Before 2021 ended, I saw many friends in the real estate and insurance industry start meeting with their prospects face-to-face. This is after almost two years of doing everything, from getting leads to closing, digitally. Everyone thought it’s going to be the beginning of the end of the digital sales era. However, the start of 2022 brought us back to the ground. We won’t be going back to actual fieldwork anytime soon.
There’s really no other way of putting it, if at least 80% of your sales process is not digital, your business won’t survive. I’m led to believe that we will do things digitally long enough that it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to go back to 100% face-to-face activities even after the pandemic is long gone. Some real estate and insurance companies have even transitioned into a more digital business model before the pandemic-developing their own software for application forms and ditching hardcopies altogether.
But how do you, as the salesperson, navigate the pandemic to get more sales? Or even make your business more scalable than before the pandemic? Here are 3 ways to turn this seemingly “all negative situation into an opportunity.
1. Embrace the new
They’re not calling our situation the “new normal without a reason. It’s safe to say that humanity has had a moment in history closely similar to the pandemic right now. In other health crises that required people to stay inside their homes, there were no opportunities to be economically productive for most people. Now, everyone can be productive while being physically detached from society.
Since our way of doing things became new, goals and challenges are also different. The usual pain points of your prospective clients might not be the same. Case in point: before the COVID-19, most people didn’t care whether health insurances, life insurance riders, or HMOS covered epidemic/pandemic-classified diseases. Now, it’s a top concern. Insurance and HMO companies then promised customers that they would not exclude COVID-19 and COVID-19-related diseases from their coverage.
The above is quite a simple and straightforward example but it’s just one of the dozen concerns of customers that they didn’t have pre-pandemic. As a salesperson, it’s your responsibility to find out what new goals and challenges your prospective clients have that you’ll be helping them with.
2. Become a digital native
Some classify the “Generation Z”, or those born from the year 1997 onwards, as digital natives. This is because, unlike the previous generations, they already have substantial exposure to electronics and the internet at a very young age. This leads to the generation’s naturally developed computer literacy and internet savvy.
You don’t have to be re-born in 1997 to become a digital native yourself. You can and MUST learn how to familiarize yourself with software, hardware, applications, and websites that will help you connect more frequently and effectively with your prospective clients.
You probably already received the advice that you should be easy to work with if you want to close more sales. This is not just about being a good conversationalist or having a good work ethic. Your clients should also feel that you’re being efficient with their time, their information is safe with you, and that you’re conveniently accessible to them when they need you. All of what I just mentioned are beneficiaries of digital tools.
A great way to get started in becoming a digital native salesperson is to lay your sales process out and see if there’s a tool that can make each part of the process easier for you and your clients. The fact is, almost everything that you’ll need can be found on the internet. You just need to do a quick Google search, pick from a dozen of options, and learn the tool. The bottleneck will be in learning the tool, but you can do it and it’s worth it. The time and effort you’ll spend learning digital tools will give a disproportionate benefit to your business, and for a very long time.
3. Be adaptable
The third one is not as technical as the first two, but if there’s only one thing you’ll take away from this post. Make it this one.
“When in doubt, vary, change, solve the problem, seize the opportunity, experiment, try something new (consistent, of course, with the core ideology)-even if you can’t predict precisely how things will turn out. Do something. If one thing fails, try another. Fix. Try. Do. Adjust. Move. Act. No matter what, don’t sit still.” – Jim Collins, Built to Last Charles Darwin also said that it’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In nature and in business, you can go fast if you’re the strongest but to go far and long, you have to be the most adaptable to change. You have to understand that in both bad and good moments, you have to try something new.
There are a lot of things affecting our business that are outside of our control, especially during the pandemic. Health concerns, government guidelines, etc. None of these things will make way for us. We have to learn how to adjust and change things if we need to. This is the most difficult thing to do, but just imagine the knowledge you’ll gain, the skills you’ll learn, and the character you’ll build if you learn how to be adaptable.
The pandemic will not be the last and most difficult challenge that will be thrown at us. But if we use this moment to expand our capacity to handle change and overall improve ourselves, we’ll be better at handling future obstacles and have a greater chance of building a more impactful and lasting business.
