Covid-19 has driven an unusual economic crisis. For certain industry and technology sectors, companies are doing as good or better than pre-Covid. But many companies are struggling, including IT vendors. Steve Benson, CEO of Badger Maps and field sales pro, shares how to lead an IT Channel Sales team through this time of economic crisis and remote selling.

Here are five things you can do when leading your channel sales team in this crisis:

If the inability to sell face-to-face is hampering one sales stage, focus on the other stages where you can drive more activity remotely.

Lean into social media to generate new leads and deepen existing customer and partner relationships.

A slowdown in sales activity is a great time to sharpen the sword by up-leveling your team’s skills, especially in the area of negotiating and selling value.

When margins are getting squeezed, look at your sales comp plan. Reps will defend margins a lot better if you align their incentive plan with the profit line instead of with the revenue line.

An economic downturn when unemployment goes up is a great time to find and hire excellent channel sales talent. 

There are really great and clever tactics that you can use to generate new leads and deepen existing customer relationships by leveraging social media. - @SteveBenson
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We need to relearn how we're prospecting and rethink who is our ideal customer and who is a great lead. - @SteveBenson
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If revenue is important to an organization, which it always is, your sales channel is one of the last places you should look to make cuts. - @SteveBenson
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