Episode 287: The Future of B2B Sales Post-Pandemic

Intro:

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast, featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynn Tilghman, Stan Robinson Jr, and me Bob Woods. As we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman: Hello and welcome to Making Sales Social Live. Hey, Stan, how are you doing? 

Stan Robinson, Jr: Fantastic. How are you doing, Brynne? 

Brynne Tillman: I’m doing really well. You know, I’m excited for today’s program. Although when we were talking earlier about what’s our topic today, I was like, Really?

So our topic today is like the future of B2B sales post-pandemic and like, are we like post-post, post-pandemic now? But then when we started diving into kind of the things that we’re going to talk about today, like, you know what, this is an interesting topic and it’s like where we were, where we are, and where we’re going.

So I think it’s really fun. So, you know, before we jump into this, like our tips and tactics and strategies, how do you feel that these sales from pre-pandemic to now have changed your world? Not necessarily for everyone else, but how has selling post-pandemic been, what is that experience for you? 

Stan Robinson, Jr: It’s funny because pre-pandemic I was still teaching social sales, right. And digital sales. So the idea was to try to get clients comfortable with the fact that you could start relationships online, find people online, and then once you’ve begun the relationship online, of course, take it offline right. Whether it be phone or Zoom or in-person, which is what we’re used to. And then of course, out of left field came the pandemic, which caught everybody by surprise. But the ironic thing is that sales leaders were scrambling, looking for ways to, you know, not to have sales drop through the floor. And digital sales became a logical choice. So my experience was a little bit different from most in that the pandemic kind of pushed people to look more closely at what we’ve been talking about and changed expectations. 

Brynne Tillman: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, and I had that same experience. Our business thrived through the pandemic because everyone came and said, okay, it’s time to do this. But let’s talk about with the rest of the world the changes that some of the rest of the world has felt.

Right. So tools and technologies. So before the pandemic, there were a ton of tools, obviously CRM and prospecting tools before the pandemic, for sure. And so, so what happened? You know, the tools were used, and there was definitely an emphasis in the sales process, but a lot of them were siloed. Right. So a lot of these tools were tools on their own.

And one of the things I guess during and post-pandemic that I’ve seen was, number one, the video conferencing tools went through the roof, right? The Zooms, the Microsoft Teams, Google meets, right? Like that one thing. But the other thing I noticed is a lot of these tools now started to become completely integrated into the CRM. So in most sales world, the CRM is the one place of truth, right?

So who’s feeding into that? And so that’s what I’ve seen with tools. Did you see it? We know. What are you seeing? And then what do you think will happen with tools moving forward, especially in the eyes? 

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yeah. yeah. It’s funny when you mentioned integration, I’m not sure when LinkedIn introduced the ability for you to schedule a video call, whether that was it was during the pandemic.

So a great example of integration and that the push to that going forward with AI integration is just going to be part of the game, whether you’re Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, because people don’t want to use a whole bunch of standalone tools. They want to be able to use as few tools as possible and do as much as possible with them.

And it is it is funny because, yes, the players are integrating AI. into their their, you know, sales tech stack, not so much in sales, but in other arenas. We’ve started to see something called Pseudo AI, which believe it or not, some companies have tried doing demos where a human being would actually be the one doing what they were talking about, but they would say that they’d integrated a I believe it or not, when I first heard about companies trying to do this, sort of what, what, what are you thinking? But that said, everyone’s talking about the fact that they’ve integrated AI. in. 

Brynne Tillman: Yeah, well, it’s amazing that we didn’t have to accept until about a year and a half ago. Like, I can, you know, I just when we, you know, I think maybe we’ve had GPS in our cars for 15, 18 years, something like that. I don’t remember how I got places without it.

Yeah, I don’t remember how I communicated with clients before email. I can’t imagine selling without LinkedIn now and I can’t imagine having these tools if I generate tools now. A year and a half is all we’ve had and I don’t remember how I did things before long. Right. So. So that’s the big, big shift, right? Post-Pandemic. There was this AI. tools did not exist for the average person, right?

Yeah. You know, until about a year and a half ago. So it’s absolutely crazy, including virtual reality and augmented reality. All of these things are becoming part of the customer experience as simple as from a consumer perspective. I go on Amazon and I’m looking at, you know, a new dining room table or credenza, and I can look at it in my room, I can focus on my camera from Amazon and I can see what this piece of furniture looks like in my room.

So this is being integrated consumer and B2B across the board. So I think the tools I’m going to go back to the tool stack I one when I was at People Links as a chief learning officer, I remember part of our conversation with Prospects was listing out their tool stack and they would have 3040 tools. We do, we have County, we have Zoom, we have Magical, we have Registry.

We have like if you look at it, you know we have a good job we we have Google, we have Gmail like we have so many tools we couldn’t I couldn’t even list them. All right. Now, I’d have to look at my Amex bill, right? To figure out what are all the tools that we’re using. So this tool stack is huge and it was huge before the pandemic.

I think they started to curate it down. And now what they’re doing, I think, is integrating. So that’s the three steps. There was just an insane amount of tools. And now like my our Zoom and our Google calendar are completely synced. We have that embedded in our website, in our job. So they’re going, you know, we have a marketplace link where anyone can go and look at like everything is now being combined for easier UX.

The user experience now is streamlining, right? So, one of the things that I’m blown away with that Sales Navigator did is the integration they have into HubSpot CRM is unbelievable. It is complete, which I think is so funny. I mean, they have it for Salesforce and they have it for Microsoft Dynamics, but this integration into HubSpot is magic.

It is amazing. The reason is you can work on LinkedIn and still be connected to your HubSpot CRM and your calendar and your everything is now integrated. So for me, my one source of truth, we do have a CRM, but it’s LinkedIn, right? We don’t really use our CRM the way that we should. And you know, if you have ten salespeople or more, this HubSpot integration is absolutely incredible.

And to Sales Navigator. So that’s that’s post-pandemic integration. Let’s jump your mindset, right? The mindset before the pandemic was focused on volume and velocity, more calls, more meetings faster, right? Like boom, boom, boom. Close calls and personal relationships were important, but they, you know, they were not at scale and they were big dinners out. They were doing that.

But it’s fun. My my girlfriend just said she had taken she’s a big salesperson at a CVS company and they took out an entire client in New York for like, huge, right? Like there’s still wining and dining. Not as much as they used to. I was like, really? You’re still wining and dining? Wow. I didn’t realize that before.

I don’t know how many to. I would go to lunch with Centers of Influence. I would have lots of coffee meetings. And now I think that the mindset shift is we could do it all on Zoom. We’re not. I haven’t done a networking coffee meeting in person in a really probably before the pandemic time. Now I do a lot of chamber and you’re doing a chamber meeting tomorrow, right?

So you’ll be in person etc. And so it’s not like so I think that’s coming back. So I think the mindset before was a lot of cold calling and I think during the pandemic no one answered their phones and we didn’t have mobile phones so cold calling absolutely died during the pandemic because no one sat in their office.

There was no way to get through. So that’s where social selling came in. I do think there’s you know, people are back in their office as a hybrid like two or three days a week. So there’s some of that. But I think the after-pandemic on that is a greater focus on engaging prospects, and digitally creating valuable insights to share versus mass cold calling.

So it’s a shift really from a transactional approach to building rapport and earning the right to get some conversations. 

Stan Robinson, Jr: So yes, yeah, yes, yes. One of the things that the pandemic forced people to do is realize that you can make big ticket sales with virtual meetings, and that you don’t necessarily have to meet all the decision-makers in the same physical room.

Right. But you could sell six-figure deals via Zoom. And as you said, post-pandemic, in some ways we’re still companies are still trying to go through, Okay, do we let everyone work remotely because they were there, Were there different schools of thought about productivity as a result of work in remote? And I’ve seen studies on both sides that productivity went up in some cases and in others went down.

So there’s no definitive answer. But companies do have to figure out, do we bring people back? Do we remain hybrid people who’ve been remote? How do we handle that? It’s it’s still an issue. Tech companies you would think, remote Zoom calls are going to work remotely. Yeah, people that exactly and I forget who another major one Amazon was a big one yeah yeah so because there are things you lose when you’re remote internet was not it might have been Tesla, not Amazon Tesla okay one musk made like if you don’t come back you’re fired statement is totally counterintuitive you would have thought it would have been just the opposite. Yeah so high-tech company. 

Brynne Tillman: The interesting thing is when you go virtual you have a much bigger talent pool to choose from, right? If you know, it’s not just, hey, the collaboration, but free young people. So I have a friend whose, you know, son is looking for an internship and there are internships that are virtual and they’re like, But I want him in the office with these people.

They experience that and it’s different today. It’s so different. So I love that. You know, I think we are more empathetic than we were before as salespeople. I think we recognize that more. I hope at least my experience is that there’s much more focus on helping people solve problems than settling not with everyone, but there’s definitely the servant leadership coming back from so long ago, right?

We really just want to bring value and understand that the sales will come. So I do think there’s a shift in some place, some places, and I think the next generation coming up, which is our kids, right? Your door is I think they want to make a bigger impact. It’s really about social responsibility and having an influence and what you do is important.

Right. And so I think that’s the beauty that came out of post-pandemic. 

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yes. Social consciousness, Absolutely. And since all of us went through the pandemic together, like you said, I do think it made people in general more empathetic because, you know, we all went through a major crisis. You weren’t exempt from that regardless of your station in life. Right. Everybody went through it. So very true. Yeah. 

Brynne Tillman: So the last thing I want to talk about, although I kind of touched on it because I always kind of mess up our order of conversation. But is accessibility. So what I find so interesting is where you, you know, pre-pandemic, you know, I don’t know how I should have looked up you know, selling to the VIP, right?

Selling to the CEO. There were books on how you get through the gatekeeper and how you like how you and I think so pre-pandemic getting through to the high-level decision makers was hard. People were literally knocking on doors and leaving, you know, candy bars with, you know, with a business card or they were cold calling and they’d have their assistant answering and gatekeeping.

And so getting, I think to these CEOs pre-pandemic was hard. Now, during the pandemic and after, I think it’s been a lot easier if they share content. So we teach them to ring the bells or save leads in the sales navigator so that when they share content, we’re alerted and now engage. So when a CEO shares content and you engage, you matter to them.

We can get access to them faster, and stronger. We can reach out directly. Most CEOs don’t have an assistant gatekeeping their LinkedIn and so right. So we can get in. The other thing we could do that we couldn’t do before LinkedIn is social proximity. We can see who in our network knows that CEO and potentially make an introduction, and we’re coming in with a higher level of credibility.

So creeping down I think it was really hard to get those face-to-face interactions. It was really hard to get, you know, it was so like it was just really hard to get to them. And I think with everyone going digital because everyone went digital during the pandemic, they are now more accessible. What do you think about that?

Stan Robinson, Jr: That is That’s a good point. It did force more people to go digital and just to start to think about creative ways. So social proximity, as you were saying, even if your primary decision-makers do not explore on social, some of their colleagues may be right. So that’s what we talk about, connecting with people, you know, above or below horizontal.

Yep. To the person you’re trying to you can surround them socially and either get an introduction or just raise your level of visibility because you’re interacting with their peers and so forth. So yes, definitely. In that sense, it’s forced us all to be more creative and possibly to some extent people to be more, more receptive jobs interacting.

Brynne Tillman: Right. Because there’s an expectation of engagement. Right? It’s like you go to a networking, meaning you expect to start a conversation. So, yes, you know, so you folks are way more open if they share content and you engage on their content. They shared the content to start the conversation section. So I love that. The last thing I have before we wrap this up is I think there’s a huge shift in sales territories and in territory management.

From a sales leadership perspective. It used to be, you know, if you were in the Midwest, you had the Midwest territory, if you were in the Northeast, that was your territory and it was based on geographic location. It doesn’t have to be anymore anymore. And so I think that’s one of the biggest shifts in in companies is when they set up their, you know, their I keep saying territory, but Right.

Like the group they’re going after, it can now be based in setting up based on social proximity, not geographic proximity. So what I mean is typically it’s like you live in the Northeast, you get the Northeast, this is your territory. But now this is huge. You know, when we’re working with our corporate clients, we talk a lot about this.

How do you get the most out of your sales team? Well, first, let’s take inventory of who they’re connected to and at what company and who they know that’s connected to your target market and set up your accounts based on social proximity. No longer geographic proximity. And that to me is the biggest shift. 

Stan Robinson, Jr: Yes. For companies that realize that or are taught that like you mention because now we’ve never talked about this.

But I would guess that the clients that you mentioned until you mentioned social proximity, it’s not something they would have thought of themselves. Probably most of us see. Yeah, most of us are used to thinking of geography or verticals by industry. But but when you tell them, well, you can use social proximity and it’s almost account management or account structuring based on relationship rather than geography.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, this is something you can do probably with someone during an interview, you know, who are you connected to in these industries? If you connect with them on LinkedIn, you can search and you can see what their network looks like. I don’t know if that’s h.r. Compliant. So check with your H.R. Department where you’ve got i don’t want to be responsible, but I’m just saying, you know, you can see what is their social proximity because that when it comes to sales, that’s where you want to start.

You don’t want to just hand down the list of you know, you went to zoom info and pulled down 50 companies and say, go at it. You know what? If you went to Zoom info and you found 500 companies and then you drill it down to the companies they have connections in or they’re one away from, now you’ve got 50 companies that that they have a pathway to their buyers.

Yeah. So yeah that’s that that was a lot of fun and any last before we bring this in for Ellen they know that’s it That has been great. It’s going to be exciting to see how AI increasingly becomes integrated into the sales process. Yeah, add that to the tools that we’ve been using so the future’s exciting. Yeah. And if you’re looking for I mean, we’ve got tons of content in our free library.

If you go to social sales, Lincoln slash library, we’ve got lots and lots of free resources that can help you just be on the edge, the cutting edge, the leading edge of of the future of sales. That’s our commitment to you. So again, that social sales income slash library, you can check out some of our events at social sales links, slash events.

And if you are enjoying this episode, you might be alive. Go to the social sales link to accomplish podcast and follow our podcast to subscribe on whatever platform works for you. We would love that we’re on YouTube and all those fun places. Just come join us because it’s just so much fun to have you guys it So Stan, thank you for such an awesome conversation today.

Stan Robinson, Jr: I loved it. Same here. Thanks, Brynne. 

Brynne Tillman: And to everyone. Yep, To everyone out in the audience, in the listening visual, wherever you are consuming this when you are out and about, don’t forget to make your sales. So all I get is an episode. Visit socialsaleslink.com/podcast. Leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned, and what you want to hear from us next. Register for free resources at LinkedInLibrary.com. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.