If you’re in the business of selling almost anything these days, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s long been a salesperson’s complaint that the real challenge in getting an order delivered doesn’t truly begin until the order has been secured. No matter how many articles are written about checklists and hacks and secrets to making sure an order is perfectly written and sans any hairy details, we all have programs that require multiple touchpoints and approvals in order to go live. We have to juggle details on three or more sides of the supply chain, so it’s been an easy complaint to bellyache about the home office making a salesperson’s life difficult.
On the client-side of this equation, not much has changed in the way most companies are organized for decision-making, but the process for getting those decisions across the finish-line has become agonizingly slow. The pandemic has introduced a litany of factors that are all playing a role in the sloth-like pace of communication between clients and promotional marketing consultants. This enormous grind of a halt to the decision-making process has largely to do with negative impacts to staffing due to furloughs, lay-offs, and worse. Couple that with a presidential transition, inflation concerns, and the uneven nature of our national economy, and even those controlling the purse strings are feeling the pressure of a bad decision. When faced with this multitude of challenges, our ability to move things across the finish line pays the price.
On the supplier side of the equation, it’s been like the Wild West. Bandits and marauders await around every bend, containers waiting in port for months, products marooned inside. While there may have been valid complaints about a supplier here or there in years past, we are witnessing a pretty depressing landscape when it comes to our partners’ ability to reliably do the work we’ve grown accustomed to expecting, demanding even. Now, instead of us asking supply chain partners anything else, we begin and end with one question; What can we reliably sell, and how long is that information relevant? This scarcity of product availability has translated to us having to take a more central role in the decision-making process with our clients, right in a moment when they’re incredibly unsure about what to do. The results have been bumpy.
Here’s how the pandemic really put us in trouble. The willingness for your clients to feel confident explaining the specifics behind their concerns has taken a direct hit, in that we almost never find ourselves in those more intimate, face-to-face moments when the client can give you the real answers, the answers we need to smooth the road to yes. Absent those opportunities, we lose the trust built in those face-to-face meetings, as it’s been proven that time apart is the surest way to ruin a great relationship. Few person-to-person commitments can survive in an environment that has created both uncertainty AND physical separation, and I for one cannot wait until we figure out how to reliably add those opportunities to share honest answers and thoughts in the presence of one another back to the mix. I know we won’t have them with the frequency we once did during the sales process, but their absence has proven their real value to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Without them, we’re left waiting. And wondering. And waiting some more.
If you’re not in a place to be able to be patient, the waiting could potentially be more than just the hardest part. It could be the last refrain in the song that has been your business. Absent your ability to be patient, it’s best to find a product from a supplier you trust, establish your willingness to sell as much of that specific product as possible for said supplier, and find every buyer possible for that item or items. It looks a lot like our dance this past year with PPE, but maybe this time with a cooling neck gaiter for the summer outdoor work crew or work from home exercise program boxes from the company HR Department to its employees would be a worthy offer.
Roger has spent 20+ years making complex concepts more understandable for both buyers and sellers alike, and has devoted the majority of his recent career to injecting purpose via philanthropy to his sales and marketing efforts. He’s intent on making the world a better place and his nirvana exists at the intersection of Mission, Passion, Profession and Vocation. He loves the outdoors and seeks memorable experiences whenever possible. Contact Roger at roger@socialgoodpromotions.com or 810-986-5369.