Responding to the Digital Sales Shift, it necessary to train sales reps on new skills? What components of an existing sales process transfer well to virtual interactions? What should sales kickoffs look like? Here are some key points to keep in mind.
Virtual calls require more precise planning and a tighter focus.
Virtual sales conversations, product demos and other virtual customer interactions leave less room for mistakes, says Charles Brennan Jr., president of Brennan Sales Institute and the author of “Take Your Sales to the Next Level.” A fan of Formula 1 racing, Brennan compares a virtual sales call to
driving these super-speedy machines (which can exceed 230 mph).
“If you make mistakes virtually, you’re into the wall. You’re not going to get the next opportunity. People shut you down more rapidly,” he says. In-person sales calls, which often stretch to 90 minutes or more over a meal, are more like driving on a four-lane highway with ample room to maneuver.
“If you don’t have a plan to get someone involved in a higher discussion in a virtual world, things will start to shut down quickly. You have to be intriguing,” Brennan says. Reps on virtual calls must make their added value apparent within the first 15 minutes.
Andres Lares, managing partner at Shapiro Negotiations Institute, agrees that virtual sales calls require more extensive pre-call planning so reps can be on point. However, Lares cautions against jumping right into a sales presentation for fear that time is tight. His company is emphasizing training salespeople to be more succinct, precise and sharp, while also focusing on the personal part of relationships to establish trust.
“The engagement piece is the skill you need to layer on the most,” Lares says. “It’s being willing to spend more time than ever on the person, the personal, the relationship aspect and the business. You can always get to [product features and similar messages] via email. You can send a deck or a proposal, but you want to spend that rich time with video on the relationship-building and building credibility.”
Role play virtual sales interactions.
Reps must practice to get the right rhythm for condensed virtual sales calls. Because virtual calls will be condensed and there will be more of them, it’s wise to role play calls at various stages of the selling process. “It’s almost like sellers regress in a lot of ways in online meetings,” says Tom Pisello, chief evangelist at Mediafly, a provider of a sales enablement and content management platform. “Sellers will show up and throw up, using a PowerPoint to drive the whole meeting, which they had moved away from in person. Now that they’re online, they feel like they have to fill that blank space with something, so up goes the presentation and out go the lights of the buyer.” Pisello says it’s important that salespeople understand the unique questions and needs of each person they meet with so they can tailor the call to those points of information. For many companies, that means repackaging their presentation materials for easy access to what matters to the customer.
Role playing can help reps get comfortable with designing each presentation to suit the needs of the individual client, eliminating parts of a presentation and jumping ahead to other parts instantly within each conversation. In October, Mediafly purchased Presentify, a European company that helps brands repackage their sales content for more interactive and engaging presentations.
Use all the tools in your toolbox.
Video interaction with customers and prospects is more precious, which means it should be scheduled judiciously. Yes, virtual selling requires more touches that are shorter in length. However, salespeople need to be conscious of what’s best handled in a Zoom call and what can be delivered via email or a text. If you want to get strong content into your prospect’s hands that supports your value-added message, for example, text a link or send a quick email.
Ensure tech proficiency and use.
Your reps won’t use the tech tools they have if they aren’t properly trained on them. Kavadellas says his focus for training this past year, as his field reps went completely virtual, was to make them more proficient on the Salesforce CRM software his company uses. Orasi’s field reps were not as adept as the inside sales team at using the CRM software, nor had they established the habit of using it. Kavadellas says some of his inside sales reps led instruction on best practices with the CRM as well as how to convince prospects to agree to a virtual call and how to engage them more quickly on those calls. Orasi also began using a thirdparty training vendor before the pandemic for training on virtual sales calls.
It’s important that reps are thoroughly comfortable with Zoom, Teams or whatever virtual conference platform you use, not only so they don’t encounter technical delays that steal precious sales call time, but also because they will likely serve as IT support for the customers and prospects who are on their calls.
Reps need to take inventory of their social media connections.
Because salespeople will be spending more time in front of their computers, making the most of virtual interactions will include paying more attention to their social media connections, says Brynne Tillman, CEO of Social Sales Link, a sales training company that focuses on using LinkedIn to boost performance. Dozens of potential sales leads are hiding in plain sight in reps’ LinkedIn connections, she says.
“From current clients, to past clients, to prospects, to referral partners, to centers of influence, to community leaders and coworkers: All of them play a role in sales. If we begin by categorizing our existing connections, when we get to the next step, which is building deeper relationships, we’ll know who we’re going after and what kind of conversation we want to have with each.”
Invest more in marketing content and make sure reps are up to speed on it.
It stands to reason that if customers are relying less on in-person meetings for information, they’re relying more on their own online research. This is certainly not a new trend, but it is also one that is certain to increase. A LinkedIn report states that Demand Gen research shows marketing content has more influence over B2B buying decisions than ever, with 49% of buyers saying they rely more on content to guide their decisions than they did a year ago — and 78% consuming three or more pieces of relevant content before talking to a salesperson. Blogs, webinars and podcasts are among the most influential content, according to the Demand Gen survey.
“More than three quarters (78%) of buyers say they are placing more emphasis on the trustworthiness of a content’s source than they did a year ago, and 65% say they are consciously focusing more on credible content from industry influencers,” the report states. “The barriers to entry for B2B content are going up, but so too are the rewards when you signal value and credibility in the right way. Choosing the right formats for different stages of the buying journey is a big help.”
Monitor your reps’ well-being.
It’s not all about technical proficiency and improving virtual sales call skills. Your reps need to feel good physically and mentally to perform well.