How To Adjust Your Outbound Sales Approach During This Time

Life as we know it has been completely altered as a result of the current scenario and, because of this, our professional life has changed quite a bit too. If you’re in Sales, your outbound prospecting approach will need to be adjusted. Authentic rapport-building was always a paramount skill in sales, but it is now even more important. In that introduction, give your prospects peace of mind, embracing a positive outlook that life will return to normal and that you will be able to provide your services as usual once again, when they are ready. As you have likely already given some thought to your sales approach during this time, consider the tone and content of your message.   

Tone  

Empathy and confidence are key. While making outbound sales calls, keep the following in mind: 

• Make sure your tone does not display weakness or uncertainty. Your prospects are likely worried about a million other things right now – like their own business operations, working from home, the virus itself. If you sound uncertain about whether or not you will be able to deliver your services, your prospect will not want to give you their time. Be confident – but not arrogant. Let your prospect know that life will return to normal sooner rather than later. In fact, according to HubSpot, “if you seem nervous, they’ll assume you don’t have a good reason to call, but appearing self-assured and in command will make you seem credible.” And during this time, in particular, you are going to want to come across as credible.  

• Make sure your tone is not insensitive – now is not the time to undermine the issue at hand or act like it’s not in front of us.  Let your tone tell your prospect that you empathize with them. An introduction might look like, “I know for some owners, getting new accounts is not the first thing top of mind right now – for many, it’s survival mode. I don’t expect this to be a priority on your list, but today is just an introduction so that down the road perhaps we can be thought of.” Talk about disarming a prospect! 

Content 

Your usual outbound sales content will also need to be altered in response to the current time. Consider these tips when adjusting the content of your outbound sales strategy: 

• Your prospects may view your message as insensitive if you do not address the current pandemic, but you are going to want to address it in the right way. In an effort to avoid inducing more panic than there needs to be, try not to use words like “panic,” or “crisis” while on the phone with your prospects. Instead, use words like “scenario” or “situation” when referring to the issue at hand. By doing this, your prospects will feel less anxiety with the right choice of words and may be more interested in what you have to say.  

• Make sure you express your ‘getting to know them’ meeting flexibility through your content. We as humans thrive off human connection and, unfortunately, that is not possible for the time being. When it comes to generating in-person appointments, say something like this, “Well we know meeting in person may not be feasible right now, but XYZ will be important again in just a bit of time, which is why I was hoping we could put something in our schedules to meet in-person, perhaps three weeks from now. We’ll, of course, send calendar invites should we need to adjust anything down the road. Do you have your schedule handy so we could look 3-4 weeks from now?”

• If your sales ability has the capability (and if not, can you improve your own skills in this approach), consider phone or video meetings for some of your prospects. Say something like this: “While meeting in person over the next couple weeks isn’t feasible given the circumstance, we still would like to connect and would love to arrange a day when we can either chat by phone or else a zoom meeting, do you have a preference on which?”

While there is no telling how long this uncertain situation will last, there are changes you can make to your outbound sales approach right now that will help your business maintain success. Consider making changes to the tone and content of your message – be confident, empathetic and flexible. Although this is a difficult time for a lot of people, and this virus has wreaked havoc on a lot of industries, this can still offer a rebirth, of sorts for many of you reading this. We can only hope that life will resume sometime soon, but until then the best thing to do is give your prospects peace of mind and let them know that you are committed to working through this, and see it through on the other side.