5 Things Your Sales Team Needs for Effective Remote Selling
The pandemic has permanently altered the way we do business. Since the beginning of 2020, 90 percent of sales activities have gone digital. Nearly all companies surveyed have transitioned at least some of their sales force to phone, video-conferencing, and web sales.
While the jury is still out on whether the new model is equally effective, remote selling is the current reality. Yet the demand for a stellar experience hasn’t diminished with the move away from traditional sales interactions.
To connect with prospects quickly, pitch convincingly, and cultivate strong relationships in a remote environment, salespeople need more resources. This means investing in better software and creating stellar marketing materials to support the sales process. Having the right resources at their fingertips saves salespeople time, strengthens their pitch, and instills greater confidence.
Here are five things all remote salespeople need:
1. Product Demo Software
In the past, sales teams worked closely with the R&D team to prepare product demonstrations for prospective clients. Often this would involve creating customized product mockups or adding key features specific to the client’s needs. That collaboration was already a drain on busy dev-team members, who have their own projects to worry about. With companies now working remotely, these live demos are even more challenging to execute.
Instead of leaning on the R&D team, your sales staff needs access to software that allows them to build their own customized product demos. Creating sales demonstrations on a platform like this keeps your developers focused and ensures demos go off without a hitch.
2. Email Templates and Tracking
According to a survey of 720 sales professionals, salespeople spend roughly a third of their time in email. (If anything, this percentage has only increased since teams have gone remote.) Much of that time is spent on outreach and follow-up emails that are carefully crafted to get a response.
The trouble is that creating these emails from scratch can be extremely time-consuming. Plus, writing emails that convert isn’t necessarily in your sales reps’ wheelhouse. Asking a copywriter to draft a few email templates is likely to yield better results.
Once your emails are sent out, you’ll want to keep an eye on them to better follow your lead process with customers. Email tracking software allows for your sales team to know exactly who opens your emails and when they do so.
3. One-Pagers Tailored to Buyer Personas
Pre-pandemic, the elevator pitch was everything. Your sales team had their talking points down to a science and could communicate your product’s benefits succinctly and effectively. But now that selling has gone remote, your team needs a digital elevator pitch.
Enter the one-pager. A one-pager is a document that gives an overview of your company, its products/services, and the problem they solve. It’s something that your sales reps can easily send over via email to pique a prospect’s interest. (And it saves them from having to reinvent the wheel every time they pitch a client.)
If your company serves clients in different industries, it’s a good idea to create several different versions of your one-pager. This allows you to tailor the information to specific product lines or a prospect’s unique challenges.
4. A Short Explainer Video
With so many professionals now working from home, people are inundated with emails and lengthy text-based documents. In this environment, it can be extremely challenging to get a prospect to download a whitepaper or read a report. It’s much easier to entice them to watch a two-minute video explaining your product or service.
In today’s digital world, customers would much rather watch a video about a product than read about it. This is partially because good explainer videos reduce the cognitive load required to process information.
Creating an explainer video can be a big investment, but it’s well worth it. The video can be embedded on your website to bring in new inbound leads or sent to prospects via email.
5. Real Client Case Studies
Client case studies are one of sales teams’ most requested pieces of marketing collateral for a reason. Eighty-four percent of people trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Case studies are especially effective for sales because they tell a story. Personal ‘reviews’ often show vulnerability and emotion in an otherwise straightforward area of business.
To write a compelling case study, first explain the problem a client was trying to solve. Then describe how your company addressed those needs and any relevant details of implementation. Finally, share the client’s results, using real metrics wherever possible.
If your company serves clients across different industries, create a case study for each sector. The more closely a case study matches a prospect’s specific situation, the more convincing it will be.
Pre-pandemic, emphasis on traditional sales interactions and digital interactions were split roughly down the middle. Now we’re seeing a global shift toward a completely remote sales model. While the sales process has changed overnight, what customers expect hasn’t changed at all. To deliver the level of service and attention customers expect, your sales team needs an arsenal of great marketing collateral.