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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Serie: Jeb Blount
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
And just like that, everything changed . . . A global pandemic. Panic. Social distancing. Working from home. In a heartbeat, we went from happy hours to virtual happy hours. From conferences to virtual conferences. From selling to Virtual Selling. To remain competitive, sales and business professionals were required to shift the way they engaged prospects and customers. Overnight, Virtual Selling became the new normal. Now, it is here to stay. Virtual Selling can be challenging. It's more difficult to make human to human connections. It's natural to feel intimidated by technology and digital tools. Few of us haven't felt the wave of insecurity the instant a video camera is pointed in our direction. Yet, Virtual Selling is powerful because it allows you to engage more prospects and customers, in less time, at a lower cost, while reducing the sales cycle. Virtual Selling is the definitive guide to leveraging video-based technology and virtual communication channels to engage prospects, advance pipeline opportunities, and seal the deal. You'll learn a complete system for blending video, phone, text, live chat, social media, and direct messaging into your sales process to increase productivity and reduce sales cycles. Jeb Blount, one of the most celebrated sales trainers of our generation, teaches you: * How to leverage human psychology to gain more influence on video calls * The seven technical elements of impactful video sales calls * The five human elements of highly effective video sales calls * How to overcome your fear of the camera and always be video ready * How to deliver engaging and impactful virtual demos and presentations * Powerful video messaging strategies for engaging hard to reach stakeholders * The Four-Step Video Prospecting Framework * The Five-Step Telephone Prospecting Framework * The LDA Method for handling telephone prospecting objections * Advanced email prospecting strategies and frameworks * How to leverage text messaging for prospecting and down pipeline communication * The law of familiarity and how it takes the friction out of Virtual Selling * The 5C's of Social Selling * Why it is imperative to become proficient with reactive and proactive chat * Strategies for direct messaging - the "Swiss Army Knife" of Virtual Selling * How to leverage a blended virtual/physical selling approach to close deals faster As you dive into these powerful insights, and with each new chapter, you'll gain greater and greater confidence in your ability to effectively engage prospects and customers through virtual communication channels. And, with this newfound confidence, your success and income will soar. Following in the footsteps of his blockbuster bestsellers People Buy You, Fanatical Prospecting, Sales EQ, Objections, and Inked, Jeb Blount's Virtual Selling puts the same strategies employed by his clients--a who's who of the world's most prestigious organizations--right into your hands.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Foreword
Virtually Yours …
PART I: Foundation
1 And, Just Like That, Everything Changed
Technology Meets the Moment
The Purpose of This Book
Note
2 Is Face-to-Face Selling Dead?
Probability versus Ideology
Virtual Is NOT the Same as Face-to-Face
Notes
3 Necessity Is the Mother of Virtual Selling
Everything Works—Blending Works Best
Will Customers and Prospects Accept Virtual Selling?
4 Virtual Selling Definition and Channels
Human-to-Human
Sales Communication Approaches
5 The Asynchronous Salesperson
A Robot Can Do Your Job—If You Are Not Doing Your Job
Talk with People
6 Blending
Map Your Sales Process to Communication Channels
PART II: Emotional Discipline
7 The Four Levels of Sales Intelligence
Innate Intelligence (IQ)
Acquired Intelligence (AQ)
Technological Intelligence (TQ)
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
8 Emotions Matter
People Buy You
Note
9 Relaxed, Assertive Confidence
10 Deep Vulnerability
Vulnerability
Developing Emotional Self-Control
There Are Only Three Things You Control
Self-Awareness
Obstacle Immunity
PART III: Video Sales Calls
11 Video Calls—The Closest Thing to Being There
Video Is Underutilized by Sales Professionals
Notes
12 Blending Video Calls into the Sales and Account Management Process
Initial Meetings
Discovery
Presentations
Demos
Closing and Negotiating
Account Management
13 Brain Games
Video Calls and the Problem with Cognitive Load
You Are Always on Stage: Neutralizing Cognitive Biases
Notes
14 Seven Technical Elements of Highly Effective Video Sales Calls
Audio
Lighting
Framing
Camera
Backdrop
Internet Connection
Platform and Tech Stack
Invest in Your Set
15 Five Human Elements of Highly Effective Video Sales Calls
Body Language
Attention Control
Listen
Be Video Ready
Video Sales Call Calendar Invitation
Notes
16 Virtual Presentations and Demos
Keep It Visual
Show Your Face
Be Relevant
Be Brief
Use Structure and Practice
Be Interactive
Beware of Red Herrings
Avoid Chasing Red Herrings
Virtual Demos
Notes
17 Be Video Ready
Be Prepared for Anything
Video Sales Call Checklist
Notes
18 Video Messaging
Video Messaging Is No Joke
Tapping into the Law of Reciprocity
Video Messaging Is Versatile
Shooting Video Messages Is Wickedly Easy
Sending Video Messages
Crafting Compelling Personalized Video Messages
Four-Step Video Prospecting Message Framework
Notes
PART IV: Telephone
19 Pick Up the Damn Phone
The Workhorse of Virtual Selling
When in Doubt, Pick Up the Phone
Closing Transactional and Short-Cycle Sales
Account Management
Qualifying and Discovery
Outbound Prospecting
Notes
20 Telephone Prospecting
Nobody Answers a Phone That Doesn't Ring
Nobody Likes It; Get Over It
21 Five-Step Telephone Prospecting Framework
When You Fail to Interrupt, You Fail
Don't Overcomplicate It
Five-Step Telephone Prospecting Framework
22 Developing Effective Because Statements
The Power of
Because
The Secret to Crafting Powerful
Because
Statements
Note
23 Getting Past Telephone Prospecting Objections
Prospecting Objections Can Be Anticipated in Advance
Planning for Prospecting Objections
The Three-Step Telephone Prospecting Objection Turnaround Framework (LDA)
Putting It All Together
Note
24 Leaving Effective Voicemail Messages
A Commitment to Persistence
Three Objectives of Voicemail
Five-Step Voicemail Message Framework
The One Thing You Must Never Do on a Voicemail Message
Voicemail Block Productivity Hack
PART V: Texting, Email, Direct Messaging, and Chat
25 Blending Text Messaging into Account Management and Down-Pipeline Communication
Blending Text into Account Management Activity
Responsive Customer Service
Checking Stakeholder Temperature after Video Sales Conversations
26 Text Messaging for Prospecting
Follow Up after Networking Events and Trade Shows
Nurture High-Value Prospects
Use Text Following Trigger Events
Seven Rules for Structuring Effective Text Prospecting Messages
Note
27 Email Essentials
Four Types of Sales Emails
To Email or Not to Email
Subject Lines
Formal Business Writing
Readability
Clarity and Brevity
Check Your Tone and Mind Your Manners
Email Signature
Pause Before You Press “Send”
Notes
28 Four Cardinal Rules of Email Prospecting
Bulk Email Marketing
Prospecting Email
Using Platforms
Rule #1: Your Email Must Get Delivered
Rule #2: Your Email Must Get Opened
Rule #3: Your Email Must Convert
Rule #4: Your Email Must Be Compliant
Notes
29 Four-Step Email Prospecting Framework
Relevance and Authenticity
Four-Step Email Prospecting Framework
Hook
Relate
Bridge
Ask
Practice, Practice, Practice
30 Direct Messaging
All the Rules Apply
The Challenge with Direct Messaging
Notes
31 Live Website Chat
A Powerful Customer Experience Tool
A Powerful Sales Tool
It Takes Talent to Chat
Start Your Chat Engines
Deer in Headlights
Reactive versus Proactive Chat
Inbound Chat Is Just a Conversation
Proactive Chat
Wait, Wait, Wait, Now!
Notes
PART VI: Social Media
32 Social Media Is an Essential Foundation for Virtual Selling
Social Media Is Essential
Social Media Is Not a Panacea
Social Media Platforms
33 The Law of Familiarity and the Five
C
s of Social Selling
The Law of Familiarity
Conversion
Consistency
Connecting
Content Curation
34 Personal Branding
Virtual First Impressions
Don't Post Stupid Sh*T on Social Media
Social Media Profiles—A Powerful Snapshot of You
Note
PART VII: Virtual Selling Is Still Selling
35 The Truth about Jedi Mind Tricks
Keys to Mastering Virtual Selling
Less Talking, More Asking
Ask for the Next Step
Note
36 Selling Invisible Trucks
A Light-Bulb Moment
Virtual Selling Changes Everything
Selling Invisible Trucks
Virtual Selling Is Still Selling
Lessons
Acknowledgments
Training, Workshops, and Speaking
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 22
Table 22.1 Craft Because Statements
Table 22.2 Crafting Because Statements
Chapter 23
Table 23.1 List Common Prospecting Objections
Table 23.2 Write Down How You Respond to Prospecting Objections Now
Table 23.3 Build a Turnaround Script
Chapter 29
Table 29.1 Template for Email Prospecting Messages
List of Illustrations
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 Improper video framing.
Figure 14.2 Proper video framing.
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1 Getting Past Red Herrings
Chapter 18
Figure 18.1 The Virtual Selling Journey
Figure 18.2 Four-Step Video Messaging Framework
Chapter 19
Figure 19.1 The Five Stakeholders
Chapter 21
Figure 21.1 The Five-Step Telephone Prospecting Framework
Chapter 23
Figure 23.1 Three-Step Telephone Prospecting Objection Turnaround Framework...
Chapter 24
Figure 24.1 Five-Step Voicemail Message Framework
Chapter 29
Figure 29.1 Four-Step Email Prospecting Framework
Chapter 35
Figure 35.1 The Sales Process Puzzle
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Other Books by Jeb Blount
The Virtual Training Bible: The Art of Conducting Powerful Virtual Training that Engages Learners and Makes Knowledge Stick (Wiley, 2020)
Inked: The Ultimate Guide to Powerful Closing and Sales Negotiation Tactics that Unlock YES and Seal the Deal (Wiley, 2020)
Fanatical Military Recruiting: The Ultimate Guide to Leveraging High-Impact Prospecting to Engage Qualified Applicants, Win the War for Talent, and Make Mission Fast (Wiley, 2019)
Objections: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering the Art and Science of Getting Past No (Wiley, 2018)
Sales EQ: How Ultra-High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal (Wiley, 2017)
Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, E-mail, Text, and Cold Calling (Wiley, 2015)
People Love You: The Real Secret to Delivering Legendary Customer Experiences (Wiley, 2013)
People Follow You: The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Leadership (Wiley, 2011)
People Buy You: The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Business (Wiley, 2010)
VIRTUAL SELLING
A QUICK-START GUIDE TO LEVERAGING VIDEO TECHNOLOGY, AND VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS TO ENGAGE REMOTE BUYERS AND CLOSE DEALS FAST
JEB BLOUNT
Copyright © 2020 by Jeb Blount. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781119742715 (Hardcover)ISBN 9781119742777 (ePDF)ISBN 9781119742791 (ePub)
Cover Design: Paul MccarthyCover Art: © Istock | Shuoshu
To Carrie. The love of my life.
Foreword
Virtually Yours …
For the past 100 years, letters and emails have been signed with – sincerely yours, very truly yours, or some form of pleasant goodbye. No more. “Virtually yours” has taken over. By storm. Actually, by hurricane. And it's here to stay.
Virtual selling will become the new normal, and the only question is: Are you ready?
Virtual meetings are not the new black—they're the new normal, and most salespeople, sales leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs were and are woefully unprepared. They're (you're) looking at customers and coworkers from a laptop or phone, poorly dressed, poorly lit, in front of a closet or worse, in front of an unmade bed, trying to conduct a meeting or make a sales call that they (you) are unprepared for, BOTH mentally and technologically.
YIKES!
Luckily, you have this book. Virtual Selling will catapult you to the top of virtual Mt. Everest. IF, and only IF, you read it, study it, get prepared, make a game plan, and put it into action. (It's the same for climbing real Mt Everest, just warmer.)
Just a little background … I have been a fan and friend of Jeb Blount for more than a decade, and if you know him like I do, you know his passion, his positivity, and his performance are without peer. Not just a leader, an innovator. He is the perfect person to write this book because he lives in (and make bank in) the virtual world.
I have named Jeb “the hardest working man in sales business.” And his trademarked challenge, “one more call,” has forever branded his work ethic and his philosophy.
On one of Jeb's visit to our home, he spotted his book Sales EQ on my nightstand. He was proud—but it was there because I am TOTALLY interested in what Jeb Blount writes, says, and does, both face-to-face and ESPECIALLY virtually—and you should be, too.
Jeb Blount was, is, and always will be a student. A life-long student. A keen observer. A risk taker. And a winner.
He is always ahead of the curve, and this book is the CLASSIC example. Jeb is setting the standard in virtual webinars, virtual seminars, virtual training, virtual meetings, virtual studio, and as a result is the leader in virtual selling.
This book has the ANSWERS you need right now.
A playbook, a manual, and a bible about the new virtual world of sales. You see, the virtual sales world has been here for 20 years. It used to be optional. It was “one way to communicate. One way to sell.”
During the “pandemic period,” virtual was the ONLY way to communicate and sell. Tomorrow, virtual will be the BEST way, and the most cost-effective way, to communicate and sell. And Virtual Selling tells you the virtual “why” and “how to” that's not only impressive, it's an imperative.
From foundation to the top floor, this book takes you step by step through the virtual world of selling whether you take the fire escape or the elevator.
I promise you that Virtual Selling is GOLD. New gold. Unmined gold that every sales organization and salesperson is looking for to gain a leadership position and a competitive advantage in the mind, the pocketbook, and the loyalty of your customer—the only places it matters.
This book is a (virtual) roadmap for the future of sales and selling. It addresses everything in detail with elements of understanding, strategies, tactics, and game plans that any salesperson—beginning or advanced, tech savvy or technophobe—needs to emerge as a winner in this new sales world.
NOW IS THE TIME. Jeb Blount delivers the virtual answers you can put into action and turn into actual money. And all you have to do is read the pages and take the actions.
Virtually yours,
Jeffrey Gitomer,
author of The Little Red Book of Selling
PART IFoundation
1And, Just Like That, Everything Changed
A global pandemic. Panic. Social distancing. Working from home. An economic crisis.
In a heartbeat, we went from happy hours to virtual happy hours. From conferences to virtual conferences. From the classroom to the virtual classroom. From selling to virtual selling.
To be sure, we've sought out and used virtual communication channels since the dawn of man. It began with smoke signals and then written letters. We've even used carrier pigeons.
Innovation in virtual communication accelerated in the nineteenth century with the telegraph—which was essentially very slow text messaging. The telegraph was soon disintermediated by the telephone.
In the 1980s, we fell in love with the fax machine, which was, likewise, disintermediated by email in the 1990s. In the ensuing decades, the online chat rooms of the 1990s morphed into texting, direct messaging, interacting on social media, and then interactive chat.
As early as 1880, an inventor named George Carey proposed a video phone. His idea was published in Scientific American. Forty-seven years later, in 1927, Herbert Hoover stepped into a video booth at Bell Labs and made a video call.
By the 1960s, AT&T had developed video technology to the point that it went to market with the Picturephone, but it was a flop. For the next 30 or so years, video calling failed to launch.1 Then, in 2003, Skype kicked off the modern age of video calling.
In 2007, the iPhone changed everything. This was quickly followed by FaceTime in 2010, Zoom in 2013, and then Facebook Messenger video calls in 2015. Finally, the convergence of broadband internet and inexpensive hardware made the video call accessible to all.
Today video calling, though underutilized by sales professionals, is the most powerful and effective virtual communication channel of them all.
Technology Meets the Moment
The global coronavirus pandemic of 2020 accelerated the adoption of virtual selling much like the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 accelerated the emergence of inside sales teams and the division of sales labor into business development, selling, account management, and customer success (land, expand, and retain).
Except that this was faster, compressing what might have taken 10 years to fully actualize into a matter of months. In an instant, to remain relevant and competitive, salespeople, account managers, entrepreneurs, and business professionals had to shift the way they were engaging prospects and customers. Likewise, prospects and customers had to shift the way they interacted with vendors.
The evolution of virtual selling technology finally met its moment. Digital transformation, which for the past 20 years had been an inevitable yet slowly building tide, rolled over us like a tsunami. Suddenly, virtual selling became king.
Unlike so many other pivotal points in history, in which smart people were forced, out of necessity, to invent technology in order to meet the moment, this time the technology was ahead of us. We simply needed to catch up.
This is where we find ourselves. Virtual selling is the new normal. There is no turning back.
The Purpose of This Book
My objective is to teach you techniques that turn virtual communication platforms into powerful and effective sales tools, no matter what you sell, the complexity or length of your sales cycle, or whether you are an inside rep, field rep, or hybrid of the two. Virtual Selling is the most comprehensive and practical resource on video-based and digital sales skills ever developed.
This book will help you:
Become more effective with virtual communication tools so that you can connect, engage, and build deep and lasting relationships with other people.
Leverage technology, digital tools, and virtual communication channels to increase the number of connections you make and accelerate the speed at which you make those connections.
Blend virtual selling channels and tactics into your sales process to increase productivity.
Master virtual techniques to allow you to separate from competitors and gain a distinct competitive edge.
Make virtual selling more human.
As you dive into these powerful insights, and with each new chapter, you'll gain greater and greater confidence in your ability to leverage virtual communication channels and conduct successful virtual sales calls. And, with this newfound confidence, your success and income will soar.
Note
1
. Stewart Wolpin, “The Videophone Turns 50: The Historic Failure That Everybody Wanted,”
Mashable,
April 20, 2014,
https://mashable.com/2014/04/20/videophone-turns-50/
.
2Is Face-to-Face Selling Dead?
I want to be clear from the start that I'm not an evangelist. I'm not an ideologue.
I despise and have no respect for the so-called “experts” and “gurus” who get on their high horse and shove their evangelism for a preferred technology platform or sales method down your throat. These are the same people who pontificate that their way is the ONLY way. They shout loudly that everything else in sales and business is dead.
These sad charlatans couldn't sell their way out of a paper bag. Somewhere, there is a graveyard full of the carcasses of former blowhard sales gurus who made a lot of noise, produced unimpressive results, and then died a quick death because their message was so shallow and self-serving (see social selling evangelists). Thankfully, real, frontline sales professions easily see through this bullshit.
This book is titled Virtual Selling. But this does not mean I am against face-to-face selling or, for that matter, against any particular type of selling. There are many products and services perfectly suited to field sales and physical face-to-face selling. Likewise, there are many products and services perfectly suited to inside sales and pure virtual selling. In the same vein, there are plenty of products and services that can be sold without the need of a salesperson.
Over the past decade, many companies have replaced field sales teams with inside sales, only to add field sales back when they realized that not having a face-to-face sales presence was costing them market share. Likewise, companies with pure inside sales teams have added a field sales presence to allow them to be more competitive and responsive to buyers.
Thousands of companies these days operate and sell through blended teams of inside and outside sales professionals, along with phone, email, chat, text and ecommerce. These forward-thinking organizations understand that there are different types of buying journeys, differing complexities, different risk profiles and different sales cycles.
The key is applying the right sales channel and approach to meet buyers where they are and how they prefer to buy. This will give you the highest probability of inking a deal at the lowest cost. Win probability—and your ability to bend win probability in your favor—is all that matters.
Probability versus Ideology
In sales, context matters. There are few black-and-whites, few right ways or wrong ways. In sales, no matter how hard the so-called experts might want it to be so, there is no one-size-fits-all. There is no “one way.”
What works in a transactional sale will not work in an enterprise-level sale. Selling to the government is different from selling to a business or consumer. Selling a physical product is different from selling a service or software. Selling complex, high-risk products and services is vastly different from selling a one-call-close product.
Can you close a high-risk, enterprise-level deal over the phone without ever meeting face-to-face? Of course you can. Can you sell SaaS software solutions face-to-face? Absolutely. Can you do business over email or chat? You bet. You can conduct sales and close business face-to-face and through any virtual communication channel. In sales, everything works some of the time.
This is why, instead of ideology, I'm a student of probability. Probability is how I play the game of sales. Every move I make, every question I ask, every word I say, each sales communication channel I deploy, and when, where, and how I deploy it in the sales process is based on the probability that the specific move will generate the outcome I desire.
Virtual Is NOT the Same as Face-to-Face
Still, if your primary go-to market sales communication channel has been face-to-face, it's natural to fear that you won't be able to communicate effectively, build relationships, be as competitive, or make the same impact through virtual channels. You fear that virtual selling will lower your probability of closing sales.
This fear is not unfounded. The most effective way to build relationships and trust, resolve conflict, brainstorm ideas, gain consensus, present ideas, negotiate, and close deals is a physical face-to-face meeting. You know this and I know this, because we are human.
Successful face-to-face sales pros are masters at reading other people, responding to nuance, and using charisma as a competitive advantage. They have the ability to intuitively sense the emotions of other people and respond appropriately.
This is why so many field sales professionals were paralyzed with fear when the coronavirus pandemic made face-to-face interaction impossible. It was as if their sense of sight had suddenly been taken away. And, in reality, it had been.
The eyes manage roughly 80 percent of the information and communication you take in. Visual interpretation of the world and people around you consumes at least 50 percent of your brain's computing power. In fact, a far larger part of the brain is dedicated to vision than to hearing, taste, touch, and smell combined.1
When you are on face-to-face sales calls, you can see and interpret the entire picture. You see not only the person you are meeting but also their surroundings and how they interact with their environment. You also have the luxury of reading their eyes, the micro-expressions on their face, and the entirety of their body language. If there are other people in the room, you're able to read their reactions and nonverbal signals as well.
Emotional contagion is another form of sight that is significantly diminished in quality and clarity when you are communicating through virtual channels versus face-to-face.
Emotional contagion2 is a subconscious response that allows us to pick up on the emotions of other humans without much conscious effort.3 Like invisible vibrations, emotions are easily transferred from one person to the other when we are together.
We are constantly scanning those around us for clues about their emotional state. We read between the lines, interpret those clues, and alter our approach to people based on our perceptions.
Though you can see the other person on a video call or hear their voice over the phone, it is not the same as being in person. It's cloudy, and never as clear as when you are selling face-to-face.
When you are face-to-face with prospects and customers, it is easier to:
Ask for the next step—and know when to ask for the next step.
Tour facilities, get hands-on, and understand their real issues and problems.
Communicate clearly and minimize miscommunication.
Know when what you are saying or presenting is off-base or missing the mark.
Accurately read stakeholders and develop discovery questions organically, in the moment.
Compare the words that stakeholders say to their nonverbal communication for congruency.
Keep people engaged, because it is far less likely that they'll drift into social media, look at their email, or become distracted when you are sitting in front of them.
Build relationships.
Gain commitments. It is much harder for stakeholders to say no to your face.
Face-to-face human interaction is powerful, persuasive, and compelling. When you are there, face-to-face, it sends the message that the meeting is important, and it makes the person with whom you are meeting feel important. It demonstrates your credibility and allows you to fully leverage your personal brand.
Because face-to-face meetings require both parties to make a significant investment of time, it increases the probability that there will be meaningful outcomes and that your deal will move to the next step.
All of this and more are why face-to-face selling and human interaction are going nowhere. Going out on physical sales calls and meeting prospects at trade shows, networking events, or conferences face-to-face are not going away (at least not while we are alive on Earth).
Notes
1
. Alan Kozarsky, ed., “How Important Are Our Eyes?”
WebMD,
May 10, 2019,
www.webmd.com/eye-health/qa/how-important-are-our-eyes
.
2
. E. Hatfield, J. Cacioppo, and R. L. Rapson,
Emotional Contagion
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). ISBN 0-521-44948-0
3
. Shirley Wang, “Contagious Behavior,”
Observer
(February 2006),
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/contagious-behavior
.
3Necessity Is the Mother of Virtual Selling
When I started my company, Sales Gravy, in 2007, right at the cusp of the global financial crisis, I found myself in unfamiliar waters. For my entire career, I'd sold face-to-face. I was damn good at it. I never considered that there was any other way.
But, my prospects were spread out all across the country. I had limited startup funds and could not afford to take the risk of buying a plane ticket, only to lose the deal. If I wanted to grow my business (and I did), my only choice was virtual selling—face-to-face was not an option for me.
It required a massive mindset shift. I had to change my belief system about selling. Most of all, it required me to get past my fear and just do it. Out of pure necessity, and many mistakes later, I eventually mastered virtual selling.
Today, Sales Gravy has grown into one of the most successful training and consulting firms in the world. We have customers on every continent except Antarctica. Virtual selling is how we go to market because it is the most practical and cost-effective means of engaging prospects across the globe. We regularly close six- and seven-figure deals within a completely virtual sales process.
Everything Works—Blending Works Best
This, of course, begs the question: Do we ever make face-to-face sales calls? The answer is yes. When we have big, company-changing deals on the line, and it is practical, we visit face-to-face—usually late in the sales process when it matters most. Likewise, in cities like San Francisco, where we have salespeople in the market, we make face-to-face calls.
When we are onsite with our clients, delivering training or providing professional services, we leverage those in-person engagements to interact with our stakeholders to anchor relationships and expand our business inside those accounts—often displacing competitors who are not engaging face-to-face.
When our trainers and consultants are already in a city for a client engagement, we set up face-to-face meetings with prospects in the same city. Since we are already there and the cost to schedule an additional face-to-face meeting is low, it makes sense to meet in person because those face-to-face meetings almost always give us a leg up over our competitors.
The two early enterprise-level deals that made my company what it is today were closed on face-to-face calls. At the final presentation stage, I took the risk, purchased the plane ticket, and delivered my closing presentation in person. These deals were game changers and were so important that the cost of the face-to-face engagement to seal the deal in person was well worth it.
This is called blending, and it is the key to leveraging virtual selling to become more productive and win more often, at a lower cost to you and your company.
I'm a student of probability rather than an evangelist. As we've established, everything works. You just need to calculate the probability that using a particular approach, at a particular time, with a particular opportunity will improve the probability that you get the appointment, advance the opportunity, close the deal, expand the revenue within your account, or renew the contract—AND—that the approach you choose, relative to its probability, is worth the cost.
Will Customers and Prospects Accept Virtual Selling?
Here are five truths:
Most of your prospects and customers would prefer to meet with you face-to-face prior to making an important or risky decision. They want to know they can trust you. Since so much of human communication is visual, seeing you face-to-face helps them feel that they are making a better decision.
If prospects and customers are given a choice to meet face-to-face, most will.
If the only option to meet with you is on a virtual call—phone or video—most prospects and customers will accept that option.
The majority of your prospects and customers will be comfortable with at least some of the steps of the sales process being virtual.
Most of the mental hang-ups about virtual selling are with you, not your stakeholders.
When I'm working with inside sales professionals on virtual selling skills, the biggest fear they have is engaging stakeholders by phone (weird, but true) and on video calls. They say, “You don't understand, Jeb; our customers prefer to communicate through email.” Or, “It's really hard to get our customers on video calls.”
Field sales teams universally fear the phone and video sales calls. They whine, “You don't understand, Jeb; our customers prefer to meet face-to-face.” Or, especially when it comes to prospecting, “Nobody answers the phone and I'm so much better face-to-face.”
Jeb, you don't understand. I hear those same words every week, in every training session, wherever I am in the world.
When I'm overseas, it's, “Jeb, you don't understand because you are an American.” When I'm in North America, it's, “Jeb, you don't understand, because our company, product, service, customers, buyers, niche, vertical, geographic region [pick a card, any card] is different.”
I've heard it all. From Moscow to Milan, Lisbon to London, Shanghai to Sau Paulo, Dubuque to Dubai, and Atlanta to Amsterdam, there are a thousand excuses and justifications for why salespeople can't do something.
“Our buyers are different.”
“Our culture is different.”
“Our product is different.”
“It doesn't work like that in our industry [company, culture, country].”
“The buyers we deal with won't get on a video call.”
“My customers only meet face-to-face.”
“The buyers in our industry just commoditize us.”
It's mostly bullshit. Just lies, excuses, and delusions that sales professionals throw at me to justify their fear of a particular tool or technique. It's easier to blame it on their prospects than to look in the mirror.
So, let's just cut to the chase. The people you call on will happily schedule and jump on virtual calls with you. You just have to ask.
How do I know? Because there are real stories everywhere, including my own (above), about how prospects and customers quickly adapted to virtual sales calls because there was either no other choice or because it was faster and more convenient.
Think about it: During the coronavirus pandemic, no one had a choice and we quickly adapted to virtual sales calls. Or, how many times has a customer with a problem demanded that you get on a plane or in your car and visit them right at that moment? When you explained that it was impossible for you to get there, didn't they manage to work it out with you on the phone?
One of my sales training clients sells used commercial trucks over the phone, sight unseen. These deals run from $20,000 to $200,000. Their customers can see only a picture of the truck. No test drive, no kicking the tires, no making a deal belly-to-belly. This group sells tens of thousands of trucks a year this way. It is one of the largest resellers of used commercial trucks in the world.
Is this a weird way for people to buy used commercial trucks? You bet. Do customers push back and say they have to see the truck before they buy? Absolutely. But this is the only option, and therefore thousands of buyers accept it. Once they experience how easy and painless virtual can be, they become loyal customers and buy more trucks.
This is one of the keys to successful virtual selling. When you make it a great experience for your stakeholders, they'll begin to trust the process and be open to more virtual calls. One thing you can take to the bank, though, is that prospects and customers won't accept virtual sales calls if you never ask for them.
Author's note: I use the terms prospect, stakeholder, customer, and buyer interchangeably and regularly change up terms to avoid repeating myself and boring my readers.
4Virtual Selling Definition and Channels
Before we move further into the book, and to avoid confusion surrounding the term, let's stop and define virtual selling.
Traditionally, virtual has been thought of as something purely digital that takes place online versus in the physical world. Though true for software programs, online experiences, and gaming, this limited definition of virtual when applied to selling is what causes consternation within the sales community.
When salespeople or leaders hear the word virtual paired with the word selling, it's natural for many to think “robots.” They envision sales activity devoid of any human-to-human contact. This, of course, makes those who make their living through face-to-face interaction recoil. Face-to-face is their comfort zone and their skill set. It's difficult to conceive that it's possible to sell any other way.
Virtual selling is simply leveraging virtual communication channels in place of physical, face-to-face interaction.
These channels include:
Video calls
Video messaging
Telephone calls
Interactive chat
Text messaging
Voicemail and audio messaging
Social media
Direct messaging
Snail mail
If you look closely at the list above, you'll notice that you are already using some, if not all, of these channels. You are already engaging in some level of virtual selling activity.
You'll also notice that all of the tools and technology that you need to engage in virtual selling—communicating with prospects and customers without physically being there—already exist. In addition, there are hundreds of software platforms that facilitate and simplify the use of these communication channels, both individually and working in concert.
Therefore, since the tools, technology and platforms already exist and every salesperson is engaging in some level of virtual selling, this is not a showdown between virtual selling and face-to-face selling. It is not about “revolutionizing” the way you sell.
Rather, it's a laser focus on applying virtual selling tools more effectively to engage and connect with other humans while boosting your sales productivity. It's about helping you improve your virtual communication, interpersonal, and selling skills along the three main journeys of the sales continuum (see Figure 4.1):
Business development:
Engaging prospects and moving them into the pipeline (targeting, qualifying, engagement)
Selling:
Advancing opportunities through the pipeline (initial meetings, discovery, demos, presentations, negotiating, closing)
Figure 4.1
Account management:
Servicing, expanding and growing existing accounts (onboarding new customers, delivering products and services, up-selling, cross-selling, developing relationships, adding new products and services, retention)
Human-to-Human
Videoconferencing, the telephone, text messaging, video messaging, live chat, social media platforms, email, and direct messaging: What do all of these virtual channels have in common?
Each was developed by humans as a facsimile for physical, face-to-face interaction. From the beginning of human self-awareness, we have been driven to develop virtual communication tools, techniques, methodologies, and technologies to facilitate human-to-human connection when we are far apart.
The digital transformation of the twenty-first century has aimed to break down barriers to human-to-human connection while removing inefficiencies that slow down the pace of communication. Today, we have the capacity to interact and engage with people across the globe at breakneck speed.
The tools have changed, but what has not changed, since the dawn of mankind, is the innate human craving for emotional connection. We are compelled to interact with other humans.
In the virtual world, though, everything moves fast, and I don't want to discount just how challenging virtual selling can be. It requires constantly learning, adopting, and adapting to new technology while practicing and honing the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence required to build relationships and influence others.
It requires a mindset shift, applying interpersonal skills in new ways, learning how to influence and persuade without the help of some of your senses, moving at a faster pace and, getting out of your comfort zone.
Sales Communication Approaches
Virtual sellers are adept at communicating through a complex web of interconnected communication channels—synchronous and asynchronous—often at the same time. Interconnected is the key word. There isn't one best way. Communication channels are not siloed.
There are two primary forms of virtual communication that you need to master and, learn to blend (interconnect) together to be effective:
Synchronous (talking with people)
. Communication channels are dynamic and require both parties to be available and engaged in a conversation at the same time.
Asynchronous (talking at people)
. Communication channels do not require both parties to be available and engaged at the same time.
Synchronous Channels (Talking with People)
Asynchronous Channels (Talking at People)
Face-to-face (
not
virtual)
Video calls
Video messaging
Phone calls
Direct messaging
Live chat
Voice mail
Texting
Social media posting and commenting
Snail mail
We live in a time when attention spans have contracted. The modern world moves at light speed. Information overload is a state of being for most people.
Attention is currency. Leveraging as many channels as possible improves your probability of gaining attention. With attention, you can win mindshare. With mindshare comes wallet share.
5The Asynchronous Salesperson
The inside sales professional I was coaching had been underperforming for a while. The year before, on a team of 30 inside sales reps, he'd been a top performer and made it to the President's Club. Recently, however, his productivity had dropped off and it had not recovered.
We were sitting face-to-face at one corner of a large conference table. I asked questions in an attempt to diagnose his performance problem over the last few months—a problem that, despite the evidence, he denied he had—the sad delusion of an underperformer.
I asked him to walk me through his day and describe his outbound prospecting process. I sat back in my chair in disbelief as he told me that his primary prospecting methodology was sending out hundreds of bulk emails to the buyers in his database each day.
Seeing the, “Oh shit, I can't believe you just said that” look on my face, he defended this practice. “It works,” he said, while barely hiding the defensive tone in his voice. “People respond to my emails looking for more information.”
I let him talk in circles, justifying why he wasn't talking with people, for a few more minutes before interrupting him. “Eric, here's the thing. If you are telling me that sending emails is the most effective means of engaging buyers and closing business, then we don't need you. It would be a lot cheaper to get a robot to do your job.”
The look on his face was that of a hurt puppy that had just been whacked with a rolled-up newspaper for peeing on the floor. But I could see the wheels turning as he tried to cobble together a response. He shot back, “I'm really offended that you would say that.”
“Well,” I responded, “I'm really offended that you are collecting a $75,000-a-year salary to do what a $19-a-month robot can do better than you.”
Once I was able to get his attention and shake him out of his delusion, we were able to get him back on track. Today he is a sales leader. But he almost got fired because he forgot that his job was to talk with people.
A Robot Can Do Your Job—If You Are Not Doing Your Job
In today's digital world, it is easy to avoid talking to people. It's easy to justify that the people who buy from you would like to avoid talking with you, too.
Talking with people is difficult. You must pay attention, listen, and flex your communication style. You must put the other person at the center of your attention. It can make you vulnerable and expose you to the potential for rejection.
This is exactly why thousands of misguided salespeople have deluded themselves into believing that staring at a computer screen all day, researching, posting on social media, and using automated tools to effortlessly send thousands of generic emails and direct messages is selling.
This behavior is why so many sales floors are dead silent. It is why so many sales teams and organizations are woefully behind their forecasts and business plans. It's transacting versus engaging. Which is why so many buyers are left longing for real human-to-human interaction.
It's also a big reason why there are so many new tech companies popping up that claim they can replace your sales team with an AI driven software application. They are partially right. If all you do is send emails all day long, you can be replaced. Robots are not that great at complex, real-time conversations, but they are pretty good at sending one-way bulk emails.
If we learn nothing else from the great coronavirus pandemic, it's that real human connection matters. And you are just not going to get that from an email.
The more complex the sale, the longer the sales cycle, the higher the dollar amount, the greater the risk to the stakeholders and the more emotions are involved in the decision to purchase, then the more companies need salespeople who are intelligent, creative, insightful, influential, and persuasive to shift win probabilities in the organization's favor. The more they need you to talk with people.
Talk with People
There is no doubt that asynchronous communication channels have an important place in virtual selling. These channels allow you to move fast and get a lot done, communicate when you are unable to get together in real time with the other person, and use written communication to ensure clarity and build familiarity.
With prospecting, asynchronous channels allow you to build sequences of touches to improve the probability that you will get a response.
But there is a downside. Asynchronous channels don't feel as personal. It's almost impossible to build real relationships with stakeholders through these channels. Furthermore, asynchronous communication may result in miscommunication and misinterpretation that can damage relationships and your reputation.
I subscribe to a basic sales truth: The more people you talk with, the more you will sell. If I'm an evangelist for anything, it's talking with people through as many channels as possible, building emotional connections and helping them solve problems. In the land of the complex sale, real-time, human-to-human communication is the key to success for you and your customers.
Talking with people is what we as sales professionals get paid to do. It's just that simple. The good news is, with virtual selling it's easier than ever to have real-time conversations with people, wherever they are.
Synchronous communication is where you earn your chops as a sales professional. It helps you gain a much deeper understanding of the motivations, desires, needs, wants, fears, aspirations, and problems of each stakeholder. It allows you to make emotional connections and build relationships.
6Blending
When I got my start in sales, back in my early twenties, I worked in an assigned territory in a local market. I could drive to all of my sales calls.
I called on local service businesses and manufacturers. To be effective at making recommendations that addressed their unique needs, I needed to physically walk through their operations. It was the most effective way to both build relationships and get hands-on with the problems my stakeholders faced.
My industry was also insanely competitive. Because the competition was so fierce, and the products, services, and prices offered by each company were essentially the same, it was the relationship that mattered most. People bought me first and then my company.
Those face-to-face interactions mattered dearly, because it was there that I built trust, reduced risk, differentiated and locked my competitors out.
Still, I spent a lot of time driving. My territory was four hours from top to bottom. Windshield time was, and still is, the biggest time sucker for field sales reps.
Then, as today, most field salespeople preferred to prospect for new business with their feet—in-person prospecting and door-to-door canvassing. I remember one of my first managers telling me to “go get lost in my territory” and that he “didn't want to see me in the office during the day.”
I quickly realized that this approach—driving around in my territory looking for new business opportunities—was stupid. Driving was not an accomplishment.
Time is money, and prospecting by foot is an expensive use of time. So, I learned to hide from the boss and use the phone for prospecting (virtual) so that I could maximize my face-to-face time for selling (physical).
Shifting to virtual prospecting made me highly productive. I could make far more prospecting calls by phone than on foot. This made my pipeline robust, giving me more at-bats.
Though in-person prospecting could be more effective because of the face-to-face interaction, the sheer number of touches I could make by phone versus on foot improved my statistical probability of adding more opportunities to my pipeline. It allowed me to outgun everyone on my team.
While most of my peers closed one deal a month, I was closing one a week. My commissions soared, and I set every sales record in my company's history. That was my first experience with blending.
Map Your Sales Process to Communication Channels
Blending is the active and intentional strategy of leveraging multiple communication channels (synchronous and asynchronous) in the sales process to give yourself the highest probability of engaging a prospect, scheduling an appointment, advancing to the next step, closing the sale, expanding your account, or retaining your customer.
Every sales leader and sales professional should be focused on blending right now. You should be actively mapping communication channels to the sales process, buying journey, and sales cycle. Even pure inside sales teams should reevaluate the communication channels you are leveraging and how you are using them, relative to the steps in the sales process.
You see, sales is a blend of art and science. The art is influencing people to comply with your requests. The science is influencing the right people, at the right time, with the right message, through the right channel to give yourself the highest statistical probability of inking the deal at the lowest cost.
For example: A company could deploy a field sales force to sell subscription-based SaaS software to small companies in local markets across America. These salespeople would likely be very successful and have much higher raw win ratios than an inside sales team.
Yet, the SaaS sales organization can lower costs significantly, move faster, touch far more prospects, and do it with fewer people via telephone and video sales calls. The cost savings and sheer volume of touches make the trade-off of a lower win ratio worth it.
