Time to hit the road? Companies ponder when to return to in-person sales calls

Remember looking someone in the eye, shaking their hand and building a relationship?

The question now is when will those interactions become the norm again.

A study by Salesforce about business-to-business salespeople “found that 81% expect to conduct more business online after the pandemic than they did before.”

In the North Bay, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, especially when COVID-19 is not actually in the rearview mirror given the Delta variant and the mask wearing rules being reinstated.

For Napa Valley Distillery, outside sales will not be a component of the business in 2021 and may never be again.

The Napa company in its first year having salespeople call on businesses had a “pretty successful” 2019. Then the bottom fell out in 2020 because of the pandemic. The two salespeople were let go.

“We are making an investment in the company, but not in outside sales. We lost that momentum. To get that back will require a deeper investment than we are willing to make at this time,” said distillery owner Arthur Hartunian.

For other companies, it’s more of a gradual approach to having people return to the field instead of jumping in with both feet as though it were 2019.

Hybrid sales teams

Solar Energy Partners expects one-third of its 20-person sales force will forever work remotely, essentially turning them into inside salespeople. Prior to the pandemic, sales calls with customers were all in person, while at the height of the pandemic the work was all virtual.

“If you go remote, you have a broader area. You can go straight from appointment to appointment. We’ve definitely seen a higher number of appointments in a day (with remote workers),” Alex Williams, founding partner, said. The flip side is “normally we see a higher closing percentage with in person visits.”

For now, the Turlock-based company with sales teams in the North Bay, is letting the individual salesperson decide how he or she wants to work.

Selling equipment and installation during the height of the pandemic cost SolarCraft money because the process required multiple remote meetings instead of the usual one in-person session with a customer.

“Personally, I don’t think the world is going back to pre-pandemic anything. We are committed to doing what I call ‘doing it right.’ We are seeing the sites before we bid them and sell what we believe we can build at a fair price. We are trying to make this as efficient as possible,” CEO Ted Walsh said.

Of the 50 employees at SolarCraft, 11 are in sales. A salesperson was added to the team in the last year to keep up with the additional work. One became more like an independent contractor because she wanted to only work remotely.

Figuring out what works

Fast Signs in Windsor opened just prior to the pandemic with the plan to establish an outside sales team. Owner Shawn Nichols pulled the plug on that idea before he could launch it.

When he was ready to go forward this year with outside sales the Delta variant of COVID-19 began making headlines. Again, hiring outside salespeople is on hold.

Nichols said meeting with people in person instead of cold calling is a better way to show potential customers the marketing collateral Fast Signs can provide. His belief is outside sales will generate more income for the shop.

In 2019, the U.S. Census listed more people working in outside sales (52.8%) compared to inside (45.5%).

However, in early June there were more job listings in the United States for inside sales positions (117,436) than outside sales (32,049), according to the ZoomInfo database.

“Almost 90 percent of sales have moved to a videoconferencing/phone/web sales model, and while some skepticism remains, more than half believe this is equally or more effective than sales models used before COVID-19,” McKinsey & Company reported on its website.

Even Walsh at SolarCraft knows some positives came out of the pandemic.

“The pandemic forced us to modernize our business internally. We had to fully convert to digital so employees could work remote,” Walsh said. Still, he says, “I don’t think presenting sales information over Zoom is more efficient.”

Preferring personal approach

On June 15, as soon as California was declared open for business, salespeople at the CED Greentech in Santa Rosa began seeing clients in person.

“Our business is pretty old school; we are about human contact. I don’t find that the non-human touch element of the business works as well. You lose personal communication, the candor is sometimes lost with Zoom, people are not as honest as they would be in person,” said Tyson Berg, sales manager at Greentech. The company is a division of Consolidated Electrical Distributors Inc., one of the largest electrical product wholesale distributors in the country.

His customers are contractors. Training those folks how to install energy storage systems used to involve large groups in the conference room. Because of the pandemic those sessions are delivered outside in groups of four.

When meetings with contractors do take place face-to-face, a 6-foot separation is maintained. Berg said the first question people ask is about being vaccinated. The company is not mandating employees get the vaccine, but it is providing access to the shot for workers who want it.

While Berg would prefer to see every contractor in person, he knows life is not going to return to what it was like before the pandemic.

“A lot of key people you may never see again because they have moved. We have at least 12 key contacts as contractors who have moved,” he said.

They are working from their new home, which means Berg will have to continue to keep his three sets of AirPods charged so he can keep chatting on the phone or be engaged in some other virtual manner.

Another North Bay business preferring in person sales transactions is Global Package.

“I love visiting with customers and the rest of the staff feels the same way. They energize you. They have a need, you listen and you find solutions and there is so much gratifications,” said Erica Harrop, founder and CEO of Global Package. “It is so much more fun to go out and see them.”

The Napa company specializes in sourcing and supplying glass for small to large projects.

In-person sales means being able to bring samples to clients, for them to be feel the glass, to fully understand its weight and true color; not just rely on written specifications or what can be seen on a computer screen.

While most of Global Package’s clients are wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties, the pandemic allowed the company to expand into distilleries and other regions of the state.

The nine-member team, which includes three outsides salespeople and one inside salesperson, mostly worked in the office during the height of the pandemic. Everyone suddenly being an inside salesperson meant rejiggering how to make the company work.

“(It) made us on a regular basis reflect how can we best work if we are not going to see people. Instead of following a routine, we had to revise how we were going to do business and where we were doing it. If you are going to be out of office all the time, a lot of time is follow up. If you are in the office, you can have greater reach,” Harrop said.

For Harrop, it’s not just selling a product and moving onto the next client. It’s about building relationships. For her team the best way to do that is in person.

“You want to be seen as a bonus, as a plus for their business, so they need to know who you are,” Harrop said. “It is most valuable to still have people on the road because we are part of their team, we are working for their benefit.”