Be There
WMMM #102 - This week, I share a tip that used to be so simple, we rarely spoke of it.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter July 12, 2025 4 min read
I recently returned from a business trip.
Took the first flight out of DFW one morning.
Jumped on the first flight back the next day.
It gave me a chance for some in-person time with my client and one of their clients.
The experience reminded me why making the extra effort to travel for a meeting is worth it.
But why did I need reminding?
Something so commonplace, so routine in the past, had become a memory.
Bye Bye Miss American Pie
St. Patrick's Day of 2020 changed that.
I had a flight booked to NYC for Monday, March 16th that year, and hotel reservations through Wednesday.
I remember being concerned that the "handlers" planning our CEO's travel were moving him around Manhattan in a black Suburban.
Think it through.
Our CEO had asked us to schedule meetings with Fortune 500 CEOs for Tuesday and Wednesday.
He had meetings scheduled in upper Manhattan in the morning, had a stop near midtown, and then needed to be down in the Financial District by noon for more meetings on Wall Street.
Do you know what happens every March 17th in NYC?
St. Paddy's Day parade happens.
Above-ground travel between 43rd and 79th is nearly impossible.
The Day the Music Died
But my concerns about our CEO making those meetings became irrelevant.
On Saturday, I was notified that Google was shutting down in-person meetings with accounts.
I cancelled my trip.
Companies severely curtailed employee travel as the coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, rapidly spread throughout the U.S. and the world.
I did not travel again for business until early 2022.
Travel and entertainment expenses were eliminated from the budget for the rest of 2020 and all of 2021.
After businesses shut down travel, they told their employees not to come to the office either.
Work From Home (WFH) became the norm.
The use of video conferences began to explode.
Zoom, Meet, Webex, and Teams became technologies that everyone used to communicate.
They became the default.
People even stopped speaking over the phone.
As the response and reaction to COVID-19 subsided, we anticipated a return to "normal."
Back to the office, we expected we'd go.
Reinstated travel and expense budgets.
But that didn't happen.
Businesses had grown accustomed to the reduced expenses.
Why pay for sales organizations to travel to see clients?
Why pay the T&E to build new relationships and win new business?
Why pay for office space for sales teams?
Why?
Eliminating in-person interaction fundamentally changes the dynamics of human connection, especially in high-stakes, high-complexity environments like enterprise sales.
Here's how it impacts each of five key areas.
1-Establishing Rapport
Impact: Weaker, slower to develop.
Why: Rapport relies on subtle cues—eye contact, body language, vocal tone, timing, shared environment—which are all diminished or distorted in virtual formats.
Consequence: First impressions lack emotional depth. Small talk feels mechanical. Micro-moments of connection—like reading the room or mirroring—are harder to leverage.
Mitigation: Stronger storytelling, intentional personalization, and high-quality video calls help, but rarely match the speed and strength of in-person rapport.
2-Building Relationships
Impact: More transactional, less sticky.
Why: Relationships are built over repeated informal interactions—hallway chats, lunches, chance encounters—not just scheduled meetings.
Consequence: Without physical presence, relationships tend to stay within the "scheduled box," reducing depth, loyalty, and long-term goodwill.
Mitigation: Proactive calendar use, shared experiences (e.g. virtual events, collaborative whiteboards), and long-form async comms (like voice memos or Loom videos) can bridge part of the gap.
3-Winning Someone's Trust
Impact: Takes longer, is more fragile.
Why: Trust is built through consistency, reliability, and shared vulnerability. These are harder to display without shared physical context.
Consequence: People are more skeptical, less emotionally committed, and slower to extend trust in remote environments. It's easier to ghost or disengage.
Mitigation: Over-communicate follow-through, show transparency (e.g. sharing real failures or learnings), and offer early "trust deposits" like introductions, insights, or help-without-asks.
4-Influencing Opinions or Behaviors
Impact: Reduced persuasion power.
Why: Influence depends on presence, confidence, subtle social pressure, and emotional energy—all diminished through screens.
Consequence: It's harder to read hesitation, manage group dynamics, or turn "maybe" into "yes." Social proof (e.g. others nodding) is diluted.
Mitigation: Use strong visuals, third-party validation, social narrative framing, and create smaller-group settings where people feel safer expressing views.
5-Selling Complex, Intangible Products to Enterprise Companies
Impact: Much harder, especially in early and late stages.
Why: Enterprise sales of intangible products (like cybersecurity, SaaS, AI) require deep discovery, executive alignment, internal advocacy, and navigating political landscapes—all of which thrive on trust, nuance, and presence.
Consequence: More deals stall in "no decision." It's harder to create urgency, to uncover the real buying process, or to make intangible value feel real. Virtual demos don't replace the immersive experience of a workshop or on-site visioning session.
Mitigation: Invest in hyper-personalized enablement, orchestrate multi-threaded relationships, and layer digital tools (e.g. interactive ROI models, virtual whiteboarding). But for strategic deals, consider hybrid engagement essential, not optional.
Takeaway
Remote selling scales. In-person selling sticks.
The sweet spot?
A hybrid strategy.
Use digital tools to drive efficiency, but lean on in-person when it matters most: forging new relationships, navigating complex decisions, or sealing seven-figure deals.
Since the post-COVID-19 "new normal," we've had over 3 years to witness the effects of minimizing in-person interaction in the go-to-market approach of enterprise technology.
The outcomes aren't pretty.
Over the last 3 years (2022–2024), enterprise technology sales performance has declined significantly in terms of annual quota attainment.
Here's what the data and expert analysis show:
2022: ~48%
2023: ~43%
2024: ~37%.
Early indicators suggest a continuation of this downward trend for 2025.
Want to Improve Your Sales Performance?
Be There.
It's not what you see or hear.
It's what you feel.
Lessons Learned
1) Rapport relies on subtle cues—eye contact, body language, and shared environment.
2) Relationships are built over repeated informal interactions.
3) Influence depends on presence, confidence, subtle social pressure, and emotional energy.
Thank you for reading,
Jeff
When you think “sales leader,” I hope you think of me.
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