The Hidden Perils of Remote Work in B2B Sales: Why Sales Floors Matter

Discover the unseen consequences of remote work on B2B sales performance and the irreplaceable value of traditional sales floors.

When I was 15 years old, I worked for a not-for-profit group making cold calls to community groups to ask them to do a bike-a-thon for a popular charity. There were around 10 of us making these calls. This was the only time I was on a sales floor. I had never made cold calls before that, but I had knocked on every door of my apartment complex, and the two other apartment complexes on either side of mine to try to sell them newspapers. Someone told me that if I knocked on these doors, they would give me money in exchange.

If you have never been on a sales floor, you are missing something. Were you to observe a sales floor, you would notice that everyone is within earshot of each other. Because you are listening to your peers, you are constantly acquiring new talk tracks and strategies to book a meeting or actually sell.

My experience was actually selling. The purpose of my call was to ask the contact to agree to run a bike-a-thon. It wasn’t easy to get someone to commit to accepting the assets they would need to raise money for the charity. My gift was being able to grind, something I had learned washing dishes. When I left the job at the not-for-profit for one that was a lot more fun, I was the only person to book a bike-a-thon and, in fact, I had booked two.

Importance of the Sales Floor Environment

In the past, if you worked for a large sales organization, you would have found yourself surrounded by other salespeople. Much of what you would have learned came from listening to your peers making calls. You would hear different people use different strategies and language choices, with a few sales reps talking softly to prevent others from stealing their approach.

On the sales floor, you would encounter a highly confident salesperson standing up and talking loud enough that everyone could hear their part of the conversation. Everyone would stop and listen to the conversation, trying to determine if they could use what they just heard.

On this same sales floor, you would find a salesperson running from their desk to a small room where they can prevent anyone from listening in on the conversation. Some percentage of the sales reps who believe they need privacy will eventually wash out. Others will find the courage to allow their peers to listen in.

My Experience with Sales Teams

My second sales floor was with a $4 billion staffing company. I was not a salesperson. I was a recruiter. There were three salespeople on this tiny sales floor. None of them had the discipline to bang out calls. They would show up late and make a couple of calls before leaving the office. This was a quiet sales floor.

One sales rep lost her job because she was printing her resume and her cover letter on the shared printer and she forgot to pick them up. The second salesperson resigned to follow the first.

As it turned out, I had won more deals than the three reps combined, even though I wasn’t in sales. My manager hired another rep and the three of us increased the production from 2,000 hours to 24,000 hours in a year.

The Impact of Remote Work on Sales Teams

As sales organizations decided to place sales in their territory, many sales floors largely disappeared. Without the sales floor, none of the strategies or the talk tracks are available to other salespeople who would improve their results if they had access to their peers. What may be worse is that the salesperson who is sitting in their house doesn’t hear the conversations when their colleague wins a deal or loses a deal.

Instead, the stay-at-home sales rep is available to collect the Amazon boxes that UPS delivers every day. They are also available to take the dog on a walk or run an errand.

When everyone in a sales team works from home, there is no synergy, no sales culture, no passing down the sales effectiveness that comes from listening to reps that are hitting their goals and their targets.

Additional Challenges of Remote Sales Work

One challenge for a work-from-home salesperson is the lack of immediate feedback and guidance from supervisors or experienced colleagues. Even though you can ask about a scenario when you have your Zoom meeting, it is often too late to do something about the scenario.

Working from home blurs the boundaries between work and your personal life. Let alone the errands and the interruptions. This can cause work-from-home sales reps to burn out, with some quitting their jobs to find a better balance in their lives.

There is also a potential for feelings of isolation and disconnection from the team. Some feel like they are on an island by themselves. In a couple of recent sales kickoff meetings, the hundreds of salespeople hadn’t seen each other for years. You should have seen them when they were together.

Before you leave this article, if you are a sales leader or a sales manager, spend time identifying how you might bring people together in something that might feel like a sales floor. You may be able to do something quarterly to bring your teams together. If you are a salesperson, reach out to your peers and schedule a time to share what you might have if you were on a sales floor.