3 Ways to Elevate Virtual Selling
By Tony Lenhart, Partner at Sales Empowerment Group
We are one year into the "new way". Now that busy executives know they don't have to meet in person with salespeople anymore, why would they?
My whole career up to Mar 13th, 2020 had been doing face-to-face sales. Those first couple months were scary. Many of us were thrust into an unknown, elevated state of virtual sales. Luckily the same principles apply.
The change has been good for many - new technologies to drive efficiency, expanded reach beyond traditional geographies or 'territories', opportunities to solve new problems, and perhaps some much-needed work/life harmony that brings great joy and fulfillment to their work.
As the last year has unfolded, I've worked with dozens of companies and hundreds of sales reps helping them stay nimble and strong as we all leap across the chasm. Here are the top three areas I've been helping people with:
1. Check How You're Communicating - Since Zoom/Teams/Meet/Go To Meeting are how we meet "Face-to-Face", you have to find a way to pack all of your personality into a small computer screen. You must up the energy level with your non-verbal cues, tonality, and content. Sales has been and always will be a 'transfer of enthusiasm'. What are you doing?
Actions to Take:
Get up on your feet. Use your hands (gesticulate). Nothing worse that looking like a cardboard cut-out while sitting on a zoom call.
Build excitement and tension by flexing the volume and speed of your voice (also - use silence; 3 beats before answering)
Slide Deck - less words, more pictures . Give a story, not a book report.
Do you best to stare into the camera, not your own video/screen.
2. What’s Old is New. It's noisy out there. With the onslaught of so many different communication platforms, it has made sales people have plenty of security blankets in the form of canned emails and social media. Twenty years ago you only had two options if you weren't live - snail mail or pick up the phone. Guess what? Those things still work AWESOME. And arguably, better today than ever because so few people put in the effort to do it.
Actions to Take:
Proactively schedule time in your calendar every week to make outbound calls to networking partners and prospects.
Download TouchNote (https://touchnote.com/) or order some card stock (https://www.zazzle.com/c/cards+stamps).
3. Presence - Being 100% mentally and physically present is a challenge when going from video call to video call, the mind gets fatigued and starts to wander. If we can get ourselves to embrace the present moment, we can better maximize our senses, the natural ones (sight/sound) and intuitive ones (your gut).
Actions to Take:
Hide your phone from sight and shut down your email during video calls
Before hopping on a call, do 10 jumping jacks or push-ups.
Put time limits on any apps that suck your time & energy. (FB/Insta/LinkedIn/Games)
Don’t schedule 30 or 60 minute calls. Try 23 minutes and 47 minutes instead (and it’s sometimes a fun(ny) conversation starter)
I offered 10 ideas here - pick a few and take action! Have you tried something else that’s worked great for you? Write me at tony@salesempowermentgroup.com.
Follow Tony @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/salesdrummer/ or sign up for his own monthly newsletter @ https://mailchi.mp/salesempowermentgroup/salesdrummer