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Virtual sales

15
Jan
Remote selling  ·  Sales technology  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
5 Best Calendly Alternatives in 2023

Tired of the endless back-and-forth emails to schedule a meeting or event? Look no further than these Calendly Alternatives! With just a few clicks, you can easily schedule appointments and meetings without the hassle of coordinating everyone’s schedules. Say goodbye to the stress and hello to a streamlined workflow.

Let’s explore the top five Calendly alternatives that can help you optimize your scheduling process and boost your productivity:

Acuity Scheduling:

 

Calendly Alternatives

Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling is a versatile scheduling tool that offers many features and integrations. It allows you to set up online bookings for appointments, classes, and events, and you can customize your availability and appointment types to fit your needs. Acuity also offers a number of integrations with other tools, such as Google Calendar, Zoom, and Salesforce.

Appointy:

 

Calendly Alternatives

Appointy

Appointy is a cloud-based scheduling solution that helps you manage appointments and reservations for your business. It offers a range of features, including online booking, automated email and SMS reminders, and integration with Google Calendar. Appointy also has a number of integrations with popular payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe, so you can easily accept payments for your services.

SimplyBook:

Calendly Alternatives

SimplyBook

SimplyBook is a scheduling tool designed specifically for service-based businesses. It offers a range of features, including online booking, automated reminders, and integration with popular payment gateways. SimplyBook also offers a number of integrations with other tools, such as Google Calendar, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp.

Doodle:

Calendly Alternatives

Doodle

Doodle is a scheduling tool that allows you to create polls and send them to others to find the best time for a meeting or event. It’s a simple and easy way to find a time that works for everyone.

Zipme.at by Zipteams:

Calendly Alternatives

Zipteams

Zipme.at by Zipteams is a scheduling and meeting management platform designed to help organizations streamline their scheduling process and improve the efficiency of their meetings. With the Round-Robin feature, meetings are automatically assigned to specific teams or team members based on their area of expertise, allowing organizations to ensure that the right people are involved in each meeting.

Additionally, Zipteams allows organizations to generate personalized meeting links and host meetings in smart meeting rooms with recording and transcription capabilities, which can help improve the quality of customer interactions and provide valuable analytics. Zipteams can be easily embedded on websites and landing pages, making it convenient for clients and stakeholders to schedule appointments with the organization.

Get your own personalized link like zipme.at/zipteams/demo in a click.

Ultimately, the best scheduling tool for you will depend on your specific needs and preferences. Consider the features and integrations offered by each of these alternatives to Calendly, and choose the one that best fits your business.

by Rida


08
Dec
Conversational Intelligence  ·  Customer Conversations  ·  Sales technology  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
How Conversational Intelligence Can Boost Your Sales

Conversational Intelligence: The Key to Understanding and Personalizing Customer Interactions

Conversational intelligence is an incredibly valuable asset when it comes to engaging with customers and gaining valuable customer insights. By leveraging conversational intelligence, businesses can improve customer interactions by personalizing their approach and tailoring it to each individual customer. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can help businesses grow and thrive.

One key way that conversational intelligence can help with customer conversations is by allowing businesses to analyze customer interactions to better understand their needs and preferences. This can help businesses to personalize their approach to each customer, providing a better experience and improving customer satisfaction.

In addition to improving customer interactions, conversational intelligence can also help businesses to gain valuable customer insights. By analyzing customer data, businesses can better understand their customers’ behaviors, preferences, and needs, which can help them to develop better products and services, as well as more effective marketing strategies.

Conversational Intelligence Software

With customers’ calls constantly trickling in, it becomes a huge challenge for a sales team to access and manage asymmetric knowledge sources while continuing the meetings or calls with the customers.

Without a robust and reliable system and support, it is almost like sending your sales team on a mission without a roadmap. Should you expect them to come back victorious? Won’t it be daydreaming?

This is the scenario where customer intelligence software makes a worthy mention. It is an automated system that successfully integrates machine learning and artificial intelligence.

So, ready to take a tour with Zipteams about how it can help your sales department with its AI-driven conversational intelligence platform? Let’s get started.

It Helps Understand Your Customers

Your brand is what your customers think about it. They are the biggest assets and driving force for your brand. Hence, vague information is as bad as misinformation. It leaves many loopholes for misinterpretation and so, won’t bode well for your business over time. You should present and promote a crystal clear image of your business so that customers get the true picture of it.

Zipteams’ conversational intelligence tool helps you understand customers’ likes, dislikes, demands, dreams, and desires and how much your brand name means to them. Conversational intelligence makes your customers transparent to you. The canvas is no longer blank; it has got all the details that your sales reps can incorporate into their strategy. You can record calls, rewind calls, review conversations, identify issues, make corrections in sales pitch and approach, train sales representatives, and build a measurable sales strategy that delivers.

A company constantly driven by the goal of ensuring improved customer interaction and satisfaction can only go north in terms of excellence, profit, and reputation.

Data-Backed Monitoring and Feedback

Conversational intelligence technologies let team leaders evaluate customer rep interactions and offer better team feedback, which in turn helps sales teams improve and grow.

Zipteams’ conversational intelligence tools offer real-time analysis and transcription, helping you recognize expensive errors as soon as they occur. These benefits minimize risks and damages and earn your brand a spike in sales.

Seamless Sales Team Coaching

Conversational intelligence tools are more than call recording. They are analytical tools that help you spot positive and negative points in your team’s sales speech and also understand the pain points from customer interaction.

When you know your sales reps’ fault lines, it becomes easier to restructure the sales approach through partial or complete changes in sales scripts and pitches. Zipteams always makes room for improvement via its conversational intelligence software platform. It simplifies your sales team’s training and coaching journey.

by Rida


28
Nov
Conversational Intelligence  ·  Customer Conversations  ·  Productivity  ·  Sales Teams  ·  Sales technology  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
Top 5 Black Friday — Cyber Monday Sales Technologies Deals to grab!

What are Sales Technologies?

Sales Technologies have been deemed highly effective by 94% of sales teams, according to LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2021 report. These tools have boosted their ability to complete deals, heighten client interaction, and close more sales. Sales teams are going beyond the conservative approach of engaging, prospecting, and forecasting.

This requires a dedicated host of Sales tools and Sales Technologies that can help sales teams and representatives work rather seamlessly. Acing at sales in the post-pandemic world has become even more intricate and complex.

It’s no longer about just cracking deals but also keeping customers engaged.

Here are the top deals running this Black Friday — Cyber Monday that sales teams should definitely get into their sales technologies stack.

1. Peppertype.ai

An AI-powered content generator that helps you generate engaging content. You can feed the AI with prompts as well as set the content type you’re aiming for and receive multiple alternatives and generate copies. The AI is trained to generate content that helps drive growth and conversation.

They have a limited-time 50% discount on their annual plan that you can avail of here: https://www.peppertype.ai/

2. Dripify.io

A multifunctional LinkedIn lead generation tool that helps sales teams automate prospecting and sets the sales to funnel for the rep. The tool also comes with a feature to create drip campaigns. The tool can also be integrated with Google Sheets, Salesforce, and major CRMs.

You can avail of a 25% discount using the coupon: BLACKFRIDAY25 on the checkout page.

3. LinkedFusion

LinkedFusion is a lead generation automation product for LinkedIn that is cloud-based. You may design outreach efforts using LinkedFusion in accordance with the demands of your market segment. To obtain insight into LinkedIn prospects, target different time zones, devote IP, and track analytics from several campaigns. Additionally, LinkedFusion interacts with Hubspot, Salesforce, Google Sheets, Zapier, Hubspot, and most CRMs.

An exclusive 40% discount is available through the Black Friday and Cyber Monday week: https://www.linkedfusion.io/black-friday-and-cyber-linkedin-automation-software-deal/

4. Lusha

A sales intelligence solution that enriches your data. Lusha can be accessed through their chrome extension or API as well as integrated. The application can access the prospect’s contact details and any company info effortlessly. The application comes with CRM, multiple integrations, bulk enrichment as well as a prospecting feature.

Their Pro & Premium plans are available at a 25% discount and can be accessed here: https://www.lusha.com/pricing/

5. Zipteams

A more adaptive and integrated sales engine, empowering internal sales teams to leverage artificial intelligence to accelerate growth, efficiency, and close sales execution gaps. Zipteams’s intelligent meeting rooms allow sales reps to schedule meetings through their Google calendars directly onto the platform, integrate CRMs, and get real-time AI-powered nudges for better engagement and conversion. The tool also provides interactive reports for managers to have more collaborative and smooth coaching and onboarding across the team.

Zipteams is running a limited-time deal where you can get their $199 Zip Start subscription free for a year if you sign up before December 31, 2022.
You should definitely not miss out on this one: https://zipteams.com/pricing/

by Rida


23
Sep
Conversational Intelligence  ·  Inside sales  ·  Sales  ·  Sales technology  ·  Virtual sales  ·  Virtual selling
Conversational Intelligence Software for Improving Inside Sales Team Performance

For any business organization, the ultimate motive is to optimize its profit, and for that to happen, they focus on increasing sales. A sales leader can accomplish a wonderful job by improvising marketing strategies and leveraging marketing technology. The challenge is to outsmart others in planning and application and for that, staying up-to-date with modern trends and technology is strategically and statistically important. This is where Conversational Intelligence Software for Improving Inside Sales Team Performance comes into play.

Customer Conversational Intelligence Software

Technological advancement ushers you into a new era of customer engagement through intelligence software. Zipteams, with its artificial intelligence-embedded software, drives you to your goals in a simple and straightforward way.

Conversational intelligence software provides AI-based data-driven insights. It records, stores, and analyses data. This tool helps in effective sales communication. Though often used in sales, the tool has every making to benefit a large number of people from other professions, including consultants, job recruiters, engineers, marketers, and many others.

Conversation intelligence software is deployed to analyze texts or speeches by delivering data-driven insight into your business-oriented conversation with customers.

The software imbibes information and shares the same with CRMs, data analytics, ad exchanges or platforms, and different other niches of your business with a clearly outlined objective of improving real-time interaction between your inside sales teams and identified customers.

Regular conversation is a reality around your business. From micro assessment to macro analysis, the conversation is the fulcrum of your day-to-day business operations and decision-making. But the sales team and customer care service are in direct and daily touch with customers, more than any other wing of your business. Hence, most of your business-centric conversations happen at this level. It would be a pragmatic and profitable idea to capitalize on customer conversation through the deployment of conversational intelligence software.

The purpose of deploying conversation intelligence software is not to create a gold mine of information but to enable data filtration for your company’s optimum benefits.

Conversational Intelligence Software for Improving Inside Sales Team Performance

There are several ways Zipteams can help your inside sales representatives with its conversation intelligence software.

CRM Integration: If the conversation with customers is highly valued by your company, it should focus on CRM (Customer Relationship Management). CRM allows you to view and save leads but on the flip side, provides no clues to the reasons for non-convertible leads. Conversation intelligence integrated with CRM can generate feature-dense data to prompt actions beyond deciding whether to follow the lead.

Productivity Improvement: Taking and reviewing calls are time-consuming. On top of that, miscommunication and misinterpretation are very common while sharing information about customer conversations, especially when meetings go on for hours.

Conversation intelligence software allows your sales team to review previous calls through automated conversation transcribing. It provides data about workable facts and centralizes every bit of information for all to view.

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Customers want your sales team to hear and appreciate their opinions. With Zipteams’ software embedded into the system, it gets easier to pay attention to every individual voice, identify valuable opinions and turn these into information to be acted upon later.

With conversation intelligence software, you can give your customers a strong feeling that their opinions are assessed and valuable insights are appreciated and accommodated. It will make them happy and one always knows happy customers automatically drive sales growth.

by Rida


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 Saanya George


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 Saanya George


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 Saanya George


21
Dec
B2B Sales  ·  Sales  ·  Virtual sales
A sneak peek into B2B Selling in 2022

Introduction

Selling will always continue to be the most dynamic function in an organization considering the inherent nature of it to be always outward-looking. Every external variable and stakeholder, most importantly the buyer, the distribution network, the suppliers, or the overall macro environment as a whole impacts the way you sell. We already have seen how swiftly we had to adapt to the business environment changes that the pandemic brought in the last couple of years.

If there is one thing we have learned in the last couple of years, especially for those in the profession of selling is to keep an eye on how the external world is changing and prepare ourselves for the future. At this moment, it seems 2022 will continue to have uncertainties, but with the learnings we all have had, we are much better prepared to manage them and rather convert them into opportunities for growth.

Here are 3 key B2B selling trends which will drive growth in 2022 despite all odds.

1. Intelligent Prospecting

Prospecting has not remained the same with the buyers much more informed and researched about most of their purchase needs. Also, with the increased competition, getting time and mind space with the buyer has become now the biggest challenge for sales teams.

A recent Hubspot study gives some alarming numbers on the changing buyer preferences around the way we do prospecting today. As per the study, only 24% of sales emails are opening, it takes an average of 18 calls to actually connect with the buyer and the worst of it is that at least 50% of your prospects are not a good fit for what you sell. What it essentially conveys to us as sellers is that we are wasting a whole lot of time on prospecting which is not productive at all.

The answer to this in 2022 will lie in bringing a lot of intelligence to our prospecting process and with the dynamic world, we are living in, learning from our results every day. Mapping the persona of your customer is the most important step here, the more specific and focused you are on your targeting consumer, the more optimal will be your prospecting time and costs. As you grow, you should also look for specific prospecting tools available in the market which will help you do intelligent targetting.

2. Virtual Selling

As per the 2021 Linkedin State of Sales Report, 55% of buyers say that working remotely has made the purchasing process easier. This is only going to go upwards as more and more buyers find time, productivity, and faster turnaround benefits while making their purchases virtually.

Essentially, that means that sales teams and organizations need to change their selling processes, technologies and learn some of the new skills to adapt to this evolving buyer preference. While most teams have got comfortable with using video conferencing tools, engaging the buyers over remote calls and making sure that a personal connection with the buyers is established is a continuous challenge for sales teams.

Virtual Selling Platforms and Sales Intelligence tools are the newbies making their mark here and will become a must need in 2022 for any salesperson talking to a buyer remotely. Spending some more time on buyer research and their personas will ensure the relationships do get develop even over these virtual calls.

3. Nuanced Objection Handling

No matter how good your product is or how competitive your pricing is, in today’s world everyone prefers a buying experience that is wholesome and generative for them. In a B2B selling scenario, this becomes further important as business professionals involved in a plethora of meetings today want to optimize their time and maintain their focus on productive outcomes in everything they do

Essentially this means you have to ensure that you study your buyer purchase process and make your selling attuned to it. More and more buyers are preferring to spend their own time on research before they start meeting partners and where they want to have their specific business nuances to discuss. If and only if you are able to satisfy these buyers’ problem statements in your selling approach, you get time further with them.

The challenge for sales teams in 2022 will be to ensure that they are able to elevate themselves from giving standard sales pitches to personalizing their approach for different types of buyers and also to have an objection handling repository and technique to maneuver a more researched and knowledgeable buyer.

Conclusion

The world of buying and selling is moving fast, buyers are evolving in their purchase approach and process, it is time for selling teams to meet them where they are and not lagging behind. 2022 is a perfect opportunity for sales as a profession to climb up the ladder in terms of intelligent value-selling.

We at zipteams.com are building the perfect platform for the future of selling. Do reach out to us to take a leap with your selling in 2022.

by Saanya George


21
Dec
B2B Sales  ·  Virtual sales
Add that human touch to your virtual sales conversations

Introduction

We are engaged in what researchers have called, “the greatest experiment of all times in remote working.” There is no question. We’re working virtually and there are few indications that we’ll return to our previous normal. So, in this blog, we will discuss virtual sales conversations.

Particularly in sales, the virtual mode has opened a world of opportunities for businesses to launch their product in any market without worrying up about setting up a physical selling presence there. This mode however has brought its own challenges for sales teams to find newer ways to understand prospects’ businesses, provide them with the right value proposition and establish relationships with them to convert them into successful deals.

It is hence becoming extremely essential to learn how to add a human touch to your virtual selling approach, turning it from a cold and distant space into something warm and inviting for potential customers.

Make Empathy Your First Sales Virtue

When it comes to virtual selling, we all know we aren’t face-to-face with the prospect. That means we need to rely on empathy and understanding to make a connection.

One of the best ways to do this is to start by spending more time getting to know your prospect. Empathize with their situation and don’t just push a product on them. Your prospect is probably just as frustrated as you are because they’re sitting in front of their computer trying to figure out what you’re offering. You can start by asking them what they’re looking for and what are their problem statements. This way you can tailor your message to the needs of the prospect. You’ll also be able to figure out if you should even bother continuing with the sale because it’s possible your product isn’t right for them.

If you focus on empathy and understanding, you’ll be able to build a connection and increase your chance of making a sale.

Ask More, Hear More, Know More

One of the most important things about selling anything is building a connection with your prospect. Making virtual selling more humanized is all about building a connection with your prospect.

The most important thing you can do for a prospect is listening to them. Ask them questions and listen to their answers. Don’t think of yourself as a salesman but as a fellow human being. If you’re selling a product, find out what the prospects’ needs are and how your product can help them. Focus on their needs and not on the product. Even if you can’t see your product fit initially, continue to maintain dialogue and show that you’re listening and that you care. Try to see if you can provide any helpful information or tips.

This will make your prospects more likely to trust you. And once they trust you, they’ll be more likely to buy from you. And that’s what it’s all about!

Use Emotional Triggers

If you want to close more sales, it’s important to know when and how to use emotional triggers in virtual selling. By understanding what behaviors make potential customers feel confident enough to buy, you can better position your products for success.

Acknowledging the prospects’ needs is a great way to get them invested in your product. For example, if you’re selling a executive learning course, you could take the time to describe aloud the advantages of your course for their career growth. This is a great way to find out more about the prospect, especially if they aren’t ready to buy yet. “When are looking to go for the course?” or “Which days would work for them to take the classes?” are some types of questions which will help you to validate their needs further and make them more involved in the buying decision.

As you start to engage the prospect, talk to them about the pain they feel when they don’t have what they need. Without focusing on your product, talk to them about the solutions that will alleviate their pain, this will validate the need in their mind and your conversation will move towards purchase.

Conclusion

Great salespeople always know they have to adapt continuously to the new opportunities and challenges the new virtual selling mode is throwing at them. The faster you learn and tailor your approach, the sooner you will make things work to your success.

We at Zipteams are working on adapting to virtual selling easily and providing a platform to make it really effective for your selling organization. Reach out to us at www.zipteams.com in case you are looking for making the most out of this new mode.

by Saanya George


20
Aug
Sales  ·  Virtual sales
3 Engaging Ways to Start Your Virtual Selling Conversation

In recent months most industries around the globe have experienced a rapid shift toward virtual selling conversion. This major change has happened due to the global pandemic.

Salespeople who were selling in person just a few months ago are now steeped in a different world, the virtual world. Salespeople find virtual selling less interactive and complain that it’s harder to build relationships when you are not meeting face-to-face. This shows in the Korn Ferry Buyer Preferences Study 2021 as well where only 33% of buyers agree that sales professionals are effective at selling in a virtual environment.

The reason for this dissatisfaction in buyers is definitely understood by sales professionals. They have been proudly doing their sales meetings physically. And converting deals after deals are left to the limitations of the virtual world to make the same thing happen. However this can & will change very rapidly, sales professionals are experts at learning new ways. It is just a matter of time before they will know the tricks of the trade for the virtual world as well.

Starting the Virtual Selling Conversation

A structured approach to this learning curve is to break down the sales conversation. And look at mastering each individual part. The starting of the virtual conversation plays the most important part here. This is where the foundation of your relationship with the buyer gets laid. Let’s look at these 3 ways to make sure this foundation is the strongest it can be.

1. Be more empathetic, especially during these trying times

The same Korn Ferry report also finds out that only 27% of buyers fully agree that salespeople are effective at communicating empathy during virtual presentations and only 36% fully agree that salespeople have been initiating engagement in an empathetic manner with them during Covid.

This needs to be addressed first as this can make the relationship foundation fall apart even before it is built. Most people are stressed and drained out with personal, professional & financial challenges. And there is a lot running on everyone’s mind on the uncertainty around these. Hence, one has to be very cognizant of the fact that people even if they may not say have a shorter attention span today.

We as sales professionals need to appreciate and be empathetic towards this. Make sure that our starting of the conversation with the buyer ensures that this is the best convenient time to talk to them. Asking questions about their own & their family’s health, talking about pandemic effects on their industry. And even letting them know some of the challenges you faced during the pandemic will help you connect with them more deeply. More importantly, be conscious of anything that you feel is more important for the buyer at this time. If so make sure you ask them if they want you to reschedule the meeting or have a shorter one.

Another small thing, that should be better called out is how much they are comfortable talking over a video call considering the situation at their home or even in case of their internet connectivity issues. Do ask them about their comfort with the video call or otherwise switch to another convenient mode.

2. Know your buyer much more than you ever did even before you start the conversation

Another important element in building the relationship foundation, especially in virtual conversation is to be more aware of your counterpart, their profiles, their interests, their belief systems, and their thought process.

Spending time finding out some of these aspects about your buyer will not only give you a great start to the conversation by making it completely personalized and breaking the ice with them faster but also make sure that you use these very effectively while presenting your product pitch.

Spending time knowing more about their company in a B2B sales conversation, the latest company results and news will help you understand their current challenges and future plans, so that you can structure your objective and focus of the product pitch around these aspects.

With ready access to information and social media, finding some of these is also just a click away. So, this is a must step which is added to your checklist while preparing for the conversation.

3. Ask more questions & listen more at the start of the conversation

The third important aspect in starting a virtual selling conversation is to make sure that you facilitate the buyer in a discussion and listen attentively to every nuance when they speak. This further helps you be more empathetic & understand the buyer’s current challenges and help you align your product pitch accordingly.

Preparing a list of questions that can help you get some critical input from the buyers. It will be of great help to achieve this. If you already have their profiles & interests noted, use those to carve out sharp questions to make this more effective. You can further use some recent trends data related to their business. You can also have some other educative material to facilitate a more focused conversation.

Listen extremely carefully when they are responding. And pay attention to the words your buyer uses, and the way they say them. And the way the conversation flows & understand the need and expectations of the prospect for you to mold your further conversations accordingly.

Final Thoughts

Selling virtually isn’t going away. Even when the world gets back to normal, most companies will start to realize that traveling to ascertain prospects is inefficient. And far less productive than performing a virtual sales process. The more success you get selling this manner, the more it’s gonna benefit the company shortly. Starting the conversation well makes sure that you are 90% already there. S,o ensure that the relationship foundation is well laid. Good luck and all the best with all your future virtual selling conversation.

by Saanya George


12
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