Despite the current doom and gloom there are still lots of selling and buying going on and even if things have slowed (or stopped) there are loads of things we can do right now that will affect current and future sales.

Elliot Epstein, one of the world’s most formidable advisers and coaches on persuasion, presentation and selling and I chatted recently about how to sell in times of corona.

Here’s just a few of the topics we explored:

• How to tap into our shared global safety and hygiene paranoia
• Which industries are thriving now,
• Which industries will be thriving next
• Which will not come back
• evaluating and prioritising clients with a Covid-19 lens
• what you must do right now

Lots of other practical tips and advice, absolutely worth a listen.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Elliot Epstein: [00:00:00] So someone ate a bat apparently, and the world turned upside down.

Hi, I’m Elliot Epstein, and I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training in speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C suite sales call, and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that’s very foreign.

Welcome to selling in a time of Corona.

In this week’s episode, we’re going to look at the future of sales. The future being an interesting word. Is that the future? Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or beyond. We’re going to look at all of those scenarios. [00:01:00] I’m delighted to introduce you to Morris miselowski and Morris I go a long way back.

In fact. We both went to school together all those years ago. Now since then, Morris has become a leading global futurist, an expert in his field, who’s spoken all over the world about what’s coming around the corner in business. In addition to which he’s an adjunct industry fellow at Griffith university and the only futurist and the first Australian to ever be invited.

To  the G100 global think tank, so he’s well worth listening to. I of course, went on to become very tall. Here is my chat with Morris Miselowski on the future of sales. Welcome, Morris it’s great to have you as part of selling in a time of Corona. And I’m sure my [00:02:00] listeners in clients,  eagerly awaiting what insights you have because you can share with sales leaders and sales directors and sales people what you think is coming around the corner.

So what’s top of mind for you right now?

Morris Miselowski: [00:02:16] Thanks for having me on Elliot. Something that I wanted to do for a very long period of time. Yeah. There is so many things that we need to talk about that it’s really difficult to prioritize. Firstly, let’s just get to the elephant in the room. We all know that we’re going through difficult times.

This is not a broad cow to talk about them. Let’s move on from there and talk about the ramifications of it instead. Sorry. To me, it really is a matter of trying to understand as always. The implications of what we’re facing and the maybe the short, medium, and longterm ramifications of it. And for selling this so vital, because we have gone into the Sci-Fi equivalent [00:03:00] of a black hole, we’ve literally gone into a black space that makes no sense to us.

We can’t see clearly and like any good sci-fi adventure when we come out of it at the other end with coming to a brand new galaxy. And I think we’re exactly at that point where we will move forward five and in some industries, 10 years in these short few months that we have been incarcerated in our homes, and there’s so much change that you and I need to talk about and our listeners need to take on board.

Elliot Epstein: [00:03:34] So what do you think are the major changes that are going to occur for the people that are selling professional services. And product. Now, that wasn’t the case, so a couple of months ago,

Morris Miselowski: [00:03:50] well, firstly we’re about to, we have lost or about to lose, about 12% of businesses will never reopen there than this.

[00:04:00] Some of those were struggling anyway. Some of them just couldn’t stick around and hibernate and some of those will evolve or implode or do whatever, but they will disappear. That’s 275,000 businesses. So the first thing we need to do is to understand our own landscape, look at our database, look at our CRM, and.

Figure out who is still around. Who is it that wants to buy our product? Who wants to buy our services? What do those businesses look like when they come out the other side of this and they will come out of it very, very different justice. We will, their needs will be different. Their approach will be different.

The conversations will be different. The evidence that they’re looking for from our sales paper will be different. Everything will be different because this. Well, this period that we are going through has scarred and

Elliot Epstein: [00:04:53] changed us. I think it’s interesting in a lot of, a lot of the [00:05:00] content that I’ve been discussing with my clients for almost two decades now, which is about the authentic engagement with a client.

Stop selling, stop the methodology, stop trying to steer people down a path. And become an authentic conversationalist with your clients and remove your agenda is probably never been more relevant than now. And the humanity that you’re talking about here is exactly on point with what people are going to be facing coming out of this.

So what percentage of those 275,000 are in corporate land, which is where my clients live as opposed to the restaurant or cafe up the road that unfortunately won’t open again.

Morris Miselowski: [00:05:46] It’s really hard to be specific on that,  as much as I’m trying to be. And the reason for that is this is a really lumpy, bumpy conversation.

We’ll need to go through it sector by sector, industry by industry, and ask ourselves [00:06:00] either than industry or sector or business. That can have survived is an industry that can thrive. And we’ll come to those in a couple of moments because there are industries literally that are booming now and now there are industries that will need to reinvent in, reinvigorate, or do something different to in, in order to survive into tomorrow.

But to answer your question, I think we’re about 50 /50 I think we’re about 50 of corporate and 50 of mainstream. They will be so much wholesale change that we need to consider.

Elliot Epstein: [00:06:32] Yeah. So status quo management of accounts and territory management just isn’t possible going forward when we come out of this and come out of the cave.

So you mentioned the sector’s Morris, I’m sure everyone’s came to know what sectors are booming and are going to continue to boom when we look at market opportunities and what should we avoid and be more clinical and ruthless about.

Morris Miselowski: [00:06:58] First thing is. Sales should [00:07:00] never be status quo. Are you preached that day in, day out.

The reality is that each one of these are individuals. Each one of them are specific circumstances to that time. This notion that we can do one method of selling or have one note in our sales tool makes no sense whatsoever in the past and will make even less sense now. We will need to adapt and change to every circumstance as we always should have.

Proven so now, so the industry is really riding high at the moment that are doing well right now in the middle of all this anx for most of us are things like government funded services because they need to continue. So we’re seeing. Lots of industry around health and police and defense and welfare, aged care, even though it has its issues, is again looking for innovative answers and solutions.

So they’re out there actively looking for those. They have budget in one way or another, and now it’s all tied. It’s different. The government’s impacting none of this, the [00:08:00] pure conversation, but they are still in there. You’ve got utilities. We of course, need our power, our energy, our internet. The water waste recycling.

Those industries have not stopped. In fact, they’ve only increased. If you take something like health and hygiene, which I think will be an interesting thread of conversation in all of our lives after this, it will impact in every industry, but they are the front runners of it. Vaping, the water, the waste and the recycling.

But for you, and I. Just as an aside, why I think it’s an important issue to bring up is because we’ve been taught in the last couple of weeks to wash our hands, to be careful of whom we speak to, to be careful of how far away we are from an object or to touch something or to do something. This is going to leave us really sensitive.

We’re beginning to question whether things are okay, whether they’re to use your word, whether they’re authentic with the healthy, whether we should be engaging with them, [00:09:00] and that mindset, which is really one of Mazlow’s lowest hierarchies. I think he’s going to kick back in very, very quickly.

When we get back into whatever normal becomes meaning your people will need, obviously not necessarily to talk about hand sanitizers, but to talk about safety and security is being proud of working with them as part of the sales process as part of being a collaborative partner. In that process, it will be about health and safety.

I will keep you safe. I will keep you informed. These products are covered. Safe meaning. That it is likely we will see situations like this again, so we can begin to preempt by putting product services, opportunities in place right now should it happen again? It sounds really basic. Human needs are going to be part of a landscape, a conversation, at least for the first six months after we escaped attention.

Elliot Epstein: [00:09:55] That safety point is, is excellent. And I think all of [00:10:00] us in sales, I, to need to look at our value propositions and see where the safety and security of our offering jumps up to near the top when it comes to, what it is that we’re offering clients and what our benefits statements are going to be in addition to HR shared with a client the other day.

this is going to be a bit like marriage counseling where with clients and suppliers have been together for a while and they go through a rough patch and then when you come out the other side, you almost have to learn to re communicate with each other and not take each other for granted so that you can have a better relationship going forward.

And, and I think the, the one of the biggest risks nowadays is to trade clients as if this is just a blip and we’ll continue along the same Merry way with the same budgets and the same products in the same consumption rate as what’s been happening in the [00:11:00] past. And it’s simply not the case. We have to see things with fresh eyes and have a look at how we’re going to reinvigorate that relationship.

And one final point on that is that. The, the essence of what we do with clients has to be done with a new set of evidence and tools. Because what you said three months ago, it might not apply now in addition to which the person to whom you’re speaking with may be very different because people have downsized.

I imagine out of all of those businesses you mentioned that are going by the wayside there. Huge numbers of people that simply want to have a job, so you may have a different decision maker and all of that has to be re-invigorated again from scratch as if you haven’t met them before. What are your thoughts?

Morris Miselowski: [00:11:51] Absolutely. I would say that was ongoing anyway, even before this, we should never take anyone for granted. But never more so than now. We really do have to start [00:12:00] from ground zero. But one of the things that I would urge your listeners to do, and I know because they listen to you, they’re doing this, but just want to put a line under it, is we need to be building those relationships right now.

And not from a sales viewpoint, but from a human kindness viewpoint. Go into our clients, go into those businesses. I’m not talking physically, I’m talking digitally and have the conversations with them about how things are going for them now as individuals, even if they’re home, not able to do their work.

Go back and reconnect because that’s what this time is about. Big great karma, you know, bank points for later on. But it’s also a terrific way to understand what their needs are and to begin to give each other hope, hope that we will get back to a normal round of activity. So absolutely, it is very, very much like marriage counseling and the other end of that, that we will come out of this different human beings with different needs.

So. We must be sure that the landscape is one that we [00:13:00] understand. So we have to make sure that we haven’t taken for granted that what was before will be after, cause it won’t be the person who’s going to be vastly different as well. They will have evolved and changed either dramatically or not because of this period of time.

The products and services that they want are going to be changed as well and likely very likely the budgets that they have will have changed. There are just so many of those variable landscapes. Which is why I think it’s imperative we start doing that groundwork right now.

Elliot Epstein: [00:13:30] You mentioned budgets, Morris, it’s a, it’s a really good, why is a final topic to address how we go forward with our pitches and presentations and our value propositions?

So what are your thoughts on what will happen to clients’ budgets? Are they going to have. The same budget of I going to be severely restricted, or is it I simply a model or restructuring change in the way they finance things? where do you say the whole [00:14:00] budget management taking place.

Morris Miselowski: [00:14:04] I think, well, the answer is the same one as I gave before, and that’s lumpy and bumpy.

It’ll be different for every industry. Those industries are going really well now. The governments, utilities, construction, infrastructure, technology, software, the essentials, like the groceries, the bottle shops, local manufacturing, mining resources. They will have come through this and they watch us, we’ll actually have increased.

They will have more money than before and they’ll be looking for different kinds of solutions that we’ll be looking to ensure that they can again, ride through a covert like activity. And unfortunately, I think it is part of a landscape for us moving forward. So they will have a very, very different conversation.

Are the industries that have been a bit hard to hit. The tourism ones, the ones where perhaps they had all this social isolation that just didn’t work for them. Those sorts of industries that are of course going to have much smaller budgets and they’re going to be looking for a [00:15:00] very different relationship with you.

We also need to be looking at the businesses that will start to come out of this. Because the other thing I would ask your listeners to do is to begin to think about the industries that will evolve once covered begins to be relaxed. So once we are told that there are things that we can do that we couldn’t do last week and again in a couple of weeks, we’ll be told that again and again.

Industries will begin to flourish in each one of those individual pockets. As we open and we need to figure out which ones of our client base is likely to be in, which one of those tronches of activity. For instance, for me, I’m fairly sure that we will see  growth as we have already in online stores and online commerce.

I would be getting into those sorts of clients immediately having conversations with them. All the clients that you might have that are, that are providing, working from home services in a myriad of ways are well-worth contacting now health and pharmaceuticals. [00:16:00] We obviously have a healthcare industry now that’s coping with this crisis, but once we get past that, we’re going to have to go back.

We’re going to have to look at all those elective surgeries, all the things that have been put off, all the things that we couldn’t go out to buy, all the cosmetics, et cetera. That industry is going to come back again, gone through all your industries and kind of figure out what timing you think when in that next set of activities, when we begin to be released slowly and slowly into the wild, when are they likely to come back in and have needs.

Elliot Epstein: [00:16:32] Yeah, that’s an excellent, a small but powerful example of re looking at your prospect list, and you mentioned the CRM earlier, the, this is the time to really dig into your CRM and figure out almost from a selfish point of view. So we talk about being client centric, but there’s a time when you need to be selfish and guy Ron, who needs me right now.

Who wants [00:17:00] me right now, who can afford me right now? And if they can’t make those criteria, then there are other ways of having them. And I, I still see companies struggling with second clients that aren’t the right ones for them now. Now that might sound harsh, but if, if we’re in survival and growth mode, we need to be clinical about where we spend our time and where we spend our resources.

And then that leaves us time to go and help people who really want and need our services because they are on a different trajectory. And that doesn’t mean it’s a binary decision where you, you Chuck people out and and just grow others. But there are going to be some really important criteria that people set that determines where you spend your time.

And I think it becomes a negotiation mindset. I think I should ask you mindset as opposed to selling says where, [00:18:00] where are we going to deliver value for both parties? And when you do that, I think everyone wins in the long run.

Morris Miselowski: [00:18:09] The only thing I would add into that Elliot is I want our listeners to think broader and wider than I did before.

There are opportunities now to engage with our clients in the way that we haven’t had. We haven’t had the opportunity. Collaboration’s now we’re working so well. These covert. Collaborations. You look at perhaps, you know, the takeaway store or the restaurant that’s now selling the flour and the tomatoes and all the ingredients that go into making the food they want sold as a finished product.

If you go through your industries, is there an opportunity now to collaborate in ways that you didn’t do before? Expand your market. Don’t just go back into the narrow wise did you once sold or the ones the why you once connected with PayPal. It’s a terrific opportunity to look at your business models and your pricing models and begin to ponder, is there another way that I can [00:19:00] engage?

Because right now people are so open to suggestion. They’re so open to a point of difference. They’re so open to look at opportunity. This window may not come

Elliot Epstein: [00:19:09] again

Morris Miselowski: [00:19:10] I

Elliot Epstein: [00:19:11] do.

Morris Miselowski: [00:19:12] I absolutely do. And it only, it’s only because if we revert back to a child, we are literally now carrying in a corner.

We’re unsure of what’s happening in the outside world. We kind of believe there is one and there will be one. And I totally believe there will be, but we’re never sure. Every moment brings something different. You and I are literally. Reading the newspaper or listening to the radio or doing whatever we can in each one of those pieces of information is mildly or significantly changing our life.

Elliot Epstein: [00:19:46] That’s true. And you think that, decision makers in the coming six to 12 months, I don’t have to be more open than ever. So in the past where people have said, Oh, we don’t have the budget. We’re not looking [00:20:00] at that for another year. We don’t have time to transition into a new system. We’ve heard that accounts supplier, you think all those things are up for grabs there, don’t you?

Morris Miselowski: [00:20:09] I do except not the six to 12 month period. I think it’s right now. I truly think it’s right now. This is, this is the Latins cave door slowly opening. We’re all looking for solutions. We’re all willing to have different conversations. We’re willing to be human and we’re also willing to be kind. There are lots of things that are taking us back to that human element within each of us.

The reason I’m pushing against six or 12 is that human nature is, once we get back. On the treadmill again, and this is in our revision as much as we think it is or can be, and it begins to normalize. There is a strong chance we will revert back to type. So I think right now, which is why I suggested we should be making those marketing calls, those contact calls, not necessarily from selling, but just from how’s life looking for you?

And again, spreading the news, spreading the gossip, which is what, which [00:21:00] I also think is part of what a salesperson should do. What gossip, I mean industry information, not about people, but about trends, about what they’re seeing. Start to use that as a way to build a really solid base and relationship. And yes, I think now for the next three months or so, there is a golden opportunity to talk differently.

Elliot Epstein: [00:21:21] There’s some fantastic insights, Morris, I really appreciate it. And more importantly, I think my clients and and listeners will appreciate. such great content and, and things and ideas that they can implement now, not just in the future. So it’s been great to catch up with you again. can we sing kumbaya or some kind of encouraging song at the end?

Now

Morris Miselowski: [00:21:46] while I’m sitting here churning up for you?

Elliot Epstein: [00:21:48] Thanks. Get your Sitara and I’ll join you in a minute. Maurice has been fantastic. Thank you again and we’ll see you soon.

Morris Miselowski: [00:21:56] Be safe, be kind and be well everybody.

[00:22:00] Elliot Epstein: [00:22:00] To get in touch with Morris. He’s email address is Morris@Businessfuturist.com ask him a question drop him a line.

Let him know what you think after what you’ve just heard. Morris conducts workshops all across the world with directors and sales directors, leadership teams talking about their sectors and what’s coming around the corner. So he’s a good guy to get in touch with. Plus he has a great head for radio.

I’m still running my workshops on sales development, helping people wing pitchers, so I get in touch if you’d like me to work with your team and keep those deals coming in. Remember, your ears are safe. Morris and I both wore masks during this entire podcast. Take care of yourselves. Till next time. [00:23:00]