Growing Sales During COVID-19 – Part 1: Maximizing Current Clients

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted sales cycles, budgets, and buying behaviors, leaving many sales teams struggling to generate new business. New sales will be slow as companies re-evaluate spending, shift priorities, and adjust budgets to fit the new economic landscape.

But waiting for things to “get back to normal” isn’t a strategy.

This three-part series will break down practical ways to grow revenue in uncertain times:
✔️ Part 1: What to do with current clients (this post)
✔️ Part 2: How to close outstanding business
✔️ Part 3: Future opportunity growth

📌 Key observation:
💡 Sales teams are slow, but operations teams are overwhelmed.

💡 Translation: If your clients are still operating, they have needs—but they might not be using their existing contracts efficiently. Instead of waiting for new deals, your best play is to help them extract value from what they’ve already committed to.

Step 1: Maximize Contract Utilization 📑

Start by identifying clients with signed contracts that aren’t fully utilizing your services.

👉 If your clients don’t use what they’ve already bought, they’re unlikely to renew or expand their contracts.

What to Do:

✅ Audit each client’s current engagement. Are they using their full scope of services? Are there gaps?
✅ Initiate conversations to uncover obstacles preventing full utilization.
✅ Offer proactive solutions to help them leverage your offering more effectively.

🔹 Example: Custom Ink, traditionally a swag provider, pivoted during the pandemic to produce branded face masks—leveraging their existing infrastructure to meet an immediate need.

💡 Sales teams should be problem solvers. If a client’s needs have changed, help them reimagine how they use your solution.

Step 2: Leverage Internal Assets to Unlock Revenue 🚀

Even if your primary revenue channels are disrupted, your organization still has valuable assets that can be repurposed to generate revenue now and position for long-term success.

Here are a few examples:

Media Organizations: Convert Ad Spend into Insights & Content

Media companies thrive on three things:
📌 Fresh content for advertising
📌 Customer insights through data
📌 Sales collateral for businesses

💡 Revenue Idea: Convert advertising dollars into customer insights.

✔️ Instead of running traditional ad campaigns, offer client surveys.
✔️ Turn insights into white papers, testimonials, or industry reports.
✔️ Position your brand as an intelligence partner—not just an ad vendor.

🔹 Example: If an advertiser cuts their ad budget, offer a customer research project instead. The insights are valuable, and you keep them engaged.

Event Organizers: Move from One-Time Revenue to Year-Round Engagement

Event organizers were hit hardest by pandemic shutdowns. But live events were never just about the event—they were about leads, education, and networking.

💡 Revenue Idea: Shift from one-time event revenue to year-round digital engagement.

✔️ Launch virtual summits, educational series, or digital lead-generation programs.
✔️ Convert exhibitor sales into ongoing digital partnerships.
✔️ Help sponsors reach audiences through webinars, content marketing, and virtual networking.

🔹 Example: 100% Optical pivoted their in-person show into a digital lead-generation platform, helping exhibitors connect with buyers beyond the traditional event timeframe.

📌 The need for industry connection hasn’t disappeared. The format has just changed.

Staffing Firms: Optimize Hiring Processes Before the Market Rebounds

While hiring slowed during the pandemic, it wasn’t a permanent freeze—just a shift in priorities.

💡 Revenue Idea: Use this time to refine hiring processes and prepare for post-pandemic demand.

✔️ Work with clients to refine their job descriptions & hiring criteria.
✔️ Analyze past hires to identify patterns in top-performing employees.
✔️ Develop a recruitment strategy that ensures first-mover advantage when hiring ramps back up.

🔹 Example: With 20% unemployment during COVID-19, companies that prepared their hiring process early were able to quickly secure top talent as the market rebounded.

📌 The best staffing firms weren’t waiting for hiring to return—they were helping clients build better hiring strategies.

Final Thoughts: Revenue is Still on the Table—Go Get It 💡

📢 Revenue generation never stops—it just changes form.

👉 If your sales team is waiting for new business instead of maximizing current clients, you're missing massive opportunities.

💡 Key Takeaways:
✅ Audit existing contracts & ensure full utilization.
✅ Repurpose internal assets to create new revenue streams.
✅ Position your offering around client needs—even if it means adjusting how they use it.

Instead of waiting for normal to return, take action now. The businesses that adapt will be the ones that thrive.

🚀 Stay tuned for Part 2: How to Close Outstanding Business.