At Sandler, we’ve a saying: Gross sales is a dialog between adults to uncover the reality.
We imagine that, on the finish of the day, it’s all about initiating and supporting peer-to-peer conversations. However for too many salespeople, with regards to digital conferences, it looks like we’re nonetheless loads higher at pushing consumers and influencers away than we’re at drawing them in.
We’re simply not as comfy in these remote-meeting settings as we’re in individual. And meaning the income we generate in digital conferences will not be what it needs to be.
This isn’t simply me saying this. In keeping with Gartner, most gross sales leaders (about 62%) assume their workforce members are simpler in face-to-face interactions than they’re in distant platforms.
Right here we’re, 4 years into this digital revolution, and we nonetheless haven’t cracked the code.
One other stat from Gartner tells us that just about half of salespeople (49%) really feel overwhelmed by their know-how. And guess what? The numbers inform us that those that report feeling overwhelmed additionally underperform towards the finances.
So, what’s the answer? I imagine it begins by making a dedication, each on the workforce and the person stage, to start out simplifying. We will’t say sure to each shiny new instrument that comes our approach. It’s higher to grasp just a few instruments than it’s to dabble in every thing. Tech for tech’s sake will not be going to resolve this downside. How then, do we make our digital conferences as efficient as our in-person ones?
Effectively, because it occurs, there’s a easy, underused greatest follow for transferring the needle on this, and it’s staring us all proper within the face: whiteboarding successfully throughout video calls.
I lately ran a digital session the place I requested members to inform me how comfy they have been pulling out a authorized pad or stepping as much as a bodily whiteboard throughout an in-person assembly, so they might draw one thing for a prospect. All of the digital fingers went up. Each one.
Then I requested what number of of those self same folks have been comfy with whiteboarding just about. The response? No fingers went up.
With regards to sketching out concepts and processes whereas we’re working within the digital world, it’s radio silence for lots of gross sales groups. Which means we’re lacking out on an enormous alternative. People love visuals. So why not convey that whiteboard magic to our digital conferences? It’s all about drawing folks in… actually.
The following time you’re on a digital assembly, say one thing like this: “Do you thoughts if I take advantage of the whiteboard to point out you one thing?” You’ll get the identical response you’d get in a face-to-face assembly: some variation on “Certain, go forward.”
After all, asking this implies you could be acquainted forward of time with the whiteboard interface on Groups, Zoom and different videoconferencing platforms, however let’s be sensible: If you happen to don’t have already got this stage of familiarity, it’s going to take you perhaps ten minutes tops so that you can get it. So… get it! Then begin making this a visually-driven dialogue, identical to you’d in the event you have been assembly in individual.
That’s breakthrough primary. Right here’s breakthrough quantity two: Think about copying and pasting screenshots of key slides onto your digital whiteboard… as a substitute of asking for permission to share the display screen so you’ll be able to “present everybody our PowerPoint presentation.”
That is like having a clean canvas the place you’ll be able to transfer issues round, zoom in, zoom out once more, and mainly make the dialog all about what your viewers must see subsequent. And right here’s the kicker: asking to point out off one thing on a whiteboard will get a approach higher response than asking for permission to dive right into a PowerPoint marathon!
You now know what you could know to start out embracing the ability of digital whiteboarding.
Bear in mind: It’s not nearly making conferences much less boring; it’s about sparking actual conversations between friends – conversations that uncover the reality.
