As we slowly emerge from the pandemic that gripped our world for a year and a half, everyone reading this would agree that many things are different… new habits, new priorities and new behaviors. As consumers, we have spent the last year finding new ways of buying goods and services. The question is, now that we can buy things the old way again, do we want to? Industrial MROP End-Users are asking themselves this very same question.
The smart buyers are taking a look back at the last year’s upside-down P&L and, rather than licking their wounds, they are asking themselves what they learned from the disruption caused by COVID-19. If you are manufacturing or distributing products to these end-users, let’s try to better understand their new behaviors so that we can adjust accordingly to sell your products to them the way they want to buy them. Even better, let’s learn from others in the channel who are also trying to figure out what the new sales force in industrial supply will look like moving forward.
In this blog post video, you will hear a recap of the roundtable discussion that took place at ISA 21 titled The Future Sales Force – Post COVID Implications. This ISA 21 session, hosted by Jeff Bigelow, President of Hubbard Supply and Chair of the ISA Board of Directors, allowed participants to talk in small virtual groups and share what they are experiencing at their companies. In addition, we asked all the participants to complete a survey that yielded some very interesting results.
So… do you recognize that the pandemic has accelerated changes in end-user buying behavior? If so, is your sales and marketing engine ready to engage the new customer and the way they want to buy moving forward?
I hope 100% answer yes to the first question. Moving forward, the winners and losers will be separated by how they answer the second question.
