Virtual selling. Why is it good for sellers and even better for buyers?
Digital transformation in sales has been on steroids since the start of the pandemic forcing many companies to adapt quickly in order not to lose contact with their customers and market share. We all have heard about the new reality of virtual selling. It’s one of those terms that a lot of people use, but few actually understand the technology behind and even fewer implement it effectively.
In reality, the pandemics was only a trigger event that fastened the development of this trend. Ubiquitous virtual selling was just a matter of time, an inevitable consequence of technological advancement and behavior of the modern buyer.
“Many sales leaders are already exploring ways to equip and engage sales teams by investing in new tools for virtual selling success.”
Doug Bushée, Gartner
In fact, 74% of CSOs report they have recently or are currently updating their seller skills profiles for virtual selling, while 61% of CSOs are already investing in new technology to enable virtual selling.
What is virtual selling?
Virtual selling is defined as the collection of processes and technologies by which salespeople engage with customer remotely with both synchronous (includes tactics for live customer interactions, such as pre-meeting planning, virtual meeting engagement and post meeting follow-ups) and asynchronous (includes providing customers with opportunities to independently review information and engage with tools on supplier websites, microsites, etc. while ensuring continuity as customers transition between channels) communications. It is also the successful combination of Social Selling & Remote Selling.
Put in an even simpler way: virtual selling is where sales conversations occur entirely online and not than in person, usually through video. This includes having sales meetings through video calls or communicating with prospect buyers through video messages.
It’s all about making emails and follow-ups more engaging through the use of video.
Even pandemic aside, virtual selling allows for more flexibility in meeting time and location, allows you to easily record the meeting for reference. This makes sales processes as convenient as possible.
In which industries can it be used?
Almost any industry can virtually sell, other than businesses that are hands- on service like catering or furniture repair.
5 reasons virtual selling is gaining success
1. It is the perfect answer to the new Hybrid World
According to McKinsey, 19 to 46 percent of corporate travel could be avoided permanently. This changes the way business development activities are organized and extends to things like the way sales organizations onboard and train new sales team members. It has become clear that after the pandemics, we will live in a world with a greatly reduced number of in-personal annual internal gatherings. And Virtual Selling perfectly fits this new reality.
2. B2B Buyers prefer making purchases via digital or remote
Buyers do not tend to visit Seller’s Profiles very often (only 30%) or engage with sales related profiles on LinkedIn. One of the possible reasons for that is that they don’t want to receive spam messages after engaging. However, they do visit the profiles of Product Development (80%), relevant C-level (65%) and Company Page (60%).
3. It is often more effective than traditional selling
According to the results of McKinsey’s survey, 75% of respondents believe digital sales methods have become more effective than traditional ones. This is likely the result of a growing comfort level that we have with digital engagement, and how it is affecting B2B. The right Virtual Selling provides customers with more relevant information, more relevant data (based on AI) that in combination with CRM makes the outreach more effective, easier and less annoying communication, and more. One of the most important points here is that scheduling virtual meetings is less time consuming and more effective for both sides. Turning to the results of the previously mentioned research, 85% of the prospects indicated they would prefer a 30-minute virtual call, rather than to engage in an offline meeting.
4. It brings more leads and opportunities
Successful Virtual Sellers outperform Traditional Sellers by far, having up to 80% more leads and opportunities. But the skills of traditional selling are still useful in Virtual selling once you are able to identify the difference phases and apply relevant communication and marketing strategies. Customers doing online research (the most used one) on a category should be able to find a potential supplier quickly, find an offer that fits their needs and budget, and experience the product or service through a virtual shop and videos. And, finally, they should be able to engage quickly and easily, whether through a chat bot, live chat, or a video call.
5. Return on investment
It’s always far more effective to design blend of software products for every specific role. Marketing roles, for instance, need tools for segmentation and scoring, marketing automation, attribution, and analytics. Similarly, sales roles need account planning, prospecting, opportunity management, and quote/proposal/closing. Virtual selling allows to adopt software carefully for each role and to improve its market coverage, thus, improving the overall return on investment.
Virtual selling tools to succeed
In addition to social, communication, active listening and demo skills, there are several virtual selling tools that a sales rep should know how to use before attempting a sale. These include:
· Video tools
Synchronous and asynchronous video tools can significantly improve the process of virtual selling. The former refers to live video conference, and the latter means recordings. When completing a sale with a customer, text chat and voice calls alone are often not enough. These video tools make customers feel a more personal connection to the sales rep and, therefore, the product.
· Social selling tools
These include personalized content, activated sellers, and risk mitigation, which let people find what they’re looking for more quickly. To reach an audience more deeply it is recommended to use a multi-channel approach, while risk mitigation helps eliminate security risks.
· Training
And here we mean online sales training. It teaches team members essential skills like communication, social ability, and active listening, while also provides with all the essential information and useful material. It also enables them to study remotely and re-access necessary information throughout the sales journey.
Virtual selling has been around for a while, and it’s not going anywhere. The process of virtual selling may be complex, but when implemented correctly at the end win both: sellers and buyers.
Virtual selling for personalized buyer experience
Quite simply, digital sales rooms empower the seller to act as a personal concierge for each customer. They allow to delight clients by anticipating their needs and deploying a secure virtual space.
Furthermore, digital sales rooms also empower sellers to create a professional, branded content experience, track engagement with different buy-side stakeholders, and choose the appropriate follow-up.
Digital sales rooms also add a human touch to the sales process, including some so often desired warmth, to the virtual sales process through personalized video talks. Unlike B2C sales, however, few B2B transactions are conducted one-to-one. Most require buy-in from multiple stakeholders from both the buyer and seller sides. And these often have different goals, agendas, and timetables. Virtual selling solves the problem by funneling everyone through a secure, central location. This means customer success can be reached in a variety of ways, from live chat to recorded sales calls to asynchronous presentations.
How does it work?
Visualize the digital sales room as a physical space — a fixed location where you can both keep all your products visible and host prospects. Sales reps can “greet buyers at the door” with personal video messages.
Then they can apply templates created by the marketing department to use the right set of content assets for any given customer and sales scenario while adding a banner message tailored for any individual deal or account.
Sales team members can monitor the stakeholders that are currently engaged, answer all the questions, and reinforce value proposition in real-time. Furthermore, they can exchange virtual business cards with prospects and then follow up with next best actions.
All these actions make selling easier while also more effective.
Change takes time, but virtual selling can rapidly bring discipline to sales organizations and generate measurable results in short order.
