During the past couple of weeks, I have been conducting an increasing number of virtual Strategic Business Selling virtual learning journeys to client organizations aggressively transforming themselves from in-person selling organizations to virtual selling organizations.

Most of the large F500-type companies I work with have had a tough time of it but are feeling positive that things are getting better. Interestingly enough, most of these organization also understand that this current state of selling isn’t a temporary thing and that there will be no “going back” to the way it once was in selling. And for many, that’s ok, because the way it once was really wasn’t that great or productive.

As sales professionals continue to adapt and show great resilience in the sales process, I wanted to share some of the high-level concepts and tools that we have been training the best sales professionals on which when used effectively can increase the pipeline in a virtual selling world.

The group of frustrated leaders looked at each other as one of them said, “I don’t think we spent enough time on our Marketing decisions or increased the marketing budget enough.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, just as long as you have enough salespeople it will be fine. Marketing is just a waste of money,” shared a team member who also happens to be a sales leader back in the “real world” of pharmaceuticals.

The team did very poorly in the simulation workshop and one of the reasons was they had the worst performing marketing team as measured by the Marketing Efficiency metric of 64, which was 46 points behind the best performing team’s index of 110.

The words hung in the air for what seemed like a week even though it was just a couple of seconds. And I didn’t speak until it was really uncomfortable.

One of the only positive outcomes from a very tough weekend for our country was the couple of minutes of pride we all had watching the launch of the Space X Dragon into outer space as part of the next generation of exploration.

Having been just 7 years old in 1969 during the moon landing and the heyday of the space program, I can remember vividly building a full scale NASA lunar module as a 3^rd grade project and then years later seeing the actual spacecraft in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. From a design perspective it was incredibly sophisticated for the time – more than 50 years ago - and something that took my breath away when thinking about the 3 astronauts inside flying home after making history.

As readers of this blog know, much what I write about is related to what’s in the news, blending it with Business Acumen concepts and teaching points, and providing practical tips and tools for immediate application back to the job for increased business performance.

Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to the weak signals and chatter emanating from the C-Suites of many different organizations and one of the things that I am hearing getting louder is the increased focus on cash flow as a financial metric that matters. As we head to the last month of what will sure be a disastrous Q2 for many businesses, the murmurs about ways of increasing cash flow through cutting budgets will increase based on the pressure board of directors will be putting on their CEO’s and CFO’s. It will be tempting for many of them to cut Marketing and other functional areas like R&D that don’t have an immediate (next month) impact. However, most successful leaders understand that you literally can’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Cutting Marketing and R&D is cutting off the lifeblood of future revenues and profits. While cash flow may increase in the short term, shareholder value (how much the company is worth) will decrease over the long term because it is being starved of the key ingredients that drives it.