Across all of the ways marketing gets executed in a business, including market insight generation, strategic planning, brand and product management, digital, print, broadcast, and audio advertising, social media management, and sales, professional selling is the most relationally intimate. Specifically, most professional selling involves live interaction between sales people and buyers, and much of that is in-person, or what is referred to as face-to-face. So, it is not surprising that this aspect of marketing has the potential to be most negatively impacted by social distancing measures currently in place globally.
As one who studies business-to-business relationships and teaches professional selling and sales force management here at the Haslam Business School, I thought I would reach out to a few of my business colleagues in sales and sales management to find out just how COVID-19 is impacting them.
As expected, the impact has been significant. It depends on the industry as well as the experience level of the sales representatives, however. For example, one of my colleagues, Terry, a seasoned sales veteran, works for a consulting firm representing pharmaceutical manufacturing firms to their clients, the health care plans (Cigna, Aetna, UnitedHealth etc.). He helps them decide which drugs to add/retain in their formulary (list of drugs available to their plan members). The job is extremely relational, with Terry normally on the road two weeks out of every month visiting his contacts all over the United States and one in Switzerland. As of early March, he and his peers are working ‘from home’. As he stated,
“Though I now do more negotiating than selling, the selling never stops. People want to like and trust people they do business with and the best way to gain that trust and build relationships is through face-to-face meetings in a clinical setting or more personable setting like a restaurant or lunch spot. That has now changed completely. We now all work over the phone, email, WebEx or Zoom. Though this is better than nothing, it's not optimal. Given, we're all in the same boat, but it does make conducting business far more difficult. I'm fortunate to have developed relationships over several years and am able to get contact when needed with my customers. New and inexperienced people coming into this highly relational market will struggle to get a foothold.”
When I asked Terry about the impact on the pharmaceutical sales reps who call on physicians directly, he had this to share:
“I still interact with pharma sales reps daily. Their world has changed entirely given the work from home direction from their companies. Pharma sales is the definition of relationship and consultative selling. To be effective, those salespeople need to be in the offices, talking to the staff and physicians to keep their product(s) top-of-mind. Again, they're all in the same boat but now have to find ways to impact the prescribing habits of their targeted physicians over the phone or email. They've resorted to calling anyone they can get time with - nurses, office managers, etc. The upside for retail pharmaceuticals is that obtaining a 90-day Rx is easier to do in these times as the rules have been relaxed. People are getting a larger supply which has given a short-term uptick in sales of chronic medications.”
I spoke with a half dozen other sales professionals. Real estate sales have almost all but dried up temporarily because showings have come to a standstill. These agents are spending their time wrapping up financing and preparing for when we come out of this. Some have reinforced online property showcasing and video conference calls with clients to keep potential deals alive. Some however, have been forced to find alternative means of income. For an elderly home care management firm in Knoxville, business is challenging. Here elderly, their loved ones and a sales person traditionally meet at length in the home of the elderly client to discuss the client’s in-home care needs. They form relationships and align care managers with clients during these face-to-face meetings. Most of these elderly potential clients do not use Zoom or video conferencing at all, least of all to contract for
services. Add to that the challenge of current clients suspending in home care due to social distancing, and the need for finding revenue streams becomes dire.
However, not all of the impact is negative. For those industries where much of the selling is primarily conducted via telephone, the impact of social distancing has been less significant. Think of freight brokerage firms like Axle Logistics or Coyote and some of the business that C.H. Robinson and Ryder manage. Much of this can be done over the phone, and as long as shippers and motor carriers keep operating, there still is a need for the brokerage services as traditionally executed. For my industrial sales colleagues, manufacturing site visits and tours have ceased but planning meetings across firms continue, only now digitally. These sales reps are actually finding it easier to schedule groups of people from multiple locations because the logistics of getting them to the meetings is now far easier – find a computer.
Across industries, one aspect that is common is that experience helps. The more seasoned sales reps have spent significant time building solid relationships that now can withstand digitally mediated communication such as video conference calls and email. Newer sales reps trying to establish relationships via these means are significantly handicapped. That is, unless they are masters at relationship-building regardless of the means of communication. Across the conversations that I had, one piece of advice to UTK students kept emerging:
Master your relationship building skills and use this opportunity to refine your digitally mediated conversation acumen. This will set you apart.
As you have been learning in your online classes and online interviewing, you are in a kind of ‘spotlight’ when you are on a video conference call. In a way, it can be more intimate, meaning people can seem closer at times than when you are face-to-face. This may seem counter-intuitive, but if you think about it, it isn’t. On a video conference call, you speak at a normal or even softer volume using a headset and mic, you spend more time observing facial expressions than we often do in typical face-to-face communication where hand gestures and the surrounding environment act as greater distractions. You find that we use smaller and fewer hand gestures, and in fact if you use the ones considered normal in a face-to-face meeting, you seem too animated for the group online. How you are dressed, the room you are sitting in, if and how you smile and even where your eyes go while on the call
are noticed and highly scrutinized, especially when you are in listening mode on a call with more than two people. Even when you think that you are off the hook while someone else is speaking, you are not, because the audience scans everyone ‘in the room’ constantly. When you are the speaker, you find that you must use your voice tone, inflections, pace and volume far more precisely than usual to engage the other call members. And muting your video when others have not agreed to do so is simply considered rude. On the positive side, you can schedule far more meetings when going from meeting to meeting theoretically can involve little more than a few keystrokes.
Dealing with COVID-19, as frightening and maybe even catastrophic for some people as it has been, as disruptive as it has been in so many economic and personal ways, has offered you yet another chance to hone two important skills critical in sales and management overall: digitally mediated communication and adaptation. If you can become comfortable adapting to change and disruption, and confident in your ability to get things done through your relationship management skills in a variety of ways no matter what obstacles are thrown your way, you will be as successful as my sales colleagues are continuing to be day-in and day-out. Keep pressing on ladies and gentlemen. Consider this as part of your training; you will come out wiser and stronger. As former President Calvin Coolidge once said:
“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men [people] with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Press on!”
He meant to add, Go Vols!
Dr. Dan Flint
Regal Professor of Marketing
