Better Online Sales Meetings

Better Online Sales Meetings

Whether we like it or not most of us have had to get used to more online meetings using Zoom, Teams, Skype, or some other variant.

This has presented significant challenges to all of us and we long for the full return of the face to face meetings. According to Corporate Visions recent survey “nearly 70 percent of salespeople don’t believe that remote selling is as effective as in-person” https://corporatevisions.com/virtual-sales-meetings/

However, when you think about it, perhaps better online sales meetings are more efficient? The trick is, ‘how to run better online sales meetings!’

The Challenges

1. You don’t have the same opportunity to read body language the way you did before
2. Participants tend to be more distracted than face to face. The internet is at hand, email notifications popping up or maybe that Amazon delivery has just landed!
3. You’re no longer using the tried and tested techniques built up over years of face to face meetings; a firm handshake, eye contact or dressing to impress

The Solution

1. Keep their attention
2. Employ compelling dialogue and reduce monologuing
3. Plan your meeting properly

Environment

1. Background: ensure the background of the video is clean and tidy, even if the rest of the room is like a ‘tip heap’. Ensure nothing controversial is sitting in the background. Books on “Secret Weapons of the Third Reich” may be interesting to you but to some it’s the opposite. If having a tidy background is impossible employ a virtual background, Zoom has a great facility for this, see here Zoom Virtual Background Setup
2. Lighting: ensure that your face is properly lite with no over exposure. A tip is to turn on your front facing camera and move around the room or house until the lighting is exactly right; generally facing a window with natural light.
3. Dress Code: you may wear a suit to work but it might look a bit ‘fussy’ if you’re working from home, so I think business casual is the order of the day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_casual
4. Water: ensure you’ve a glass of water to hand but don’t forget to keep it away from the electronics

We’ve covered some of the above in more detail here https://www.b2bsell.com/working-from-home-tips/

Preparation

1. Check the technology: it’s the easiest thing in the world to setup a dummy online meeting with a friend or family member. The time to find out your microphone doesn’t work is not with a potential new customer!
2. Turn on video: compared to face to face meetings it’s harder to read body language, so for goodness sake, turn on your video and try to ensure your participants video is set ON by default. You can do this if you’re the meeting organiser.
3. Agenda: set an agenda and circulate it to the participants before the meeting. If that’s not possible, set out an agenda yourself and keep to it – Control the meeting!

Conduct

1. Objective: set out with a clear objective for the meeting and ensure you stay on message
2. Focus attention: create compelling dialogue by employing ‘tips of the trade’ and asking insightful questions. Ensuring you divide time up equally between you and the prospect. This is more of an issue than face to face where we’re encouraged to ‘get the customer to do most of the talking’
3. Look at the Camera: Although it’s difficult, try to look at the camera, rather than the image of the person on the screen. When you’re looking at the camera people think you’re looking at them, however when you look at their image on the screen, it looks like you’re looking away. Not easy to do but try to do it as often as you can.
4. Screen share: take a break from video by sharing your screen where appropriate
5. Parting gift: Think about this, is there something you can send them after the meeting. A compelling PDF, a contact database (GDPR compliant of course) or insightful industry report