Now, and forever it will be just Sales.
We’ve heard from clients through 2022 and 2023 that while in-person selling remains valuable, virtual selling skills are critical to prospecting and shortening the sales cycle.
To optimize the balance between virtual and physical in-person selling, an organization should consider losing the inside sales terminology in favor of the term “Sales.” Doing so demonstrates an appreciation of the tools, processes, structure, and mental models needed to adapt and compete in today’s marketplace.
Effective virtual sellers have traditional sellers’ qualities, in addition to conventional inside selling virtual skills.
Here are four considerations for your organization to strengthen virtual selling abilities:
1. Rethink Sales Enablement
Sales organization structures often align with customer segments. For example, today’s Inside Sales teams might serve small businesses, field (geographic) to medium firms, and enterprise sales for large and global accounts.
In the past, Inside Sales had been the only team enabled for remote selling. The thinking was that the other teams had to sell via physical in-person visits. Most B2B field and enterprise teams are following rather than leading in adopting digital tools and engagement, so they need lots of help.
Enabling virtual selling is much more than Zoom meeting logistics. For example, digital marketing is an essential element of virtual selling. Sellers can’t wait for marketing to launch a marketing campaign; marketing must enable self-service options for salespeople to launch personalized email campaigns when needed.
Pro-tip: Revist sales enablement virtual selling content priorities.
2 – Rethink Sales Competencies
Virtual selling creates a demand and opportunity for new skills. Understanding the best practices for virtual selling and adopting them is essential to optimize sales results.
Your best in-person sellers have unique talents when face-to-face with a client. Inside Sales teams have succeeded with a different playbook – often focused on process, task management, targeting, and phone skills (now video conferencing). Over time, the current Inside Sales teams may be the best sellers in an organization.
For today’s tenured outside sales teams, portions of the sales team may be unable to shift to virtual selling effectively. Sales enablement teams should focus on identifying and prioritizing the competencies that tenured sellers need to acquire. Remember that the initial physical in-person meeting was the most important before the pandemic. Now it’s the initial video conference and coordinating pursuit team logistics.
Also, there are more prospecting tools and data sources than ever before. Tenured sellers may have access, but our experience shows that adoption and effective use of the tools and data sources are limited in many organizations.
Pro-Tip: Establish virtual selling competencies and measure salesperson competency achievement.
3- Sales Leaders Need Enablement Help
Sales leaders set the pace of the sales team. Virtual selling is new to sales leaders as much as salespeople. Sales leaders need enablement support to manage their teams more effectively and to train and coach on how virtual selling interactions.
Here is a quick validation of virtual selling skills;
How many sales leaders can conduct a video conference utilizing your conferencing tool’s Whiteboard feature?
If the answer is not all, you can expect that most salespeople may have the same limitation.
Pro-Tip: Engage sales leaders to discuss their abilities to train, coach, and demonstrate virtual selling skills.
Breaking the barrier between inside and outside sales team terminology is not semantics; B2B sales teams have shifted fully or partially to virtual selling.
Your organization’s sales teams now share more sales enablement, technology, and competency needs than ever. A holistic “it’s all Sales” approach can help teams better compete and prepare for virtual selling success.