heartbreaking. It is sobering. It will be with us longer than most think.

For this article, I want to speak candidly to founders, leaders, and managers. 

If you are relying on a strong Q4 to prevent another set of layoffs, I would urge you to think through the points I have outlined below.

Q4 will not be normal. It will likely be better than the rest of the year, but you need to be thinking through how you will approach it to drive revenue. 

1. Know The Buyer Decides

Leaders tend to talk about when their team will return to the field, to traveling, and slide back into the normal way of doing business.

In fact, some teams are “in the field” today.

But what are they finding?

Clients and prospects are saying no to meeting in person. If it can be held virtually, it will be. This is only partly because of the pandemic. It is also an effect of the buyer seeing what can be accomplished without meeting in person. This will impact the modern sales call for years.

Zoom fatigue is impacting virtual meetings, but buyers will still be hesitant to allow in-person meetings. 

Buyers are becoming more selective on who to meet with. When you get your shot, there will only be one and it will be virtual. 

So, get great at running virtual meetings. Evaluate how easy it is to join a meeting, what is shown during the meeting. Great virtual sellers use the format to their advantage. They find ways to elevate the interaction, not just recreate an in-person meeting over the computer.

If you are not seeking ways to make virtual sales calls the best, you will miss the Q4 bump. 

2. Get Off The Roller Coaster

In response to certain states opening, many companies have viewed these early signs of hope as the pandemic creating more of a blimp than lasting changes to the way we do business. So they relaunch, reset expectations, and try to get back to business as usual.

Only the market does not cooperate. Hotspots shut down travel. Quarantines become required. Companies like Google, Twitter, Square, and others announced that working-from-home as an option for all of 2021. 

The relaunch becomes another false start. Relaunches are often an excuse for a lack of strategy. The new is normal. If you cannot find success today, you cannot wait for the world to change back to succeed. You must adjust.

In person meetings are not going away, but they will be complicated for a while. For many selling in Q4, being able to take a prospect to dinner, engaging in casual chat, and reading the room will be luxuries that will be slower to come back than we would like.

There must be a plan for blue skies and rain.

If your team is struggling, get tools, get training, get it fast. 

There is a path forward, but you have to find it in the world as it exists today. Waiting will leave you too late.

3. Think 4, 16, 28 

So what does a plan look like?

Every revenue focused leader needs to think about their business in this way:

“Where is the closest dollar in Q4?” (4 months)

“What will selling be like as we emerge into 2021?” (16 months)

“How will the selling change when this is all over?” (28 months)

The next four months are all about locking in your pipeline. Closing those deals that have progressed beyond the introduction phase. Every morning ask yourself, “Who is closest to closing?” Press the deal to close early. This is fundamentally different than the typical negotiation. Any small sale you make in Q4 should grow in 2021. You are making an investment now for confidence tomorrow.

Early closes save deals. Time kills deals, now more than ever. Get pragmatic.

For 2021, expect a slow start, but a fast acceleration. Most sellers are not hearing a flat “no”. They are hearing, not right now. Create a strategy to be visible throughout and ready at any moment.

Lastly, listen to your market. How has the pandemic changed the way your prospects want to do business. Covid has given control to the buyer in a way that they had not realized before. Your team’s ability to reflect the ideal process with the buyer will accelerate the new sustainable model.

There is Still Time

This year has not been what anyone expected, and it will most likely continue to surprise us. But that does not mean that you have to be a victim to it. 

There is still time to plan, strategize, and adjust to this new environment. Q4 is a month away.

I work with companies every day that are finding ways to be profitable in this environment. These new ways must be found.

At my very first sales job, the seller next to me had a sign that simply read, “If the wind don’t blow, you have to row.”

Are you rowing? Or are you waiting for the wind to change?

For more insights on how to become a sales leader, be sure to check out our Pitchwise Sales Speakeasy for free resources and follow us on LinkedIn. 
For more information on our services for Founders, CEOs, and Sales Leaders, head to Quota.NYC.