Back in May, when the pandemic was still new and we were still learning to maneuver the “new normal”, I was lucky enough to have Doug Landis of Emergence Capital on EVOLVERS.
We were more than excited to grab him for an interview, to discuss what he was seeing in the rapidly changing climate and recommending to portfolio companies, the importance of visibility, empathetic messaging and a “spectrum of value”.
Here are a few of the thoughts he shared when asked how he felt it was going regarding the “work from home” adjustment all around:
“It actually kind of feels like people are starting to figure out how to identify what a new normal will look and feel like. That includes in the panic state and even now a reassessing of revenue forecasting and bookings. Most sales leaders kind of across-the-board are adjusting their revenue projections downwards by anywhere from 40 to 60 percent which is pretty significant. Some are doing it on a quarterly basis, maybe not full annualized basis because they just don’t know what turning the corner is going to look like in the back half of the year. And while revenue expectations may come down, they are still kind of commitments to further…the end of last year the beginning of this years booking targets, of which I think they’re kind of holding people to. As a “hey, if we turn the corner maybe we can still hit that”. But for all intents and purposes everybody just knows that things have dramatically changed.
When it comes to visibility, I think one of the biggest challenges most sales leaders faced the moment everybody started working from home is “What the hell is everybody doing?” And as CEOs they got a little bit paranoid like, “Ok VP of sales…Do you still have control of your team because when you were all sitting together you can see the leader boards, you can see the people who are spending too much time by the water cooler having too many snacks or cigarette breaks or whatever it may be, but now it’s very different. What we’ve seen is activity levels actually initially off the charts. Way up. However, conversely, the meetings held was not in sync.
Interestingly enough HubSpot just came out with a report today or yesterday that actually, meetings held now, that number is creeping back up. So it’s almost like there’s a little bit of a shift, but the challenge and especially in this new norm, I think – there’s gonna be more freedom in the ability to work from home. And largely it may be forced because you can’t have everybody in the same office at the same time.”
Listen to the full interview here! https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ubDmbbvS3OjGKHnTCK2Hu
How far we’ve come in so little time, peeps!
Keep evolving EVOLVERS!
Until next time…
#salesenablement #digitalsales #newnormal
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