(Editor’s note: This is the eighth installment in a weekly series on how Cooley Group is managing the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of its CEO. See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7 here.)
The Cooley sales team of account managers across five business units is challenged to service a highly diversified customer base even without a pandemic. Our products offer solutions in a wide range of industries in over 50 countries on six continents. At Cooley, selling has always been a collaborative, face-to-face process.
Then the crisis hit.
In March, flying home from a technical conference that would prove to be my last business trip of 2020, I canceled all of my and the sales team’s upcoming meetings in Europe and the Middle East due to news reports of the novel coronavirus spreading across the globe. Returning to Cooley, I quickly realized the grim reality: Cooley Group excels at face-to-face customer service but has very little practice servicing our global customers virtually.
Out of necessity, the team learned to build effective relationships digitally.
What we learned over the past 12 weeks has permanently transformed the sales team. Out of necessity, the team learned to build effective relationships digitally and to consider customer orders more holistically. Sales is not necessarily about successfully marketing Cooley products, but about understanding the problem our customer seeks to solve by purchasing our product.
With the time and financial savings garnered by canceling business trips, our team conducts market research and calls on customers more regularly. What we have lost in in-person meetings, we’ve made up for by speaking to our customers more frequently and making time to ask first and foremost about their health and families before business.
The managers have learned to better understand the economic dynamics of their industries, which vary widely across the diversity of industries and geographies. This informed approach not only provides credibility but also helps identify new sales opportunities. For example, with a better understanding of the economic dynamics in the chemical-storage industry, Cooley developed a multi-million-dollar opportunity for crude-oil storage during the pandemic.
To effectively execute a more consultative approach to selling, the team learned to identify and share market information across their respective industries and with other team members through daily virtual “huddles.” Over the course of these meetings, several sales team members noted a predictable uptick in customers’ inclination to cut costs. However, cutting costs does not have to be synonymous with losing business if you can help customers make up for cost in other ways. Using the strength of Cooley’s balance sheet to work with customers to manage their accounts receivable, Cooley sales managers mitigated their customers’ COVID-19-related cash-flow challenges. A willingness to help customers manage their cash flows established not only immediate value for the customer but also long-term goodwill.
Cooley’s collaborative approach to selling helped identify solutions to support new customers in pandemic-challenged industries. As Cooley’s sales of print media slowed during the pandemic, the sales team worked with new customers, shifting print-media materials to companies producing launderable medical gowns.
In a time of forced isolation and economic and social turmoil, sales calls can – and should – mean a lot more than just selling. Our sales team is using the power of knowledge sharing and, above all, empathy to better serve customers.
Daniel Dwight is CEO and president of Pawtucket-based Cooley Group.