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Remote Selling Tips for B2B Sales Teams

Jun 09th, 2020

Most sales reps have been working at home for a matter of months now. During this time, many sales enablement teams have developed remote selling tactics that will help reps perform effectively, even without in-person meetings, events and other face-to-face interactions that typically advance the sales process.

These remote selling strategies range from using technology to your advantage, being empathetic towards buyers, staying connected to the market and more.

We’ve compiled our favorite tips into this list for easy reference. Feel free to share yours in the comments below!  

Remote Selling: 6 Tips for B2B Sales Teams

  1. Keep up with the news
  2. Reinvent ‘face-to-face’ interactions
  3. Be conscious of time
  4. Get ahead with training
  5. Monitor your remote training
  6. Don’t add to video conferencing fatigue

#1. Keep up with the news

Sales reps should already know to research their buyer and their company in preparation for a sales meeting. But this is even more important in a remote selling situation because many companies are going through major changes such as layoffs, leadership changes, new go-to-market strategies and more.

Given the changing environment we’re all in, reps should stay on top of any news relevant to their target companies (and even set up Google Alerts), including press releases, financial reports, industry news and more. This way, reps can make their interactions more personal for all types of outreach and show empathy for anything the buyer or their company is going through. The risk of not doing research is that reps will seem out of touch and only concerned with their bottom line.

#2. Reinvent ‘face-to-face’ interactions

On top of doing research about buyers, reps should customize their messages to prospects and make them as personal as possible. Right now, there is so much noise from companies trying to stay relevant in the market, as well as the 24-hour news cycle.

While traditional ‘face-to-face’ interactions won’t be available, reps can still make themselves visible to prospects. For example, have reps create a Brainshark presentation using PowerPoint slides and their voice (or a video of them speaking along with the slides). They can start by saying they saw the recent news about the buyer’s company and explain how they can relate to their situation. This approach will help reps to stand out and come across as personal, empathetic and down to earth, in the same way they would if they were meeting the prospect in person.

#3. Be conscious of time

While people are working from home, they may also be balancing kids, pets and other aspects of home life. When interacting with prospects, be sure reps are conscious of the amount of time they have to connect with their buyers.

Prior to sales meetings, have reps validate the amount of time set for the meeting, confirm that the time still works for their schedule and set an agenda outlining what we will be covered. Reps should narrow down the action items to only the most important ones to be respectful of the buyer’s time.

When reps get on the call or video chat, they should get right to the point, present information quickly and concisely and use visuals whenever possible. Ensure that reps know to pay attention to nonverbal cues as well as anything going on in the background – work from home environments can change quickly and reps need to be aware and understanding of that.

After the meeting, they should follow up by summarizing the main points. This can easily be done in a Brainshark presentation with PowerPoint slides and voice (or video). Having a summary in this format not only puts the rep’s face and voice in front of the buyer again but it makes the information shareable to other audiences, such as the prospect’s team members or leadership.

#4. Get ahead with training

In a typical week, reps may be on the road or in back to back sales calls, but now, if they find themselves with more time or needing new skills or information, just-in-time learning and on-demand training can be just the thing.

Make training available for reps that can help them address the latest challenges that customers and prospects are facing. Do a quick audit of your existing training and resurface content that may have new relevance to reps’ sales processes right now. You can also create or bring forth training that covers career pathing or advancement – ADRs may want to take training that will help them move up to an account executive position, for example.

Have regular communication with reps to suggest training they can take – for example, if the crisis has brought up a new competitor for your company, send out an email or group message to your reps telling them to check out the training and report back with a few key takeaways.

#5. Monitor your remote training

When you aren’t doing any in-person training or seeing reps on a day-to-day basis, it can be hard to know whether they’re completing training or making progress that you’re expecting.

For any training courses or curriculums that you’re assigning, Readiness Scorecards can help keep tabs on individual reps and teams. For example, you can easily see that a handful of reps on your account executive team either haven’t completed or scored poorly on your training module on key competitors. You can take this as a cue to follow up with their sales manager to remind them about the training and reinforce the key points covered in the material.

Or you may discover that the training module needs to be tweaked to cover new information or new objections that reps are encountering, in which case you should update it and reassign it to the team.

#6. Don’t add to video conferencing fatigue

Right now, everyone is using video conferencing both for work and personal interactions, which can lead to fatigue or overload. Remind your reps of this when they’re scheduling sales calls.

Obviously, there will be times where a video call is the best option but given the amount of times a rep connects with a buyer, there may be times where they can skip the video call altogether.

For example, if a buyer is requesting answers to specific product questions, a rep can compile all that information in a Brainshark presentation. They can create PowerPoint slides, add their voice and attach relevant content that the prospect can reference at any time. This will save time and allow the rep and the buyer to streamline any follow up afterwards.