Why You’ll Still Want to Meet With Customers and Prospects Face-to-Face Again

There’s no question Zooms are much, much more efficient than meeting in person.

You can hear the SVP of Sales of Salesforce itself sharing just how many most customers they now get to connect with, now that they don’t have to travel. 5 times more!

Listen here:

I can tell you 3 things.

• First, I literally never lost a customer I actually visited in person. But I did lose customers I only met on a webchat. More on that here: I Never Lost a Customer I Actually Visited | SaaStr
• Second, you win more deals when you show up — at least, if the competition doesn’t. You can steal a deal by showing up in person. And you can win one, when otherwise, there’s parity. More on that here: 5 Tips To Closing More Bigger Deals | SaaStr
• Third, and we learned this at SaaStr during Covid — IRL events work.  You might hate “trade shows” and convention centers, but the top field marketers know they work.  At least the top ones.  Many CMOs generate 40% of their pipeline from real-world events, and are itching to go back.  No matter how convenient digital meet-ups seem.

So most folks that have been in SaaS sales for a while expect in-person meetings to resume again as soon as they are safe, at least for larger deals.  And marketers are looking to do field again as soon as they can.

It may be now that the first in-person meeting happens later in the meeting and discovery process. That makes sense.

But at least in bigger deals, she who shows up … will likely still win more often.