Over half of channel salespeople find virtual selling 'challenging' - research

Forty per cent of channel sales teams have reported a negative impact on sales since pandemic started, according to report from Next Gen Sales Academy

Some 60 per cent of channel salespeople have found virtual selling a challenge in securing wins, according to research from Next Gen Sales Academy.

The report surveyed VARs, resellers and MSPs across the UK to investigate how the pandemic and virtual selling has affected salespeople, with 60 per cent responding that they have found it a challenge to win opportunities through virtual selling.

Some respondents described the process as "awkward", said it was much harder to keep customers engaged and that it is harder to decipher customers' thoughts through a screen. The remaining 40 per cent of respondents replied that they saw no difference in wins through virtual selling since the pandemic arose.

Over 40 per cent of partners had seen a negative impact on sales as a result of the pandemic, with 37 per cent replying that the crisis has had "somewhat" of a negative impact on sales, due to customers freezing or scaling back projects, cutting budgets, furloughed staff and financial restraints of current market conditions.

While partners who were "significantly" impacted service industries that have received the worst blows from the crisis, such as hospitality and aviation.

The 21 per cent of respondents who reported no change in said that though they are "busier than ever" they are not profitably busy, as they put their efforts into firefighting and keeping existing customer and "taking the foot off the marketing pedal".

"The world of IT sales has changed, potentially forever," stated Fiona Challis, founder of Next Gen Sales Academy and author of the report.

"As we enter into what is being referred to as the ‘New Norm' - with the majority of channel sales being conducted virtually - we wanted to establish whether virtual selling has created new challenges or simply exasperated existing ones such as prospecting, lead generation, winning new business, differentiating, selling on value rather than price, getting customers to make decisions, and overcoming price objections, to name but a few."

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, respondents revealed that 41 per cent of sales calls and meeting were already being conducted virtually in the channel. That figure has now increased to 83 per cent.

Virtual selling is here to stay, according to the report, and Challis encouraged the adoption of "old-fashioned" methods such as cold-calling in lieu of face-to-face meetings.

"Although it is not surprising to see this huge leap, it is refreshing to see that we were still closing a considerable amount of sales virtually pre-pandemic; This is largely coming from channel partners who have inside sales and telesales teams." Challis continued.

"However, it is worth reminding sales teams of this percentage, as it proves that pre-pandemic and before most sales meetings and calls happened over Zoom and Teams, we did actually make and close sales by picking up the good, old-fashioned phone - a method that many seem to be forgetting about today."

Almost half of respondents reported that the number one challenge in virtual selling was buyers not making decisions, followed by prospecting, lead generation and appointments, and building relationships and keeping customers engaged.

The report also revealed a lack of confidence among channel sales teams, with only 23 per cent reporting that they were "extremely effective" in demonstrating why they were the best choice for a buyer, a third of respondents felt they were extremely effective at understanding the customer's needs and 22 per cent believed that were extremely effecting at demonstrating how they differentiate in the market.

The pandemic has shown customers that working with channel partners should be an "essential" part of their business strategies, Challis said, though she warned that the past seven months have allowed customers to ruminate on their existing channel relationships and looking elsewhere if they are unsatisfied with their current technology partner.

"Many customers have now had time to reflect on how happy they were with their reseller, VAR or MSP over the last seven months. If they were dissatisfied, they are now looking to move away from their incumbent partner," she stated.

"The knock-on effect of this - which we are already seeing evidence of daily - is a great big client land grab exercise in the channel. Bearing this in mind, channel sales professionals need to adjust towards virtual selling. However, they also need to build their defence wall to prevent existing customers from getting snatched away [and] build a new business battle plan to get a slice of the new pie."