About This Episode

An awful lot of people are stressed out right now. A whole generation of sales professionals are living through the most turbulent sales landscape they’ve ever encountered. 

Maybe you weren’t a sales professional during the 2008 economic downturn, or you were too young to have been in the industry during the dot com bubble burst of 2000 & 2001. 

If we’re completely honest with ourselves, it can be really tempting to wallow in negativity. To look at the current landscape and write the whole thing off as a lost cause. Maybe it’s time to pack it up and change careers. Throw in the towel. 

Not so fast. 

On this episode of the Sales Engagement Podcast, we got to sit down with Steve DeMarco. Steve is the Chief Revenue Officer at LeanData, and has been a sales professional during some of the most volatile and turbulent times the industry has seen in the last several decades. 

He’s come through the 2000 dot com bubble burst, the 2008 economic recession, and now the 2020 COVID pandemic, and he’s got some solid advice on how to deal with this insanity. 

Master the Fundamentals

Look, it may sound basic, but there’s never a wrong time to be furthering your grasp on the fundamental aspects of your profession. In the midst of hard times, it’s more important than ever. It all comes down to your ability to strip things down and focusing on the fundamental basics. 

You’ve got to know your customer. Make it a point to contact every single one and just talk to them. Don’t try to sell them anything. Ask them how they’re dealing with things, what you can do for them, and how they’re getting through the challenges they’re facing. 

Figure out how you can be of service to them. Maybe they need help dealing with a new technology. Maybe they’re needing to restructure a contract. Or maybe they just want a listening ear. 

Focus on Enablement

Now is the perfect time to focus on enablement. It’s the perfect time to be spending the time with your team, helping them to learn a new skill, teaching them the strategies to make it through this, particularly if you’ve gone through hard times in your career. 

An effective leader is not one that has never undergone any sort of hardships or trials. Effective leaders are ones that have stared down adversity and come out on the other side stronger than before.

Because make no mistake, when this crisis is over, and it will eventually be over, you’re going to be stronger and better as a result of having gone through it. Especially if you’ve used the time to develop skills and techniques to help you and your team and your customers get through it was well. 

Don’t Dwell on the Negative

It’s easy to get down. It happens to us all. It’s hard to turn the news on or open Twitter without being bombarded by all the awful things that are happening. And it’s okay to think about them. 

But to dwell on them, to allow them to dictate your mood, your demeanor, and your leadership style, that’s not effective and isn’t going to get you very far. Your team needs you, especially if you’re a leader, to double down on the positivity. 

Nobody is asking you to be a robot. To not have feelings or thoughts or emotions. We’re all humans and we all deal with things in our own ways. Your team doesn’t expect you to be Fred Rogers. 

But the reality is that some of the most innovative things in our world today were birthed out of the response to a crisis. So many processes and great ideas for tools are going to come out of what we’re dealing with today, and you can either pout and sit on the sidelines, or you can encourage your team to double down on communication, double down on contacts, and double down on enablement. 

Because that’s what’s going to get you places. To get you through this and make you and your teams better on the other side. 

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