Selling in the time of a pandemic (COVID-19) is obviously challenging. The impact of this global pandemic has not been equally distributed. Some industries are thriving (e.g. online platforms like Zoom), some industries were completely halted (live sports). But it’s not always that obvious. For example, gardening has seen a real boom which might be surprising until you think about how much people have been forced to remain on their properties. Selling in the time of COVID-19 requires you to look not just at your customer’s business but at their customers’ business. This isn’t just a good idea during COVID-19, it's a good idea for selling at all times. Knowing your customer’s customer really teaches you a lot about the challenges your customer is facing.

“Think about your prospect’s customer. Your prospect’s customer now holds the key to your success. If your prospect’s customer is doing okay financially, then your prospect is likely more inclined to buy from you. If they’re not, your prospect’s buying behavior will change, too. These changes can range from not buying at all to slowing down the sales cycle a few weeks.” —Jeff Winters, HBR

Several years ago, we worked extensively with a large book printer. They were constantly looking at the reader’s preferences and author’s needs (both readers and authors are customers of the publisher, the publishers were the printer’s customers). Crawling down that value chain teaches you a lot about your customer which can help you figure out how to best approach them. Now introduce COVID-19 and you can assess how this pandemic has not only impacted your customer’s business, but their customer’s business. This will help you figure out whom to target. Look across your customer base for industries that are thriving during this time as obviously they should be your top targets.