According to a recent McKinsey report, three quarters of buyers and sellers say they actually prefer ... [+]
Patty Crabtree, a seasoned remote work consultant with decades of experience, recently gave me her take on the hoped-for return to normal.
“Normal is such a disempowering word,” says Crabtree. “The word normal takes away from the opportunity and encourages things to go back to the same. But a return to normal is just an illusion, as our world has changed. With all the opportunities that have occurred, why would someone want to go back to the way things were when there is a possibility of something better?”
Jonathan Lister of LinkedIn concurs, and believes there will be no return to normal selling like in the before times.
Lister leads the global sales solutions team at LinkedIn, helping to build trusted and valuable buyer-seller relationships powered by the world’s largest professional network. He has worked at LinkedIn for more than ten years.
“Virtual selling is here to stay,” says Lister. “This is true for all industries and organizations, not just the early adopters or digitally native. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey report, three quarters of buyers and sellers say they actually prefer digital interactions over face-to-face. And, over this past year, we’ve watched entire industries pivot their sales approaches and accelerate their adoption of virtual selling.”
Lister says LinkedIn has spent the last year working closely with sales leaders across industries—from manufacturing and logistics to financial services and healthcare—to help them transition from an in-person to all-virtual selling model in a matter of weeks. Below are a few tips for how to continue to accelerate your adoption and efficacy of virtual selling:
Update meetings and pitches to fit in the virtual paradigm. Meetings will continue to take place over video, which means sales professionals must be diligent about sticking to an agenda and a reasonable timeframe. To avoid Zoom fatigue, ditch traditional presentations for more interactive and creative ones. Work to have more conversations and fewer presentations. Where possible, get agreement to have material reviewed in advance.
Use reliable data to add value immediately. Virtual selling calls for a different way of looking at sales insights. Understanding what information is resonating with your buyers can be particularly challenging when you are not meeting in person and reading body language. People-driven insights (like which companies are hiring) can help you spot new areas of growth and maximize your teams’ time and resources. And it works: LinkedIn research found that top-performing salespeople—those who reach 125% of their quote or above—are more likely than their colleagues to leverage data to identify patterns and trends.
Leverage your LinkedIn network to gain insight into customer pain points and business needs. Avoid using LinkedIn as a hard selling tool; instead, use the platform to build and maintain long-term relationships and high-quality referrals.
Balance quality with volume. When selling is taking place virtually, every interaction with a buyer must be personalized and intentional. This is where soft skills come into play: be confident, actively listen, and show buyers that you can anticipate their needs.
Don’t overlook burnout. Recent data from LinkedIn’s Glint platform shows employee burnout reached a two-year high in August 2020 and it continues to climb. It’s important to remember our customers are burned out and so are our teams. Approach conversations with customers with empathy about how they might be feeling, and consider what you might do to help your own team navigate stress, like policy and culture changes to take some pressure off of reps, whether that means resetting targets, guaranteeing 100% of variable compensation, or adding administrative and discretionary leave.
First Midwest Bank is a regionally-focused organization serving customers in the midwestern U.S. When the pandemic forced the shift to virtual selling, the bank saw success driving new business and building new relationships digitally.
“Without in-person meetings and events in 2020, we were challenged with the task of maintaining valuable customer relationships while also building new relationships completely virtually,” says Ryan Novak, vice president and marketing manager, First Midwest Bank. “Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, our employees quickly found their footing with the platform, using it to identify warm connections and integrating it with our Salesforce CRM to bring the technology into daily habits and workflows.”
Bottom line: digital selling is here to stay.
