For many online sales professionals, B2B companies, and marketers, generating sales leads is not a big problem. Generating quality leads to close more deals is the big challenge. In other words, getting prospects into sales meetings is one thing. Converting a good percentage of them into paying customers is a different challenge.
But why is closing more challenging, especially when you have sufficient sales leads in your pipeline?
It all starts from the initial conversations. If the conversations are unattractive you'll continue to lose potential clients.
Assuming you have been struggling in this regard or just getting started in a new sales role and your results aren't impressive, this post contains some ideas on things you can do differently to increase your sales productivity. Hopefully, putting them to work could help you become a successful virtual sales rep.
The differences between in-person sales calls vs virtual sales meetings
Virtual sales presentations and in-person sales meetings differ primarily in their mode of interaction and level of personal connection.
While virtual presentations rely on digital platforms for communication, potentially limiting non-verbal cues and requiring adaptability to technological constraints, in-person meetings offer face-to-face interaction, fostering stronger rapport through body language and direct engagement.
Moreover, virtual selling is usually fraught with distractions and technical details, while in-person meetings provide a controlled environment conducive to focused discussion.
Both formats require tailored communication strategies to effectively convey the sales message and build client relationships while overcoming objections.
How to conduct virtual sales meetings without losing prospect's interest
Besides making your sales calls engaging from the initial conversation, it's also important to hold the attention of potential prospective buyers from the beginning to the end. In this section, I have highlighted some best practices and tips to make your virtual sales call successful. Moreover, you'll find pointers on how to help the sales team use video to overcome buyer objections.
#1: Do some research
Without sufficient knowledge of your target prospects, achieving sales success or closing deals through the virtual selling process will be extremely hard. What I have witnessed in such a scenario is that many prospects will perceive your sales pitch as mismatched value propositions.
For example, while potential customers may qualify for demographic criteria, they may not have a strong need for your product or service before starting a sales conversation.
Sometimes, they may be unable to afford the price when they need the product or service. In another distinct context, a company may need your product and also have the budget to purchase it, but talking to the wrong person within that company via a virtual call won't get you the sale.
That's why it's essential to do thorough research before starting a sales meeting with a prospect. Through the research process, you'll be able to identify the following types of important information –
- Buyer's name
- Job title
- Company size
- Business model
- Pain points
- The tools they use
- Business goals and objectives
The more knowledge you can gain about the prospective customers, the better your chances of building trust and gaining a competitive edge. Hence, the exact prospects you're talking to are also talking to your competitors with the same product or service offering.
#2: Clarify the agenda and expectations
Another interesting factor that may limit the success of your virtual sales meetings is the lack of clarity. If you are not clear enough about the meeting agenda, prospect's concerns, and expectations, there will always be a high chance of losing prospect's interest, especially in a virtual environment.
On the other hand, clarifying the expectations will help the meeting participants justify why they should spend their time with you, knowing you are there to sell something to them.
When setting the agenda and clarifying expectations, defining your sales goals and objectives is essential. What exactly do you want to accomplish during the video call?
#3: Choose a virtual meeting software
For product demos, sales training, and even virtual conferences, many sales teams can find interesting use cases for virtual meeting software.
However, this type of software is essential for effective sales meetings.
With some of the sophisticated features on these platforms, you can leverage video call software to build rapport and hold prospective customer's attention from the beginning to the end of your virtual meetings. Depending on your preferences, some platforms like Cloudpresenter can also help you host engaging webinars and virtual conferences in addition to conventional sales meetings.
#4: Make use of visual aids and let them see your face
Using relevant visuals is a proven way to create a killer sales presentation and build trust in client relationships. In remote selling, visual content like case studies, customer testimonials, charts, graphs, and industry statistics builds strong emotional connections with the target prospects.
Given that storytelling is the centerpiece of business activity, many research studies have proven how and why stories move us as humans. Here is just one piece from Buffer on the science of storytelling.
So, leveraging attractive, enlightening, and entertaining visuals to sell your product's value propositions is essential instead of bland stories and hard, boring facts. Interestingly, this is not something you can do via cold calling.
Some of the specific ways that sales leaders can use visuals in the new virtual selling environment include the following -
1. Share your screen showing relevant facts, figures, images
2. Make use of the whiteboard for product demonstrations or calculations
3. Play import video content during your sales presentation
4. Share some industry-relevant charts and graphs related to your product or service
#5: Encourage interactive participation
Fostering interactivity is another critical differentiator of high-performing sales teams, especially in a remote working environment. Usually, starting a sales conversion in an online meeting is easy. Holding the prospective customer's attention through the sales cycles to close a deal is where the big challenge exists for every sales leader, sales team, and sales rep.
If you do it very well by leveraging a consultative sales approach, interactive participation can help you overcome objects that may stand in the way of closing sales.
Below are some specific actions you can take to encourage interactive participation during your virtual sales meetings. Perhaps, doing them well will give the prospect a reason to stay to the end of your presentation.
- Ask open-ended questions
- Answer customer questions
- Ask related follow-up questions
- Use the interactive chat and messaging tools
- Set out time for questions and answer (Q&A) session
- Use polls and surveys to gain more insights
#6: Include a clear call to action
Delivering educational value, building trust, and fostering engagement are good things to do during a virtual sales presentation. However, the absence of a precise call to action directing prospects on the next logical step to take will hurt your sales conversion rate.
Assuming you have set some measurable sales goals from the beginning, a clear CTA will help you measure progress toward those specific goals.
The beautiful part is that most virtual meeting platforms like Cloudpresenter will give you access to analytics features to measure how prospects respond to your call to action at the end of the meeting.
When such features are unavailable, you can leverage other compatible integrated tools to analyze your CTA data.
Regardless of what you're selling online, you can use the following types of CTA to engage your prospects and convert some of them into paying clients or customers.
Clickable Button: During interactive sales conversations, you can insert a clickable button to instruct prospects on what to do after the meeting.
Clickable Text Link: With text link-based CTA, you are only limited by your imagination. For example, you can even use words highlighting your product or service value propositions on the text link that leads to a purchase or free trial landing page.
Pop-up: You can also use beautifully designed pop-ups to direct the attention of your prospects during the virtual sales meeting. Once again, you can use the design or texts to highlight your core value propositions or product benefits.
Spoken Words: When inviting them to purchase, take advantage of a discount, or sign up for a free trial, spoken words often sound effective as the primary CTA. Just ensure you are clear regarding what you want prospects to do next.
Conclusion
The level of engagement you achieve during a virtual sales meeting depends on different influential factors. Interestingly, what we have highlighted in this post are the most important ones that determine not just engagement but sales success in general. As noted earlier, an effective sales process starts with gaining sufficient knowledge of the prospects and customers before the meeting.
Set the agenda, clarify expectations, and try to find the best virtual meeting software sales leaders and remote sales teams. Don't forget to use the interactive features of the best tools to keep the audience engaged from the beginning to the end of your video sales call.
Finally, ensure you are using clear CTAs and testing them to discover what converts more than others. Where appropriate, you may also consider using countdown timers to achieve successful sales results during your virtual meetings.
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