Rakesh Wadhwa:

How do you think the sales fraternity or a business development fraternity prepare for something like this? Because they will be at risk given that longterm social distancing norms continue to go a long time. So what should our sales folks out there will be doing to prepare for the situation.

Lloyd Mathias:

The challenge clearly is for sales and business development professionals. It is going to be tough. Everyone wants the experience of personal contact, I mean personal contact gets face to face ideally. Right. And that's not going to stop. But it'll have to continue now with a lot of hygiene standards right? So if they're talking over a distance of five meters of around 10 feet then one can learn to adapt to that aspect. The second part ultra conscious of hygiene. So on both ends right? I know a lot of gated communities offices stores will now have temperature sensors. Right? So they will screen a person for the temperature to see whether he can literally pass the threshold. So not just sanitizers but at least for the near future I see using masks maybe using gloves and will become a way of life.

So if you will respect and recognize the fact that anybody can be a carrier of the virus what it's called asymptomatic. Right. You don't have to have visible symptoms. If you can keep that distance if you can keep certain etiquette in terms of coughing sneezing if you can keep that distance, that is a big part of the problem. The second part is being smart to adapt. Try and see if you can take a lot of the background offline right? So sending him the brochures. So having a quick video call. Getting him some of the key elements and then saying once it's okay I'm still gonna come across because I believe that as a car salesman not as a business developer I still want to meet my customer look him in the eye. So you might still want to follow that up with the physical meeting with all the precautions that we talked about right. Hand gloves, social distance and temperature sensors all the rest of it. But it's really using the full length of it. And even your customers want to see the kind of meticulousness in which you plan this. Right? So if you have both. Good online etiquette in terms of sending him brochures on a video or taking him through the entire process it came to the product benefit and then you're going to follow it up with the personal call, it is going to impact. But, as I said, it is about combining the new reality that is not business as usual right.

You can’t go across unannounced and all that stuff. You'll learn to recognize the rules of the game are changing. And once you flow with the tide as a group salesperson should I'm sure you'll be able to manage. But it's going to be a tough time.