It’s been one year since COVID-19 impacted individuals, families, and businesses in lasting ways. The pandemic has also been a global experiment that forced companies to take their sales forces remote. During this time, most sales teams faced major challenges around engaging with customers remotely, generating enough leads to meet revenue goals, and pushing deals through ever-lengthening sales cycles. A few made bold moves, rethinking their channels, shifting investment aggressively to remote sales models, and training their sellers to work in new ways. But most did not. In fact, most companies made only incremental, reactive changes and have much work to do to adapt their sales approaches to the post-pandemic reality.
COVID-19 resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime disruption that will deeply impact how B2B sales are done in the future. There is a short window of opportunity to decide how to respond. Should you make reactive, incremental changes or fundamentally re-think your sales approach to maximize growth in the upturn?
The AlixPartners 2021 survey of 100 seasoned sales executives in B2B industries provides insight into how companies reacted to the pandemic and what their priorities are coming out of it. And with 12 months in the rearview mirror, our results indicate a better way to accelerate the transition to new selling practices to drive top-line growth efficiently.
