3 Keys to Virtual Sales Success
Alice Heiman
Founder | Strategist | Podcast Host I guide #CEOs to elevate sales to increase their valuation. Skier?? Sailor ??
FACT or FICTION: Virtual Sales are HARD.?
A recent?Gartner?research study cited that “An overwhelming 93% of sales reps are experiencing significant virtual sales challenges.”?
My friend?Lauren Bailey?posted about this on LinkedIn, and I responded with utter disbelief.?
How can this be? It’s not that I don’t believe the research because?Gartner?is great. But really, your salespeople are reporting that they are experiencing significant virtual sales challenges?
It baffles me why so many are struggling.
Why Virtual Sales Success is Not Hard
Virtual sales are not hard. Somehow, they are making it harder than it has to be.
PEOPLE! And by people, I mean CEOs and those responsible for revenue and sellers…?
Good selling is?good selling.
The same set of skills are required in any situation.
Great salespeople have always used the phone to sell; that’s virtual.
Email has been around forever; that’s virtual.
Using video isn’t hard (and it has also been around a long time), but I understand that it takes a little prep and practice to become proficient like anything else. Harvard Business Review does confirm that building new relationships is especially difficult in a virtual world, but these are?skills that can be taught.?
I think what your salespeople are struggling with is getting?the attention?of the people who can buy. The people like you who lead companies are extremely busy and are the ones making the decisions to buy.
Salespeople don’t have a compelling story, so buyers like you don’t want to talk to them. But instead of developing content and messaging to intrigue, what many have them do is send more emails, make more cold calls, and send more LinkedIn connections so they can pitch products.??
STOP! It’s not working.
More Conversations Equals Greater Virtual Sales Success
What needs to happen instead is sales and marketing get together to develop compelling messages that will drive buyers to have?conversations.
There is so much research from companies like?Gartner?and?Corporate Visions?stating what it takes to engage the customer, yet many company leaders seem to ignore it.?
There are so many companies out there sharing how to effectively use an account-based approach, which is widely ignored even though it produces great results. There are better ways to sell and get results. For more on that, read this article from BCG,?Moving Beyond ABM to Account-Based Engagement.?
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Find Virtual Sales Success by Doing Better… Not Doing More
We are burning salespeople out. Why do that when great salespeople are in short supply? Salespeople don’t want to do MORE; they want to do BETTER. So when they do better, they have great days because better means more sales conversations.?
My friend?Joanne Black?teaches companies how to get appointments without cold outreach through referral selling. Yes, getting an introduction works 90% of the time. So, you can send 1000 emails and get one appointment or ask for 10 introductions and get at least 9. Resulting in 9 conversations because someone has transferred credibility to the seller and possibly even raved about your company while making the introduction. The caveat is, it has to be done well. So check out Joanne’s courses for help.
There are loads of statistics about the lifetime value of customers who come to you from referrals vs. cold outreach. Still, most companies I’ve worked with and surveyed don’t have a formalized referral program in place.?
Whether cold calling or scheduling a meeting from a referral, the message matters. You can’t get someone’s attention with messaging about your products and services. You have to show them you know them.?
You Have to Be Intriguing to Achieve Virtual Sales Success
Be intriguing using copy and content that has s message that matters.?
Park Howell?from?The?Business of Story?can help by teaching them the ABT (And, But and Therefore) method of storytelling.
Here’s an example from?Park’s course.?
Top sales professionals know the importance of deeply connecting with prospects?and?converting them into life-long customers to exceed sales goals.?But?most salespeople don’t connect with their B2B buyer because they lead with logical features, functions, and data when your prospect wants an emotional story.?Therefore, connect on a primal level with audiences where all their buying decisions are made using the problem/solution dynamic of the ABT.
NetLine Corporation‘s?report on B2B Content Consumption can help marketers help their salespeople. It explains who is consuming content and what they want. Here’s?the report.?David Fortino, NetLine’s Chief Strategy Officer, says, “We enable our salespeople to take little snippets of data and weaponize that data, to capture the attention of the people they’re reaching out to.”
3 Keys to Virtual Sales Success
Good salespeople should be able to sell in any situation, virtual or otherwise. So give them what they need to do so.
FACT or FICTION: Virtual sales are HARD.?
It’s fiction.?You and your senior team can provide what is needed to make selling easier. Don’t let virtual selling be a roadblock. It’s head trash that salespeople don’t need. Virtual selling is not hard if you have what you need to do it well.?
Please chime in with your thoughts in the comments.?
B2B Tech Marketeer | Growth Strategist | Lifelong Learner
3 年Insightful read and love the references too. Thanks for sharing!
Helping Leaders Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity | Thought Leader in Thriving Through Change | Hall of Fame Speaker & Award-Winning Author
3 年I loooove how much time it saves. And how much more productive I am Alice Heiman
Get Access to Buyers in a Tough Sales Climate | Partnering with Sales Leaders & Their Teams to Build a Referral System I Referrals: Your Fastest Revenue Driver | Unparalleled 70 Percent Conversion Rate
3 年Alice Heiman, thanks for featuring #referrals as the way to get the meeting and start a conversation. It's the one-call meeting. You've already been vouched for by someone your prospect knows and trusts. #referralselling is the most highly-regarded prospecting approach, yet it's hit and miss in most sales organizations. Smart companies are closing that gap and are building a referral culture. It's a unique, measurable, and cost effective prospecting approach that allows reps to get in early, build relationships, get the inside track, and eliminate the competition.
LinkedIn Top Voice, Virtual Executive Presence Training & Assessments for Sales & Leadership | Presentation and Demo Skills | Award-Winning #Sales Author | Professional Screen Actor
3 年When people say "virutal selling" they are often wrapping together a lot of different skills. There are the basic selling skills (similar in live or virtual), then mastering your technology and tools (virtual) and then there are the Virtual Communication Skills, which are unique to the environment and often counter-intuitive. Most people are addressing the first two and wondering why they are not able to connect or move the needle on sales.