Who's Hybrid?

It's Summer 2023. I still encounter salespeople telling me that video calling is passé. Revelling in their truth that zooming has faded from view. Much delight they can revert to their ways of 2019.

Not everyone can be helped. And when you understand the indisputable insight of adoption pulls, you can focus elsewhere.

Yet a nagging irritation gnaws away.

Not to mention the fact that live video to salespeople is an astonishing productivity booster, to pursue optimal video meeting performance is to tap into a truly transformative medium, or that it is one sure fire way to nix your competition.

It is more that the classic 'customer centric' trick is yet again being missed.

So many times down the years I've been saddened to witness salespeople pay lip-service to this concept. It needn't be.

Take the chart above. From a Vox piece. (I do like the dumb-cell treatment). From study ran by a hybrid collab app.

Its focus is on tech, and more small tech at that. But it reveals a stark message beyond this sector that we sellers ought heed.

You might be back in the office. Maybe not quite full-time. Maybe leaning back on exclusive phone, mail, in-person pursuit.

What about your prospects?

Well, judging by the graphic, many may well not mirror your working location.

And remember, those numbers are only for "full" remote work. Imagine the inevitable shift rightwards should there be a 'mostly remote' or even 'slightly hybrid' lens.

To quote a sentence seeing deeper inside the survey findings;

"The share of large tech companies that are doing hybrid (65 percent) is nearly the same as large companies overall (60 percent), as is the number of days per week they want people in (2.5 on average)".

The point is, wherever you spend your working hours, your buyers are probably prone to be out their one-time office.

In which case, video calls - in the conditions where they shine - ought be your game changer.

What if not everyone has a home space or predilection for making video calls away from their office though?

So even better, link these with the swathes of people who like to be seen working (or avoiding colleagues) when they do deign to grace their office.

For such buyers, the allure of a video meeting with you then can be large.

A 'flexibility divide' may well tilt in your favour. Find their preference. And map onto it.