Are salespeople even needed right now during pandemic? There are lots of businesses out there with a lot of salespeople saying that they’re not needed. Many companies are saying they are just going to take whatever business rolls into them, because right now during a pandemic, they can’t afford salespeople. Let me tell you something: you can’t afford to not have salespeople. Period.

I’m going to walk you through 10 reasons to help answer this question: are salespeople needed in a pandemic? But first, I hope you take a moment to hit subscribe, so you can watch the new video I post every week. Each video is on a critical topic that’s pertinent to the world we live in right now during a pandemic.

Salespeople are needed more than ever right now. The customer doesn’t know what they don’t know, so it’s your job as the salesperson, part of the sales team, to help them.

1. R&D Department

You are your customer’s research and development source. It’s your job to provide your customers with ideas. You are their department to research and develop in order to help them develop solutions. You have to be seen as operating in that area of expertise.

If you’re not bringing research and development insights to your customers, you’re not doing your job. All you’re doing is acting as a rain barrel collecting the business that comes in. Your job is to incrementally help your customers identify solutions. And that leads me to our next reason…

2. Solutions

Like I stated earlier, customers don’t know what they don’t know; therefore, unless you provide them with solutions, they will just go with what they think they need. The problem is that what they think they need might not even be close to what they really need to reach a solution.

It’s your job to be the critical person that doesn’t just supply them with what they want, but what they really need. That’s the solution.

3. Knowledge

You have more knowledge and more expertise regarding what you sell and how you help customers then your customers will ever have. I will continue to remind you that the customer doesn’t know what they don’t know. It’s true. The only way you counteract that fact is by bringing them more knowledge each time you meet with a customer.

Ask yourself what you can do with the customer today to help them become more informed. How can you share your knowledge with them?

4. Morale Builder

You might think this one is little bit weird. No, it’s not. Customers are more confused than ever. It’s strange times out there. Your objective is to be the optimist. Be the one to help them get through the uncertainty and struggles.

You are the morale builder to each of your customers. Oh, and by the way, as a salesperson in a company, you’re also the morale builder to the employees within the company, because you get to interface with every side out there. You get to see everything.

5. Networking Agent

This is different than just networking. Again, it’s your objective to help customers. This might relate to what you sell, but it might also relate to connecting with somebody else. Connecting people is helping people.

You are an agent to your network. When you do that, you increase the value that you bring to other people which will undoubtedly increase the value that you receive from other people. It works both ways.

6. Problem Solver

Go back to what we’ve been talking about again and again: customers don’t know what they don’t know. In addition, they often have a problem that they’re stuck on. Because of your knowledge, solutions, the research and development work you’ve done, you’re able to help them solve their problems.

Think about the times that you’ve been able to help customers overcome a challenge that they’ve been stuck on for a long time. It’s incredible when you’re suddenly able to provide a much-needed solution. Right now, that’s the value of why you need to be in sales and why as an organization, you have to have a sales team.

7. Economic Force

Is this some sort of macro solution to the global economy? No. You’re an economic force to your customers, because you’re helping them do whatever it is that they need to do more efficiently. This goes for B2B or B2C. This allows the customer to get onto their next thing, their next solution, and the next idea. You are helping them become more efficient. When we become more efficient, we become an economic growth machine.

Economic force has to do with our customers, but it also has to do with what we’re all doing internally. We’re helping. We’re helping our employees remain employed. We’re helping those vendors who sell to us stay in business. We are truly an economic force; sales is what will drive the economy back.

8. Customer Insights

This is incredibly valuable. As you talk with customers, you learn things, and this is what customers are looking for. This is really what they want. In turn, learning will help you too bringing ideas about how you can better help customers. It’ll provide ideas that you can share with others in your supply chain and vendors. What you learn can also be shared with other people within your own company.

Customer insights bring vital information. When I said research and development early on, I was looking from an external standpoint. Customer insights, on the other hand, is internal. You are the one who gets to take in all of this information.

9. Job Creator

You know that the more successful you are, the more stable your job is. Guess what that means? You are creating your job, but you’re also creating jobs for the people you’re helping.

Let’s go back to every other piece that I’ve been talking about here. You are helping businesses stay employed. Every day I meet with companies and my whole objective is to leave them in a better state, so they can create more jobs. That’s your goal too.

By the way, the job creator role that you play is also internal within your own company because remember, if you and sales weren’t out doing what you’re doing, other people in your company / supply chain wouldn’t have a job.

10. Business Counselor

You must take this one very seriously.

Right now, because of all the confusion and chaos out there, it’s your duty to be the voice of reason and normalcy. You are the one who can listen and just share ideas. What you share may go way beyond anything that you sell or the industry that you work in. That’s the business counselor’s job, because at the end of the day, we are talking about B2B business to business and B2C business to consumer.

However, it’s also H.H., human-to-human. In that regard, you’re a business counselor and a human counselor. In a pandemic, salespeople are needed now more than ever. I can’t stress this enough. It’s one of the reasons I wrote the book, A Mind for Sales. I firmly believe that when you have a mind for sales, it’s amazing how you’ll power through every situation that comes your way.

Copyright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog.  Mark Hunter is the author of A Mind for Sales and High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.