There is a certain skill to virtual selling that plenty of companies hadn’t embraced, let alone mastered at the start of the pandemic.
However, as both small and large companies have started to reopen their offices and go back to normal, their sales teams are going to be joining all the other departments in a new hybrid work environment.
In that environment, plenty of companies are planning to balance between working from the office and from the home.
The biggest change here is for the sales departments, as plenty of people are still adjusting to the new approach in sales culture.
The sales representatives are also adjusting to the changes in buyers’ habits, and the overall buying journey which has made the sales process a lot longer.
New Trends in Virtual Sales
In recent studies involving sales departments across the country as well as interviews with experts in sales, several key trends have been revealed that are now shaping the way online sales affect sales departments . Understanding those trends, how they work, and how they should keep evolving is the key to success and to adapting to virtual selling .
According to those trends, the salespeople who were primarily operating from their home offices for the very first time at the start of the pandemic managed to save a lot of time on travel. However, they also ended up feeling separated from the rest of their department or their company overall, and they missed the general supportive work environment.
Additionally, plenty of companies will be continuing to allow remote work despite the end of the pandemic, even though plenty of sales representatives have stated that selling online is more difficult than selling in person.
This is because sales, as a profession, requires great interpersonal skills, which makes fostering relationships with buyers a lot more difficult because online sales happen in a virtual environment. This means that many sales departments have been operating outside of their comfort zones for over a year.
Remote Work and Sales
This remote work culture has also become a lot harder for newer sales representatives and other employees who are onboarding at companies. This is because understanding the different elements that work in sales is more difficult to absorb remotely. Not only that, but sales representatives also have to personalize the buying journey for every consumer as more consumers than ever are looking for personalized experiences in their buying journeys.
This means that while salespeople were once used to making quick transactions based on closing sales in person, the environment has now changed into nurturing and developing stronger relationships between a company’s sales department and the target audience.
Additionally, buyers now have a lot shorter attention spans, which means they’re not spending as much time as they used to when it comes to considering different options before making a purchase.
All of this is to say that sales representatives have to learn new skills to be able to keep up in this shifting landscape, and to adapt to virtual selling.
Companies should be prioritizing helping their sales departments find ways to sell successfully in the new virtual environment.
That means helping them learn any new technologies, strategies, tools, and tactics to achieve virtual sales success.
Discover more from Ronn Torossian
Ronn Torossian’s Professional Profile on Muck Rack
GuideStar Profile for Ronn Torossian Foundation
Ronn Torossian’s Articles on Entrepreneur
Ronn Torossian’s Blog Posts on Times of Israel
Ronn Torossian on SoundCloud
