February 2022

25
Feb
B2B Sales  ·  Sales  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
Top 3 skills B2B Sales Teams must learn in 2023

Tim Gibbons is the Managing Director of Hoolock Consulting Limited. He is a very seasoned sales leader and expert who has authored the book “The Equation of Sales”. Read on to know what he has to say on the changing dimensions of sales teams in the B2B space.

Two years ago, I had never even heard of Zoom. I had a license for GoToMeeting as I had realized that, with customers spread over Europe, I needed a way of interacting with them at times. However, these interactions only happened remotely once I had built a relationship with them in person. I never set out to build a relationship from scratch via remote interactions. However, with home working becoming more normal, we need to be able to build relationships without even shaking hands.

There are two main aspects of remote interactions that I believe we need to improve and they are quite different. The first is the ability to get to know a person, not just their business persona. Relationships are between people and we need to know people which means making small talk before a meeting begins. In-person, this is usually easy as we walk to and from a meeting room. We have the chance to talk then and ask non-work-related questions. This is a really important part of getting to know our customers and when we interact online, there is a tendency to just jump straight into the meeting without having this chat. Try to find a few minutes at the start of every meeting to get to know your customer as a person and it will pay dividends in the long run.

The other aspect of improving our remote interactions is at the other end of the spectrum when we are making a presentation. Quite often, we cannot see our audience either because of our setup or because they have turned their cameras off. This makes it extremely difficult to judge their reaction to what we are saying. When we present in person, we can get immediate feedback on what we are saying from looking at our audience. Without that, it can be very difficult. Try to build interaction into your presentation, stop regularly, and ask questions or solicit feedback. Keep the audience engaged. Keep the presentations as short as possible and try to spend more time asking questions at the end.

With so many people working from home, it can be difficult to make contact with people except via email. To stand a chance of getting a response, we need to make our message personal and thought-provoking. Sending the same message to ten people is not likely to work. It needs to demonstrate that you have at least thought about the possible needs of your potential customer in a specific rather than a general way.

You then need to tell them something that they are not likely to already know. This is crucial to persuading them to change. Your customer is likely to be able to run their business without your product. They are functioning today and are likely to be able to function tomorrow without it. If you want them to buy your product, you first have to persuade them to change something. This might be a process or system or just the way that they think about a problem.

Whatever it is that you tell them, it has to be focused on changing their mind, not on your product. Your customer will have to be made to feel unhappy with their current setup such that they go looking for a solution to fix it. Assuming that you have told them relevant information, your product should be the first thing that comes to mind when they decide how to satisfy their needs. So, when you do contact a customer, focus on changing their mind rather than selling your product.

Follow Zipteams and be a part of our sales community and get some tips from experts like Tim every week.

by Ramya S


19
Feb
B2B Sales  ·  Sales  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
5 Pitfalls to avoid while doing your B2B Sales virtually

Even the most talented salespeople may struggle to adjust to their jobs’ new, virtual nature. Selling online or Sales Virtually is not the same as selling in person. While the fundamental fundamentals remain the same, you must account for new and varied hurdles when it comes to closing digitally and concentrate on overcoming the following obstacles:

1. Less Preparedness

The majority of virtual sales issues stem from a lack of the necessary preparation. Creating rapport during virtual encounters is one of these problems, but even the most essential personal connections are altered during virtual meetings.

  • Before the pandemic, most salespeople had little or no experience working from home.
  • Virtual communications alter fundamental components of social interactions. It would help if you dealt with a new challenge: responsiveness and visual accompaniment.
  • Virtually, overcoming distractions is more challenging. On both sides of their computers, salespeople must deal with new types of distractions.
  • Even the greatest of the best are incapable of “winging it.” When you interact through a virtual meeting, you lose many intuitive abilities.

You can research well about the people you are about to meet on a virtual call. You can go through their LinkedIn profiles to try and understand their background.

2. Rapport Building

To close a sale, you’ll need to dig up a lot of information. 

  • The ice wall is there, and the first thing it prevents is the information you need to accomplish your job.
  • It takes a lot of effort to get your customers to open up to you. In a virtual meeting environment, sellers must understand how to make prospects more responsive.
  • A lack of receptivity is natural, and sales reps will struggle to distinguish between face-to-face encounters and virtual sales dialogues.

It would be best if you learned about your prospects’ anxieties, wants, and desires, as well as the factors that influence their decisions. Gaining rid of ambiguity and getting the answers you need gives sales a new lease on life. Also, you can be candid with your conversation if you want to build a rapport with your clients.

3. Technology Issues

Technical knowledge wasn’t always a critical prerequisite in the sales profession. Still, now it is — you must handle virtual meeting platforms and tools and successfully execute presentations and processes.

  • Teleworking was an advantage enjoyed by only 5% of salespeople before the coronavirus. Only a few handfuls had access to this option.
  • Strong virtual sales performance today necessitates the deployment of effective technologies.

You can use a whole set of tools to engage virtual customers and create rapport, but you must master:

  • The Virtual Presentation as an Art Form
  • Making a Slideshow
  • Obtaining E-signatures and presenting digital contracts
  • Email and text message sequences for automated follow-up
  • Zoom Backgrounds for Professionals
  • Audio and video

Sales take on a new dimension when you represent yourself in virtual media. You’ll need a strong online presence as well as knowledge of new technologies, tactics, and how to establish trust in a new virtual world.

Many salespeople haven’t been taught how to best stack the odds in their favour in this new technological era. This leads to humiliating errors that would be unimaginable in a typical sales setting. It is important for you to learn to use some tools that might aid you in conducting a virtual meeting.

4. Difficulty in organizing your sales meeting

Prospecting salespeople may not have much difficulty in this area, but many sellers find it difficult to “get in contact” on the spur of the moment. Right now, most clients are busier. The initial hurdle — getting to talk in the first place – has changed due to the new status quo.

You’ll have to be more inventive as a salesperson if you want to get your “foot in the door.”

A modern salesperson’s toolkit should include the following:

  • Offering and offering a solution to clients’ difficulties
  • Using the phone, SMS, or email to get a decision maker’s attention
  • Knowing how to communicate effectively via email will help you get your foot in the door.
  • Video Sales outreach videos for prospecting

5. Problems in Relationship Building and Collaboration

Working remotely necessitates a sales team’s adaptation to virtual relationships. It takes a team to adapt to this virtual selling environment. Many teams have never experienced full-time remote selling from a home office, let alone remote teaming and collaboration. 91% of sellers feel that gaining the attention of the buyers and engaging with them virtually can be a considerable challenge.

Providing sales teams with the tools they need to perform at their best while working remotely necessitates both teamwork and technology. This problem necessitates current solutions that keep salespeople on track, provide helpful feedback to their sales team, and encourage the ongoing improvement of their sales skills and process. Also, once you start conducting all of your calls virtually, you will start understanding relationship building.

Conclusion

Virtual selling is a novel experience that presents new obstacles and necessitates acquiring new sales strategies and skills. But there’s no reason it should get in the way of your achievement. New sales training options can help sales leaders and reps enhance their virtual selling talents. While virtual selling makes many sales parts more complex, it also opens up new possibilities.

Reach out to us on Zipteams to get started with the best ways to sell virtually.

by Ramya S


11
Feb
B2B Sales  ·  Remote selling  ·  Sales  ·  Virtual selling
The Evolving Space of B2B Sales Post Pandemic

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic compelled B2B buyers and sellers to go completely digital. What began as a crisis response has evolved into the new normal, with significant consequences for how buyers and sellers conduct business in the future.

Ninety-six percent of B2B sales teams have moved to a partially or entirely remote work environment. The remote model is considered more effective by 65 percent of B2B decision-makers than the manner of doing business before the pandemic. And economies such as India and China have led to this tremendous shift in scale.

Ways in which B2B sales have changed post-pandemic

The emergence of Virtual Selling

Although COVID continues to harm world health and economical production. It has helped establish the virtual environment as the preferred selling and conducting business. Furthermore, 65% of decision-makers say the new B2B sales remote-friendly workplace is as effective as or better than the pre-pandemic atmosphere.

Because it’s easier to plan meetings and persuade a prospect to agree to an appointment, distant post-COVID sales are more effective. There’s not much a prospect needs to do to prepare for a virtual meeting. And there’s no risk of virus transmission. As a result, you’ll be able to schedule more sales meetings and convert more prospects into the next sales funnel stage.

B2B Customers Now Prefer Mobile Sales & Service Options

Interesting research points to a shift in customer preferences in the B2B arena. Since the pandemic, for example, there has been a 30 percent preferred rise in using mobile apps to place orders and a 250 percent total increase in mobile ordering. B2B clients, like consumers, have grown accustomed to utilizing smartphones and tablets for basic purchasing and service needs.

Many customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions allow you to manage mobile-friendly sales campaigns straight from the CRM system or via connectors. You may appeal to mobile users by ensuring sure your website is mobile-friendly. So they can read and browse your site without needing to be on a desktop computer, in addition to using text and email marketing as part of a good sales plan.

More B2B Sellers Are Tapping Social Media for Customer Insights

As a result of the instability in B2B sales induced by COVID-19, more B2B enterprises are now adopting social media to understand their customers’ wants and needs better. Forty-eight per cent of B2B executives say they use social media monitoring for insights, making it the second-largest means of obtaining data, trailing only 50 per cent of B2B executives who say they use sales teams to get feedback.

New tools and technologies have emerged.

Online shopping has gained momentum, and even B2B buyers are now shopping all the raw materials and parts online. In different parts of the world, even robot deliveries have emerged. All of these are getting supported by a robust logistics system. Digital and contactless payments have also emerged in the B2B space and are rapidly becoming a norm of the industry. Tele transactions are also increasingly becoming popular as the personal touch is decreasing. Technologies such as Big Data are also finding their way into the Business-to-Business space, and several companies are now using them to optimize the production of goods.

Relationship building is made easier across geographies.

With tools like predictive analysis and the usage of AI and ML, human interactions have become much more straightforward. Businesses can now get into contracts with other companies from different parts of the world. The pandemic has aided remote technologies that have brought the world much closer than before. These have made geographical boundaries smaller and now leading to stronger relationships between the buyers and the sellers.

Conclusion

For B2B firms, post-COVID sales trends have an impact on everything from the software they need to utilize to the methods and tools they need to improve and facilitate the customer experience. Your firm can turn what appears to be a protracted period of uncertainty into a tremendous chance to drive business growth if you have the correct information, tools, and adaptability.

by Ramya S


04
Feb
B2B Sales  ·  Sales  ·  Sales technology  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
Why is Virtual Selling Becoming the New Way of Selling?

What is Virtual Selling?

The sales industry is going through disruption, and the pandemic has aided the disruption. Several virtual selling platforms have emerged and are doing quite well. However, before we understand the benefits of virtual selling, let’s understand what virtual selling is. Any facet of the sales process where internet technologies have supplanted the traditional in-person selling is referred to as virtual selling. So, instead of traveling salespeople, we now have inventions that eliminate the need for any travel at all.

It goes by many names, including ‘remote selling,’ but the essence of virtual sales is simply the instruments created for the modern online world. Tools originally meant for social or family gatherings are now being used in the workplace. Virtual selling is being preferred by salespeople too. When asked how they want to work in the future, 91 percent of salespeople stated that they do not want to return to the office full-time.

Reasons why Virtual Selling is Becoming Popular

There are several reasons why virtual selling is gaining popularity. Some of the benefits that virtual selling brings along are as follows:

Access to Global markets

By employing technology to reach more clients, effective sales professionals are establishing a broad approach to the market, given that the emerging economies’ proportion of Fortune Global 500 businesses will undoubtedly climb to about 45 percent by 2025. This approach is swiftly becoming imperative. Simply put, tomorrow’s growth will not resemble yesterday’s growth. According to the same study, emerging markets will account for almost 70% of the companies expected to attain a revenue of $1 billion or more.

This method can be implemented by sales organizations using a distance selling approach. To do so, you must go beyond conventional thinking, which aims to match the sales opportunity with the sales expert who is nearest to the customer geographically. Instead, leaders should select the salesperson with the skill set and expertise best matched to the customer’s requirements, even if that salesperson is located in a different location. 

Aligns to the Changing needs of the customer

It’s vital to keep track of the customer’s shifting needs to close the deal. It’s tough to do so when salespeople have to coordinate schedules, make travel arrangements, and deal with unanticipated customer availability changes. Many of these issues are addressed by virtual selling, which creates an environment in which meetings can occur whenever needed.

The complexity of identifying the customer’s primary concerns and goals increases as the pace of change accelerates. As a result, salespeople must have “situational fluency,” or the ability to talk about each buyer’s business concerns, what’s causing them, and what competencies are required to overcome those issues. Using the immediacy of a virtual engagement properly requires developing this fluency.

Takes an agile approach

Rather than sticking to a single plan, an agile model emphasizes cooperation and adaptability to change. This fluidity is a fantastic fit for the customer’s dynamic purchase journey. It includes movement that starts, stops, and even reverses. Customer communications no longer follow a logical path in this situation. Questions about needs, floating ideas, and positioning values are intertwined in every client conversation. When it comes to selling, agility implies being able to flex. And use a variety of abilities when and when you need them.

Because it maintains communication during the key moments between traditional in-person encounters, virtual selling matches this paradigm, and sales professionals have an opportunity to study the buying elements that influence the customer’s purchasing decisions during these crucial “in-between” periods.

Accelerates the process of trust-building

By using the immediacy of a virtual connection to promote more encounters, virtual selling skills assist salespeople in reaching this level. Sales professionals who understand how to best use the virtual medium are always ready to jump into a debate with a group of stakeholders and become influential voices. This increasing connection frequency serves to erase the conventional divide between stakeholders and salespeople. A virtual presence enables consistent communication, essential for creating and sustaining the confidence that precedes every sale.

Conclusion

It’s safe to say that virtual selling is here to stay. Salespeople who learn to sell online will benefit both now and in the future. Current conditions are redefining what will be considered normal in the future. If you need more information on how to sell virtually, you can visit Zipteams. We can assist you with everything on virtual selling!

by Ramya S