Gone are those days when a salesperson had to travel miles and spend hours in a boardroom to convince a prospect.
With the advent of remote and virtual selling technologies, you can now reach millions of prospects and make a sale from anywhere: with your computer or smartphone!
Virtual or Remote selling is an excellent way to increase sales and engage customers globally. The pandemic has pushed more people (although reluctantly) towards adapting virtual selling and the business world is embracing the change for good.
In fact, more than three-quarters of buyers now prefer remote human interactions over meeting in person.
What is Virtual Selling?
Virtual selling or Remote selling is the process of executing sales activities online. It is video-centric sales, where the sales team uses video messages to communicate with prospects.
Virtual selling is an effective sales strategy that is used by organizations of - Small and Midsize Enterprise Businesses.
Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Effective Virtual Salesperson?
If you want to be a sales star, don't forget the power of virtual selling. It is an easy way to sell around the clock and earn more commissions at the luxury of home. You can reach a larger customer base and pitch your products/services globally.
Along with sales acumen, you’ll need virtual selling tools in your arsenal to sell with greater efficiency. One such tool which is trending right now is sales video emails that help make high-quality connections with prospects.
Using asynchronous videos in your email is more personal and effective than text or video calls because they are delivered in real-time and it doesn't need two people to “be present” at the same time. It offers “flexibility” to your prospects.
10 Tips To Be an Effective Virtual Sales Person!
We put together top 10 tips tried and tested by sales professionals who garnered great results. Use these tips to become the best salesperson you have ever been!
Remember! The key is to establish a personal rapport & provide a unique experience to your prospects.
1. Use Asynchronous Videos
Sales conversions are accelerated with video-based prospecting. It gives your prospect enough scope to converse and respond with ease at their convenience.
Using one-to-one videos results in accelerated sales cycles.
2. Use Visual Aids
Pitch to impress.
While using asynchronous videos, use various options available to give an extra edge to your videos.
Share your screen & show documents, infographics, and images in your video pitch.
Yes, You can also record your screen while using the camera with VideoForm.
3. Know Your Audience & Personalize
Analyze your audience before you record your video messages. Personalize your video to your prospect and make them feel unique.
A tailored & personal pitch always gets a better response rate.
4. Reach Out Proactively To The Prospects
Connect with your prospects via social media channels like LinkedIn and get the conversations rolling. This will give you extra mileage over your competition.
5. Don't Oversell Or Push Products
Once you are done sending your personalized video pitch, let your prospects soak in the information. Don't badger them with a flurry of emails - Give them space & time to respond.
Follow up strategically & sparsely
6. Make Sure Your Content Has Call to Actions (CTA)
A call to action is a great way to remind your prospect to respond immediately. Add a personal touch to your videos with call to actions with VideoForm.
Add a call to action button like “Click here” to give prospects the choice to book a meeting after they've watched your pitch & know you as a person.
7. Always Be Prepared
Sell with a plan and keep your prospects on the hook.
Plan your content ahead to avoid any blips in your pitching video.
8. Always Have a Follow-up Plan
Thank your prospects for their time through a personalized video and let them know that there are a number of resources available to assist with the purchasing process.
Make sure you personalize each message which will have an impact on prospect satisfaction!
9. Ask For Feedback
Collect feedback from customers at every stage of the sales lifecycle, to increase satisfaction.
With this data, you'll be able to quickly identify which sales strategies are working best for each buyer.
10. Offer Incentives
Offer a discounted upgrade for annual plans over monthly plans or offer an extended trial to your key prospects to keep them engaged with your product/services
“In sales, activity drives everything - that's the law. Activity is the hard work of sales and it is the price you pay for your checks.
Activity includes: Cold calling, first time visits, follow-up calls, product demonstrations, walk-throughs, test drives, site visits, presentations, proposals, referrals, direct mail and so forth.
The fact is, if you have enough activity, you will at least sell something, even if you do everything wrong.” - Jeb Blount
Do You Have a Virtual Selling Process In Place?
In the wake of recent events & with increased demand for virtual selling, most salespeople have jumped into selling virtually without proper preparation. Setting up clear processes to transform virtual sales from traditional sales is essential.
Here is an easy step-by-step method, to set up your remote processes for selling effectively.
Step -1: Define your goals & purpose
Step -2: Communicate the goals & purpose with the team
Step -3: Make a clearly understandable buyer persona
Step -4: Use virtual selling tools to speed up the process
Step -5: Track progress
Step -6: Cut down the sales cycle
Step -7: Create multi touchpoints for better engagement
Step -8: Go into demos fully prepared to handle objections
What Are The Biggest Challenges For Virtual Selling?
According to a study conducted on Virtual selling skills & challenges, the top challenges identified are, gaining buyers' attention and getting to know the prospects better in person.
Here are a few more challenges to keep in mind before you strategize your sales pitch:
1) Lack of nonverbal cues, body language, or facial expressions, makes it difficult for prospects to understand your intent.
2) Prospects don't know who they're talking to on the other end - this can lead them to feel less comfortable than conversing with someone in person
3) It's hard for prospects to get a sense of who you are as an individual
4) Virtual salespeople are often not given the same training and resources as their in-person counterparts. This can create a feeling of isolation. More often, they don't have access to all the information necessary when dealing with prospects remotely.
How To Overcome Remote Selling Challenges?
One way virtual sellers can combat these challenges is by applying their sales skills to virtual relationships. Thereby, making the prospects feel more connected, confident, and motivated to take action.
The following 7 tips can help any virtual seller brush their skills and performance.
I encourage you to try as many of these tips as possible or add your own creative spin:
- Follow up with potential customers at least once a week by sending them a video email. This will help build familiarity in the relationship over time, without feeling too invasive and it's also cost-effective!
- Focus on the benefits of what you are selling rather than features and functions. This helps illustrate how your product/service can solve a specific problem for your prospect.
- Share more about yourself and other interests outside of work and sales. This can help establish a human connection.
- Choose personalized videos over text-based emails to create a more personal connection with prospects.
- Find the preferred mode of communication of your prospect. For example, if the potential customer is more comfortable communicating by email over a video or phone, try to accommodate emails to build rapport.
Abhishek Ekbote
Tailor Your Selling to the Virtual World
To suit the current buyer's behavior, sales processes and strategies have to be re-defined and adapted to changing times.
Economic shifts change the way companies operate. Companies work differently when they are not in the office. You might be working remotely.
It is important for you to equip yourself with virtual selling techniques & focus on interactive technologies to bring you - the seller and your prospect together
Value Your Prospect’s Time
You'll be amazed at the results when you value your prospects' time.
If you scheduled a live meeting with your prospect, make sure you start it on time without keeping them waiting.
A much better solution to value your prospect’s time is to use an asynchronous video. You can schedule a video email to be delivered in real-time and can let your prospect respond with queries on a video.
What is the Future for Virtual selling?
In a survey by McKinsey & Company around 9 out of 10 decision-makers said that the pandemic-induced patterns of online conversations and buying will be permanent for 2021 and beyond.
Remote selling trends have caught up with the decision-makers and they share an optimistic sentiment towards virtual selling practices. Digital sales have become a big part of the world.
The most notable sign is that B2B buyers are making new purchases and reorders online. The future looks bright for virtual selling.
“Virtual Selling is Here to Stay.”
Videoform is a full fledged video personalization suite for marketing team to amp up their conversion game.
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