When salespeople were forced to switch from face-to-face selling to virtual selling, they were forced to learn a different medium of communication. What you used to be able to communicate with your face, body language, energy, etc. has to be squeezed into a small square on a computer screen. Your customer doesn’t have the context of face-to-face. It requires learning new skills. In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Julie Hansen shares how acting skills can benefit a salesperson and help them succeed in this virtual reality we now live in.
Julie has a background in acting. Most actors/actresses start their careers doing live theatre. You can see your audience and what lands—or doesn’t—and adjust accordingly. Virtual selling is similar to moving to on-camera work.
When Julie moved from live audiences to camera, she did what she did for theatre. But the director pointed out she wasn’t looking in the right place, she was out of frame, and was distracting. She learned she had to get new training to communicate in the new medium. Salespeople need to acknowledge that and learn new skills so they can communicate in a virtual environment.
Organizations learned that they can be more cost-effective doing sales calls virtually. Plus, McKinsey found in their research that more than three-quarters of B2B buyers prefer remote interaction versus face-to-face. You need to adapt to the new reality.
Most organizations throw tools and technology at their salesforce but haven’t realized that communication differences need to be addressed. How does the camera read behavior? What about your eye contact and facial expressions? Are you communicating what you need to?
You have to learn to connect one-on-one on camera because sales are all about building relationships. People buy from people they like and they feel confident with. So you have to learn to establish those relationships through a camera. That’s where the growth needs to be. If you can do that, you’ll rise to the top and stand out.
Julie believes that the qualities needed to succeed are the same, whether in person or virtually. You need to be credible, keep your word, be authentic, show empathy, be an active listener, etc. But those qualities are often lost in a virtual exchange, so you have to adjust the way you communicate them.
In a face-to-face conversation, if someone stared at your shoes the whole time, you’d feel like they weren’t interested. But it happens on video all the time. You may be looking at the customer’s image, screen, tools, etc. You need to understand that the quality of active listening requires you to behave differently. You have to know when to look at the camera directly. Your fave must communicate the emotions you think it is.
What tools, techniques, and strategies does Julie recommend to improve how you portray yourself on video? Listen to learn more!
Julie shared some amazing tips to help you improve your skills:
Julie got a call from an experienced enterprise sales rep who was a top biller before things moved virtually. He felt like he wasn’t connecting with his customers and that he had lost his superpower. When Julie worked with him on camera, it was obvious his personality wasn't coming across. He felt scripted and his discomfort was obvious.
She worked with him on improving his eye contact, body language, energy, and what his face was portraying. After working together, he went back to a customer where he had been shut out of a big deal. He put together a compelling and engaging personalized video that got him back in the running.
You have to admit that you don’t know what you don’t know and get the help you need to adapt to this new environment. Don’t sit and suffer in silence. Stand up for yourself and get the training that you need to succeed.
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According to Walker McKay, a salesperson’s actions, attitude, and approach can lead to digital improvements. What should those actions look like? What characteristics do you need to embrace? What approaches are successful? Walker McKay answers these questions—and more—in this episode of Sales Reinvented.
Digital selling is important because it’s nearly impossible to get face-to-face with people anymore. People are working from home and you can’t just show up at their “office.” So you have to find other ways to connect with people and hold conversations. Organizations need to create expected behaviors around digital selling regarding:
You have to start with the actions. What is the expected behavior? How many LinkedIn posts should somebody do? How many times should you reach out per week? Companies need to get comfortable that this is the way things are being done. So it’s time to build behaviors around getting appointments via text, phone, social media, and video.
Where should you go to find business? If it’s on LinkedIn, you can download your connections onto a spreadsheet. You can match it with your client list and make sure you’re connected with people you’re already doing business with.
Secondly, Walker would take that list and look for some low-hanging fruit you hadn’t talked to yet. How will you get in touch with them? You can send LinkedIn messages, DMs, text messages, phone calls, and emails. You need to touch people 6–7 times using different channels to get their attention. The goal is to set an appointment, right? Set a meeting over Zoom or a similar channel.
Old school B2B salespeople might be in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Even so, an openness to technology is key to their success. Secondly, salespeople need to have a strong why behind their success. You have goals you want to accomplish and achieve in life. Are you disciplined enough to reach out to people, send messages, and keep track of it? It is discipline and a desire to win being put into place.
Are you posting things on different channels? Walker has found posting a video or a how-to on social channels to be effective. If you’re selling insurance, you might post “5 Ways to Make Sure You Get the Right Insurance.” You have to be able to write well and teach people with your posts. If you’re seen as a teacher, people will come to you for help and you’ll become the professional in your space.
Walker is always looking for sales experts to be guests on his podcast. He was using LinkedIn to reach out to people but wasn’t getting a great response. He was reaching out to 5 people a day. But he connected with someone named Casey Jones. She didn’t respond. 3 days later, he messaged her again and they started a conversation. Turns out, they had a great connection. She was one of his best podcast guests and they’ve since collaborated on three different business deals.
There is a network outside of you through the digital world that is much bigger and better than what you could have face-to-face. Work to build your network and ask for what you want. There’s a tremendous world of business out there.
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A digital sales strategy can include social selling, video communication, and great content as a mechanism to communicate with a prospect. Whether selling digitally or in person, Liz Heiman believes that every successful seller models the 4Cs of selling. What are these characteristics? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to learn more!
Liz emphasizes that good selling is good selling whether it’s digital or in-person. You can’t get away with bad habits anymore because digital noise has become so loud. Just “checking in” isn’t effective. You need to be heard through the noise. If you’re going to be a good seller, you need to understand who you’re selling to and what matters to them. Then you need to have a valid business reason for interacting with them. Be relevant and intentional with your selling in the digital world. That starts with putting in place better basic selling skills.
Most of Liz’s clients deal with complex B2B sales (with multiple people involved). So her digital strategy starts with an account-based approach. She works with sales and marketing to reach out to the people who influence buying decisions within a company. It takes a targeted approach with clear messaging and predefined actions that each team takes.
Secondly, Liz recommends checking in on buyers with intention. She has her sales team—the moment they finish the last action—identify what the next action and message will be. That goes into their CRM so when they make the next interaction they remember what they’re supposed to do.
If you have a CRM, take careful notes and list your next action. Use the tool to help you be effective. When Liz makes a call to a prospect, she looks at their last conversation. Secondly, Liz believes sending a video is imperative. If you can’t pop your head in, sending a quick video is a great way to do it.
Liz believes it’s the same skills that any seller should have: the “Four Cs of selling.” You need to care about and be compassionate for your customers. You also need to be creative and curious. These skills will help you be effective. If you’re curious, you’ll do research, take notes, and look for pain points. You’ll hear what your customers are telling you and acknowledge and engage with what they’re dealing with.
If you can’t get their attention with one strategy, you’ll get creative and try another. If your solution doesn’t work, how can you find one that does? Those are the things that matter, digital or not. You have to work harder to develop the human connection.
What tools, techniques, and strategies can you use to improve your communication? What are Liz’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!
Liz tells people to use video but she hates video. But a year and a half ago, she decided to send her follow-up notes as a video. She had a client that hadn’t been responding, so she sent a video. One of the prospects had been in the process of firing someone. She asked if he was able to make a decision.
He wrote back and said, “You must have the most amazing CRM that you can remember what we talked about last time.” She cared enough to remember what they talked about and reach out to see if they needed her help. When you care about people and listen to them, it works. Reach out to customers in a way that’s easy, convenient, and helpful for them.
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Salespeople are still struggling to adapt to all of the changes that the Covid pandemic has brought about. Virtual selling is still largely at play, with some in-person interaction still sprinkled in. Tom Pisello believes that to adapt, you need to become laser-focused on helping prospects become aware of and solve their problems. To do that, you have to identify your own struggles to become more effective. Tom shares insight into this process in this episode of @SalesReinvented!
Sellers are frustrated with how much longer purchasing decisions are taking and how many people are involved in the process. It can be difficult for them to manage. But Tom emphasizes that if you look for what buyers are saying their challenges are, it can be a turning point. When the Rain Group surveyed buyers on what they thought of sellers in the digital environment, four gaps that were recognized:
How do you present your sellers with discovery guides and interactive presentations? Can you provide your sellers with an interactive diagnostic assessment or a problem/solution guide to use with customers? You have to provide an interactive value assessment tool so sellers can collect data from the customer and do the number crunching to make a business case.
Make sure you’re implementing conversational intelligence tools so you don’t have to have your head down to take notes. You need a good video presence and the ability to listen more than they talk. So learn how to maintain eye contact on video calls.
When you do talk, you need to ask good in-depth discovery questions that help buyers be introspective. A good seller is armed with good content and tools. They’re leveraging dynamic presentations and assessment tools to add value, insight, and guidance.
Tom recommends that content enablement groups work to examine PDFs, videos, guides, etc, that are being provided to their salespeople and think about retooling them. Can you make them interactive? Can you click on elements? Customers don’t have the patience to sit through a deck. You have to be able to pivot the conversation to what the customer wants to talk about and have content to support it.
Tom loves doing diagnostic assessments to assess a company’s maturity and where they are in the journey. You can map out improvements that they’d like to make and give intelligent recommendations. You can benchmark them against peers.
What about business value assessments? What challenges are they facing? What is it costing them? What’s the value potential of implementing a solution? What evidence can you share that you can deliver on this? The right tools can make a difference.
What are Tom’s virtual selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!
Tom once had 16 people in a company’s buying committee in a virtual meeting. With a crowd that large, you want to be mindful of who is paying attention. What does everyone care about? The customer was early in their decision-making process. So instead of talking about the solution, Tom mapped a day in the life of their customer’s customer and how they helped to overcome their problems. They went into how they could help address the friction this prospect was dealing with in their selling process.
As they walked through the pieces of their sales process with the customer, he got almost everyone on the call to participate. Tom made sure he got input from everyone to make sure everyone was engaged. They took notes on what was important. When they went into the solutions part of the call, they tied back to specific people and pain points.
Tom notes that people can be afraid to speak up in front of their CEO and other executives, so you have to be conscious of the political dynamics within the environment. You can overcome that by calling on specific people to contribute to the conversation and be heard. Above all, spend time walking through discovery with the group and make sure everyone is engaged in the pain-point portion. Be aware of the dynamics that occur and be ready with strategies to engage everyone.
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Digital selling encompasses a variety of different communication channels. Whether it’s via social media, texting, email, or video, a great digital seller has to be agile and willing to use whatever medium their prospects and customers prefer. Why is that so important? Lori Richardson shares her thoughts in this episode of Sales Reinvented!
You have to be able to prospect digitally. You need to do value proposition work. You need to be able to connect well with people. Then you need to build your communication skills and tools to have ongoing conversations to build trust with your buyer. You must help them with services you offer—or don’t. You want to help them in any way you can, even if it means referring a prospect to someone else.
Lori believes there are some key sales competencies that aren’t based on personality that must be mastered. These traits help people sell more:
These things are critical to successful selling.
Do you have a solid methodology and process in place? Are you engaging in tasks that lead to closing sales opportunities? There are thousands of tools available for marketing and sales success. Lori emphasizes you must master social selling and video, know how to follow prospects and clients on social media, and learn how to use fundamental tools like Sales Navigator.
What are Lori’s digital selling tips?
Lori helped a company that had found her virtually and reached out through texting. By returning their texts, Lori answered enough questions that they felt comfortable having a phone conversation. The phone conversation led to Lori offering them some services. That turned into a solid six-figure deal. It all started with texting. They turned out to be a great client that Lori still works with today.
If someone emails or calls, Lori responds immediately. If you get back to people quicker, you have the highest chance of closing business. Even if you just schedule a time to talk further, people are blown away. Likewise, if texting is your client's preferred mode of communication, by all means, text them.
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