ILMA Compoundings - February 2021 - 17

I

n addition to the usual series of
workplace challenges in 2020 -
from maintaining safety to engaging
a younger workforce - COVID-19
fundamentally changed the way many
lubricant manufacturers and suppliers
sold to and served their clients.
Sales are built on personal interactions and personal relationships, the
very things the coronavirus affected
the most. As a result, sales teams had
to pivot in order to maintain contact
and provide the service clients expect
- while doing everything possible
to ensure the safety of workers and
customers alike.
" I think we're looking at a new
normal, " said Art Lopez, vice president of sales for Colorado Petroleum
Products. " We aren't assuming things
will change back anytime soon. "
In some cases, they might not
need to. While COVID-19-driven
safety precautions have led to some
less-than-ideal compromises and
unexpected challenges, they also have
helped to highlight some new efficiencies. " This past year has made us think
out of the box about what we can do
differently going forward, " noted Julio
D'Alessandro, director of private label
sales for Axel Americas LLC.

SAFETY AND SERVICE

" Our No. 1 priority has been safety, "
Lopez acknowledged. " If we don't
keep our employees and our customers
safe, we're going to have problems.
We're minimizing outside contact with
our customers. "
Yet contact still needs to occur. So,
the company shifted more telephone-based customer contact to its
front-office staff, while its sales team
worked entirely from home. In addition, Lopez said, " We've enhanced our
website, so customers can easily find
more information without needing to
call a salesperson. And we're exploring
the possibility of posting videos online
to describe and demonstrate the use

" The challenge is to minimize one-on-one
customer contact while still enabling customers to feel good and safe about doing
business with us. "
Art Lopez, vice president of sales, Colorado
Petroleum Products
of our products and services. The
challenge is to minimize one-on-one
customer contact while still enabling
customers to feel good and safe about
doing business with us. "
That challenge is magnified when
working to establish new-customer
relationships, something that continues to be a high priority. " We're asking
our salespeople to maintain their existing customer base in their territory
while also growing the business - all
while working from home, " Lopez
said. To facilitate that, the company's
marketing department is coordinating
with the management team to uncover
prospecting opportunities and provide
additional sales support.
" Our sales/marketing department is
canvassing those respective territories
and making a detailed list of contacts
for prospecting opportunities. It's
taken out a lot of the legwork for the
salesperson, " he said. " Now, while
working from home, they have all of
this information in front of them, and
they can start brainstorming what these
prospects might need to close business. "
This approach has been effective,
providing the sales team with the necessary support to continue bringing in
new customers.
Even so, Lopez acknowledged that
these adaptations are less-than-ideal
solutions. " It has been tough on the sales
team, " he pointed out, " because these

are people who want to be out there
shaking hands and meeting new people. "
" I don't think anything takes the
place of being able to sit across the table
from your customer, " D'Alessandro
added. Like his peers, he has seen his
team move from face-to-face customer
engagement to increased reliance on
telephone and email outreach. But Axel
Americas has gone beyond that, on
occasion, to replicate the experience of
an in-person sales call.
" We've initiated something we
call a 'virtual lunch,' " D'Alessandro
explained. " Instead of being able to give
clients a business update over lunch,
we'll invite them for a business update
over a virtual lunch. We send out gift
cards for lunch ahead of time - $25
for Panera or something like that -
and let people know when they can
join the virtual conversation on whatever device they want to use. No matter
where the participants are, we can still,
in a way, break bread with them. "
The Axel Americas sales team relies
most heavily on Microsoft Teams for
its virtual meetings, although, D'Alessandro noted, " We've used the other
major platforms at various times - a
little bit of Skype, WebEx, Zoom. "

EVOLVING CHALLENGES

As the front-line sales force adapts
to new ways of doing business, so do
sales managers. Many may be managing

17
ILMA Compoundings - February 2021

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