Honing Your Remote Selling Abilities

Has your team started honing their remote selling abilities?

That is, are you and your sales team prepared for the inevitable “virtualization” of sales that was already well underway prior to the pandemic?

It’s safe to say that, while many businesses are reopening in different capacities depending on region, that “normal” may not look the same for the foreseeable future, if ever again.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with companies like Twitter announcing that their employees will be allowed to work from home forever, your business needs to be prepared for the incoming “normal” where more and more sales are conducted virtually.

That means, your organization and your sales team needs to start looking at specific standards for selling completely without ever meeting a prospect or client in person.

While I’m not personally predicting that in-person meetings are now extinct, I do think it’s likely that more and more of your prospects and clients will still prefer to “meet” virtually even when things reopen fully.

That means, your sales team should:

• Know how to write emails and texts that are clear, grammatically correct and professional. This may seem obvious, but your team should not decrease its professionalism in its communication just because it’s a text or email. In other words, if members of your sales team tend to spell “you” as “u” or historically are very vague or unclear through email or text, these patterns must be corrected quickly.
• Ensure they have the proper equipment to succeed online. If they’re using 10-year old headphones with unclear audio that cuts in and out, or a 20-year old computer which takes centuries to open a Zoom window, these need to be adjusted sooner rather than later.
• Ensure they have the right habits and tools in place to work from home. If multiple members of your sales team used to rely on others getting up and walking toward a physical meeting room to prompt themselves to join as well, they need to adjust accordingly. Meeting reminders, alarms, calendar events, and other tools can help them manage their commitments. They also should keep in mind that a messy, uncomfortable work area is likely to slow down their productivity. Your sales team should have a dedicated space to work and the right habits to thrive.
• Be prepared to sell online. In other words, some sellers succeed because of the physical presence of their prospects. They’re better able to read body language, hear the tone of the prospect’s voice and generally are able to manage the conversation better in person. Your team must be able to deal with internet lag, unclear audio, a prospect who doesn’t want to go on video, and other elements which can make the selling process more challenging. This comes with practice, and your team can even do virtual role-playing to help adapt their selling to today’s climate.

The list goes on, and “virtual work” means different things to different organizations and comes with a different set of “skills” to succeed.

But, just like your physical workplace likely has standards on punctuality, communication, dress code, hygiene and other elements in place to ensure a smooth work day, your team needs to virtually be prepared with a set of standards to help them succeed with more and more virtual-type work.