Video Based Selling - The new norm in Sales
Video calls are not just a replacement for the face to face. Yes it can replicate similar patterns but that is a lot more things at play.
Over the past few decades consumers have learnt the dangers of cold calls on the phone or being approached in person by a salesperson. Each of these approaches trigger the fight or flight response. Dealing with this has now become a learnt behaviour by customers across society to combat it, either by hanging up, considered impolite in its early days, now people don’t even talk – just replace the receiver, through to a sorry not know, ‘just looking’ and definitely no eye contact in a face to face approach.
Over the past decade the use of FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp etc for video calls between friends and family has become the new norm, with WhatsApp alone accounting over 2 billion minutes per day on its app. What hasn’t taken off yet in any scale is video calling for sales calls, but having video calls is the best hybrid method of selling.
- More Relaxed Customers
- Increased Rapport
People associate video calls with family and friends, rather that face to face salesperson (danger) or Cold Telephone call (danger) the customer is in a more receptive mode and willing to engage a little more.
The customer is more than often at home, in the safe zone, with the life that comes with it. If you meet them on a video call in their home they will be more relaxed or at least comfortable to talk to you in a friendly manner.
Trust is built via rapport. We know that rapport is about mirroring and similarities, and of course being on a video call means that you can look for those nuances and match and mirror the customer a lot easier than on a telephone call.
Equally, we explored earlier in the previous blog about Empathy. As people are working from home, they have a lot of other things going on which can easily become a distraction, aka pets, kids and chaos in the household. These distractions are actually really great if you demonstrate empathy and include those in the call. If they have a baby under one arm when talking to you, or a dog turns up in the background – how much more of an icebreaker do you need to demonstrate your human side.
5 Things to set yourself up for success
To get yourself in the right place for adding video calls into your sales toolbox here are 5 things to consider:
1: Light & sound
Make sure you can be seen on the camera, lighting behind you will often can black your face out and the customer won’t see you. Also make sure the room doesn’t make you sound like your in the toilet and echo.
2: Appear Professional
This covers grooming, people aren’t expecting you to be suited, but make sure you are looking like someone they want to talk.
3: Background
Simple things, but log into the camera and look at the background, does your room look a mess and in chaos, is the artwork going to offend. If needs be move the items behind you or learn how to blur the background
4: Invitation
To maximise the effectiveness of the call, when you send the invite to the customer for the call, tell them about the tool you are using and if they need to download the app before time. Most of the programmes download the app automatically but letting them know it is a video call and to log in a minute before hand to download and install the app would be helpful. It also won’t leave them feeling that they are not dressed or ready for a video, and will be tempted to leave the camera turned off.
5: Send Documentation
If you are going to talk through a proposal document or slideshow, consider whether you want to email it ahead of time (or 5 mins before the call) this will take the pressure off of the video call or screen sharing etc, and help both of you focus on the document, as you would in a live meeting, you would take a print out for example.
To learn more about using Video Based Selling and to create a plan for your organisation to sell during this pandemic, check out our Selling During COVID-19 Live 'Virtual' Classroom Programme. by clicking below:
