Amid all the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty of the Coronavirus pandemic, only one thing is certain—this will end at some point and life and business will continue. Many companies are “sheltering in place” by marking time and putting much of their sales and marketing operations on hold. This is a big mistake. When we finally do come out of this crisis, companies who have stopped or reduced sales and marketing efforts for the past month or two will find their sales pipeline has dried up. Potential customers in the pipeline may have moved on to other suppliers. Contacts at those customers may have also moved on to other companies and the needs of the companies may have changed.
When the crisis is over, those companies who have not continued to invest in the resources to build pipeline will have to start from the ground up to re-boot their prospect base. That will take time and there will undoubtedly be a much larger revenue gap for those companies than for competitors who have continued to sell and market during the past two months. That delay will not only hurt their financial performance in 2020, but could prove to be fatal if there is a significant gap in cash flow.
At Reveneer, we are continuing to build pipeline and close sales for our customers. In addition, we are launching four new sales teams for new customers who want to make sure they continue to build pipeline during this period.
As a CFO of a sales-oriented company, I firmly believe that this is the time to re-double our sales and marketing efforts to minimize the negative financial effects of the business hiatus caused by the pandemic. This is no time to be slowing investments in building pipeline. You want to make sure you are ready to go with a robust and current pipeline when this all ends.
