How to Recover Your Sales Team from COVID-19

The last few months have challenged the way we live and the way we do business. Some organizations were able to pivot, such as fashion designers sewing masks and restaurants delivering to hospitals, and some organizations didn’t have that option.

Since March, when the government mandated all non-essential businesses to close their offices and send all employees home, companies of all types have needed to furlough and lay off workers. Although difficult, many are still in business.

Additionally, it’s become imperative for businesses to realign their strategy in order to survive. A key to developing a new strategy is having accurate visualization of data and information around how COVID-19 is affecting their own customers, and their customers', customers.

Below are a few examples of ways that companies who are facing these COVID-19 related challenges can find immediate benefit from the Salesforce Maps technology platform.

Region Realignment

Staying in business means staying connected to customers. Companies managing with leaner teams need to make quick changes to the way they distribute responsibilities. Down-sized sales teams need to cover larger and sometimes different territories and manage communications to more customers.

Realigning sales regions can be challenging in the best of times. Today, it’s more important than ever to have a clear picture of region boundaries and a tool that enables internal transparency for an effective and connected sales team.

Salesforce Maps delivers the visualization and the ability to layer important data. As the top accredited Salesforce Maps solution partners in the country, our implementations enable our clients to understand how internal and external data is affecting their regions so informed sales decisions can be made quickly.

External data, including public databases such as the Salesforce COVID-19 ArcGIS Layer for Maps and those offered from government websites or database subscriptions, such as LexisNexis or Dun and Bradstreet, are layered on top of Salesforce Maps to identify hot spots, COVID-19 or otherwise, that need attention.

Today, these hot spots can represent areas that may be under-served, in crisis, or about to reopen. This is valuable insight that will uncover how multiple regions will need to be managed differently. Our clients are working with us to create realignments that are both regional and strategic.

Territory Transition

As important as it is to focus on the now, it is equally as important to spend time planning for tomorrow. Business as usual is going to change multiple times over the next 12 – 18 months as the world searches for a vaccine. The way we all did business in January is different from March and will be different in May.

As the country picks up the pieces and brings the economy back to life, every non-essential business will be doing the same thing. Without truly knowing what that is going to look like, our clients are creating predictive data and territory visuals in anticipation of the end of furloughs and re-hiring those who were laid-off – at least some of them.

COVID-19 induced lean sales teams are short-lived, and companies need to prepare for growth, in their sales and their sales teams. Here again, we will be helping our Salesforce Maps clients strategize how to change their territory designations and welcome back their workforce.

Our strategic advice revolves around reviewing our clients pre-COVID processes and organization and evaluating whether they are still valid. What worked then may no longer work now, or later. Employees will be coming back to a different reality of business than when they left.

More than just working to survive, businesses need to thrive in this new landscape. To do so, they must leverage technology to run smarter, more informed, and more efficiently. Orion is already helping our clients get there.

COVID-19 has affected businesses across the country, and the world! Contact us for a Free Region/Territory Assessment (valued at $2,000) and we’ll show you what Salesforce Maps can do to help your company manage through this crisis and prepare for future growth!