The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Selling

The rise of popular video streaming services like YouTube has made video a big part of our daily lives. People around the world use video to learn new skills and connect with others. But you don't have to stop at watching videos; you can make them, too!

As a sales rep, you can help bring more eyes to your business, product, or service with the help of video. Through virtual selling, you can have a direct impact on your sales performance. Let's get started!

What is virtual selling?

Thanks to virtual selling, a salesperson can reach out to anyone with a Wi-Fi connection. In essence, the metaphorical sales pool expands to become an ocean that spans the entire globe.

As long as you share a language, you can target buyers in China, Australia, the U.S., Spain — or anywhere there might be a demand for your offerings.

Virtual selling: benefits for the sellers

Virtual selling has many unique benefits that are not afforded by traditional selling methods. It allows the seller to expand their reach extensively, with minimal effort. When a salesperson isn’t blocked by logistical details like time zones, travel costs, and accommodations, they can reach out to any potential customer, only thanks to their Wi-Fi connection.

Statistics demonstrate that virtual sales meetings are extremely popular among sellers. Research by HubSpot found that 63% of sales leaders believe that virtual sales meetings are equally effective or more effective than traditional, face-to-face meetings.

Virtual selling: benefits for the buyers

Virtual selling is beneficial for purchasers, too. Online sales webinars and product demos don’t require any special effort of the viewer; interested parties can simply click a link and learn more about the product or service without leaving home.

Like the seller, the buyer also does not need to worry about schedules or logistics, making it easy and convenient to shop and explore.

According to a report from McKinsey, about 80% of customers say that they prefer shopping virtually. Ease of planning, travel cost savings, and better safety were some of the top factors driving their preference.

How to sell products online with video?

It’s become clear that virtual selling offers multiple long-term benefits and is here to stay.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, companies of all sizes and industries proved that anyone could use video for sales successfully. Many sectors that relied on in-person sales before the pandemic are now finding opportunities in new markets, connecting with buyers on new levels, and growing their businesses globally. But where should you start?

Best practices for your virtual sales meetings

With virtual sales meetings, product demos webinars and sales webinars, you now know 3 ways to leverage video in your sales strategy. But if you're working as an inside sales rep, virtual sales meetings will be your bread and butter.

So let's take a closer look to understand how to organize your virtual sales meetings!

2. Understand your customers' needs

Listening is the key to all successful relationships, including those with potential customers.

While a prospect is describing what they need, instead of waiting for your turn to speak or to pitch your best-loved (and most expensive) service, try to actively listen to what they are expressing.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of a customer’s actual needs will usually yield better results than a simple brute-force sales pitch. After all, every situation is unique, and what has worked best for one customer won’t necessarily work for everyone.

4. Observe proper meeting etiquette

There's an easy meeting etiquette to follow to ensure a quality virtual sales meeting:

• Tidy your surroundings: Adjust your camera to the right angle and get rid of your dirty cup! If you can't change your surrounding, simply use a virtual background.
• Use a flattering lighting: Test it ahead of the meeting to give a first good impression. Try having light facing you instead of behind you.
• Keep it quiet: Make sure it's quiet for your prospect to hear you well. When someone else is speaking, mute yourself!
• Share your screen: Illustrate your arguments with graphs, numbers and existing customer testimonials.
• Over-communicate: End your meeting with a list of action items and takeaways. Ask the prospect if your explanations are clear and leave no space for misinterpretation.

5. Don't forget to follow-up

After your virtual sales meeting is over, you may feel that you’ve earned a bit of a break, but don’t close that laptop just yet!

Once the meeting is done, make sure to follow-up via email in a timely manner. Recap the action items or main takeaways and move the sales negotiation further. For example: offer a time for the next meeting and get a hold of the decision maker.

Hear from our Content Manager, Daniella, as she shares 5 tips for hosting killer product demos.

After the sale: virtual customer onboarding

Congratulations — your virtual sales meeting was a success, and you’ve landed yourself a customer!

Now, you or your team can go one step further in the virtual selling process with virtual customer onboarding sessions.

Use video engagement tools to give new users step-by-step tutorials; inform customers about your terms of service or other policy updates, and ensure that new clients can access all the services and products that your organization has to offer.

Virtual onboarding is becoming more and more popular as a quick and easy way to establish a strong user-organization relationship, which will result in more customer loyalty down the road.

>> Discover how Workable used Livestorm to Grow Customer Training by 113%

How to upsell and cross-sell with video?

Now that we’ve walked you through the basics of virtual selling, here’s a quick tutorial on the next level: virtual upselling and cross-selling. What is it exactly?

Conclusion

Now that you know what is virtual selling and how to host great virtual sales calls, there's nothing left to do but to get started!

If you need to host virtual sales meetings or product demo webinars, Livestorm's video engagement platform is made for you: it is browser-based, easy-to-use and provides all the features to run your events from end-to-end.

To test Livestorm and get started, simply create a free account.