The Top 4 Virtual Selling Best Practices
In Q4 of 2021, it’s more important than ever for sales reps to improve upon their virtual selling skills and practices. Consider this: about 62% of B2B employees (ages 22-65) report working remotely at least occasionally. With a majority of B2B employees working remotely whether full or part-time, sales reps will need to sell virtually. Thus, it’s crucial for sales reps to understand virtual selling best practices.
Furthermore, buyers around the world are expressing a 2x preference for digital over traditional sales interactions. If you and your sales team don’t prioritize virtual selling, you may lose out on highly lucrative sales opportunities. Check out the top 4 virtual selling best practices laid out below so you can maximize your ability to sell effectively.
1. Choose the right setting and virtual selling tools for the meeting
Now when we say virtual selling, we don’t just mean 1-on-1 sales calls. Virtual selling happens in all types of instances such as webinars and video conferences. Typically, the best way to conduct virtual sales is to choose the right setting for the virtual meeting based on your audience, goals, and resources. For example, say you have an entire committee of buyers at one of your prospect companies. You may consider hosting a one-to-many webinar that includes all stakeholders rather than hosting a video call with one primary contact.
In addition, it’s best to determine which technology would best suit the situation at hand. For 1-on-1 video calls, using video conferencing software like Zoom will likely be most effective. However, if you’re sharing a presentation to a large group of people or need to showcase your product in general, having the right sales presentation software is key. For example, effective virtual selling ensures that prospects are consistently engaged in the presentation. Tools like interactive presentations can actually increase levels of virtual buyer engagement.
For more information on interactive presentations, check out our blog How to Make an Interactive Presentation: 10 Tips to Get it Right.
2. Show prospects you value their time, virtually
Virtual sales meetings can be conducted anywhere at any time. This means B2B buyers are more likely to be riddled with meetings throughout their schedule. In fact, about 32 million individuals worldwide suffer from exhaustion as a direct result of numerous daily video calls. Thus, when you’re selling virtually, be sure to be mindful of the buyer’s time. So basically, provide the buyer with the most important information and leave out the “fluff.”
It’s also important to allow for some downtime for the prospect between their meetings. You can shorten your meetings by just a few minutes to let the prospect know you care about their mental health and wellbeing as well. Not to mention, this act of compassion will foster a great relationship between you and your buyer. Here’s an example of how you can go about shortening your virtual sales meeting while staying on track:
“I’d like to make sure you have some time before your next meeting, so let’s wrap up with the following points…”
In this example, the buyer is likely to feel relieved to gain some personal time back. Meanwhile, the sales rep is able to spend the rest of the meeting discussing high priority topics. It’s a win-win!
3. Deliver personalized and relevant content in your
virtual meeting
As stated previously, keeping the buyer engaged during the virtual selling process is key to making a sale. In fact, interactive and personalized sales content can be up to 25% more effective in communicating a message than traditional presentations. That’s why it’s important to create presentations that are relevant to the buyer, their paint points, use case, and the stage they’re in in their buyer’s journey.
For example, say you’re a health insurance advisor presenting all the healthcare plans you have available to a prospect. Through your conversation with the prospect, you discover that they are interested in family health plans. With this knowledge, you can move about the interactive presentation by only addressing the most important topics. Take pediatric dental plans vs. individual health plans, for instance. By providing the prospect with the most relevant pieces of content, you maximize the impact of your virtual selling tactics.
4. Test and optimize your content using engagement
data
Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly which pieces of content perform best when shared with your prospects? Or whether or not the prospect actually looks at the information you send them? Well, it is possible with the right sales enablement platform. Using the insights provided by a sales enablement platform will help you realize what’s working and what isn’t working in your virtual selling processes. From here, you can optimize and improve upon content to better serve your buyers.
Moreover, the best sales enablement platforms allow you to see the prospect’s interaction with sales materials in real-time. For instance, say your prospect is spending the most time on materials regarding life insurance. Based on these insights, you may want to focus your next interaction around the benefits of life insurance.
Similarly, if your prospect isn’t engaging with any of the new sales content you’re sending, take a look at their behavioral data from previous interactions. Which pieces of content did they interact with before? What topics were these materials discussing? Now, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions to send a much more relevant piece of content that the prospect will probably like better. By testing and optimizing virtual selling content, you’re better able to nurture leads by providing them with the best-fitting content.
Final Thoughts
Final thoughts Virtual selling is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have offering for all sales teams. If you haven’t already prioritized virtual selling practices and improving upon your virtual selling skills, the time is now. Unlock your full virtual sales potential with Prezentor’s interactive presentations and sales enablement platform.
Transform your sales now! Schedule your demo with Prezentor today.