CORAL SPRINGS, Fla., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- SalesRoads, the leading global sales outsourcing and research company, released its comprehensive annual study on the latest trends within sales. This year's edition, entitled Selling SaaS in the COVID Economy, focused on how one of the hottest sectors has adjusted to our new normal.
With the SaaS sector - including Salesforce, Zoom, Shopify, Workday, Slack, Zendesk, and many more - being huge drivers of the US economy, SalesRoads studied the current state of sales within the industry. The white paper, Selling SaaS in the COVID Economy, reported a significant influence on work-from-home and remote work initiatives, especially in sales roles, including:
- 93% of workers are more likely to consider remote in the future as a result of the COVID shutdown
- 56% of sales professionals were affected by prospect budget cuts.
- 25.7% of workers had a very positive outlook for the second half of 2020, with very positive/positive responses outnumbering very negative/negative ones 4:1
"These findings demonstrate that sales is as important as ever, and possibly more so," said David Kreiger, founder and President of SalesRoads. "It is our hope that the study's observations will help the SaaS sales leaders we support on an ongoing basis."
The white paper also found:
- Over 60% had over half of their sales teams begin working remotely for the first time as a result of the COVID shutdown, with over 40% expecting half or more of their sales team to continue working remotely going forward.
- The crisis affected the number of opportunities dramatically, with 36.6% indicating the number of opportunities had gone down, compared with 26.4% indicating they had gone up.
- The most effective sales channel prior to the crisis had been email (31.3%), followed by social media (27.5%), phone (22.4%), and webinars (13.1%). Overall, the crisis affected professionals' ability to contact prospects via email, phone, social media, and webinars.
Selling SaaS in the COVID Economy's lead author Jeremy Goldman, observed that the art of selling during the shutdown was impacted in some unexpected ways. For example, 32.6% noted that they had shifted to the weekend hours to accommodate for childcare and other considerations, with 31.8% shifting their selling time to early morning or evening hours. In addition, Post-COVID shutdown, 35.2% of salespersons are using live video as part of their sales process, with 77.6% using it at least multiple times per week.
"The shutdown clearly reverberated across the sales community," said Jeremy Goldman. "It is clear that the companies that adapt to this new normal in the second half of the year are the ones best poised to survive and perhaps even thrive."
Industry commentators also took note. "Selling SaaS in the COVID Economy cements David Kreiger's role as one of the foremost experts on sales, and this year's report offers an early, in-depth glimpse into our post-COVID-19 future -- especially in sales," says Stephen Spiegel, Founder and CEO of SaaS platform, CrewHu. "It shows that prospecting and sales architecture remain more important than ever," he added.
To obtain a copy of the white paper, Selling SaaS in the COVID Economy, for free, click here.
ABOUT SALESROADS
SalesRoads is the nation's leading B2B strategic sales outsourcing company, providing appointment setting, lead generation and SDR-outsourcing services to our clients, while refining and executing on their strategic vision for growth. Led by noted sales expert and CEO David Kreiger, SalesRoads was named to the Inc. 5000's list of fastest-growing companies in 2014 and 2015 and Best Places to Work in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. It powers the annual State of Sales White Paper, first produced in 2020.
SOURCE SalesRoads
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