Is virtual sales the future? The most outgoing professionals in business, salespeople, are now required to stay home due to pandemic quarantines. As a result, I have been fielding lots of calls from sales managers asking for help with the shift to selling via social media. Companies are searching for methods that enable their sales reps to stay in touch with their customers remotely and need help training employees on these platforms.
Virtual Sales Calls Are More Efficient
Virtual sales calls actually save time and expense. The average person-to-person sales call can be from 2-4 hours when you include transportation, waiting in the lobby, etc. On the other hand, a salesperson in his home office is able to make at least one call per hour via online technology without leaving his desk. By using new types of video communication it is possible to build a level of trust and rapport with a client in thirty minutes, whereas using more traditional sales call techniques may require weeks or months of your time.
Over cups of coffee, one at his home and one at mine, I recently demonstrated to a company manager how to use ZOOM, a video platform currently enjoying wide popularity. We spoke via audio and video for over an hour on various business issues. After that call, he asked me to train his sales reps on how to make and use ZOOM appointments effectively with their top customers.
What choice will you make in this new normal?
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell suggests that times of rapid change, like the one we are experiencing, have a “stickiness factor” that is likely to create a new normal. We are being influenced radically by changes in our surroundings. If you view this pandemic as simply a period of random dissociated adversity, and don’t look for solutions, the consequences of not taking advantage of the changes that are occurring will leave you left behind in an altered world. You can either be part of a future that is better than the past, or you will be left in the past. The choice is yours. Start making face-to-face sales calls using social media today.
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