As many people across the country take some time today and this weekend to reflect and take inventory on where we are as a country and business leaders, there is a lot to think about. Everyone who has lived through the past 3 months has a perspective and points of view regarding the global pandemic, racial injustice, the geopolitical issues in every region of the world, and of course the business world which has shown tremendous resilience as evidenced by the strength of the equity markets.

This week, at the request of several clients, I began advanced research on a new digital business simulation to help leaders lead in the new business normal. Based on the research and some of the preliminary work we are creating, here are 3 even newer tips about leading in the new business normal. This content is written for leaders within business organizations who lead teams, work with peers across functions, and work for a couple of managers.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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