How virtual selling is becoming the fastest-growing sales channel

Introduction

When the COVID pandemic flipped our life upside down, companies and businesses across the globe were sent scrambling to figure out how to sell in the newly virtual-first world. Virtual selling came to the rescue and rapidly became the obvious choice.

Today, virtual sales have become more popular than ever before because of the major benefits they provide. As the majority of B2B selling interactions have gone remote, customers also want virtual selling to stay, with approximately 80% saying they prefer this method of interaction.

Rapid Adoption of Virtual Selling

The pandemic’s long-term effects on sales won’t be understood for some time. But it is safe to say that we will never fully go back to how it was pre-COVID. Therefore, many companies are rapidly adapting to new sales technology i.e Virtual or Digital Selling.

Most of the employees across the organization and particularly in sales have got adjusted to this digital transformation. This is clearly visible in the numbers video meetings giants reported in their latest numbers. Zoom saw its revenue skyrocket throughout the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021.

Following a 169-percent revenue increase in the first quarter, year-over-year revenue growth accelerated to 355, 367, and 369 percent, respectively, in the second, third, and fourth quarter while Microsoft teams reported 145 million daily active users recently, 5X from this 32 million number pre-Covid. Particularly in sales, Google Meet reported people were spending 2 billion minutes in online sales meetings every day.

Unlocking Opportunities with Virtual Selling

Virtual selling is making the world further flat opening the doors for you to sell across the world without the need for any physical presence or salesforce.

With the possibility of connecting in minutes and no hassles of travel, it is giving that additional time to both the buyer and seller to spend time on understanding synergies with each other and make the selling interaction much more relevant for the buyers. This closer and faster access to buyers have allowed sellers to provide more personalized attention and develop stronger valued relationships.

As per a recent study conducted by Hubspot, 63% of sales leaders believe virtual sales meetings are equally effective or more effective than traditional, face-to-face meetings.

Buyers are also equally enjoying the convenience of meeting virtually for their purchase decisions. According to McKinsey, only 20% of B2B buyers say they hope to return to in-person sales even post-pandemic.

What does the future hold for Virtual Selling

According to Businessweek, Virtual selling is the fastest-growing sales channel in the world. The selling world is going to change with this adoption. The conventional sales strategies and technologies will have to change too.

Virtual selling will be an ever-evolving process from here on. Many companies are now embracing the idea of virtual selling products using a lot of video content, virtual tours, and 3D renderings. This strategy has already proven to be a successful way for retailers to showcase. It elaborates its products/service items to virtual buyers to find anything they need (and everything else) in one place.

Having the sales teams also available to the buyers for them to interact whenever they want and for sales teams to meet the buyers in their buying journeys itself will make the entire sales process very seamless. Further, making these selling interactions more personalized and intuitive will make the buyers love meeting sellers and establish a healthy relationship amongst them to achieve a win-win conversation every time.

Conclusion

The post-COVID buying world is very different from the pre-COVID buying world. Buyers will have more options than ever before, sellers will need to be smarter, more researched, have more technology in their hands, and be more efficient to continue to win deals.

Have you started thinking about how your virtual selling processes will be different? You will need to assess which skills, which technologies, and what metrics you should be tracking to ensure you don’t miss the virtual selling bus.

We at Zipteams are building a full-stack virtual selling platform to help businesses get to virtual selling faster. Reach out to us at www.zipteams.com if you are looking to get some answers on virtual selling soon.