Can Virtual Meetings Give Your Sales Team an Edge?

Virtual meetings are everywhere today! How have your sales teams responded to the challenges of selling remotely? Many organizations I’ve talked with feel there is something missing in their virtual selling activities.

What can you do to take advantage of the current situation to build stronger relationships with your best clients? I want to share several facts to get you thinking about why you should consider improving these capabilities for your teams.

Virtual teams struggling with virtual meetings

I attended the Sales 3.0 Conference last week. There were over 1000 people preregistered for this annual event. They were in for a great event. Gerhard Gschwandtner and his team were up to challenging many preconceived notions that sales leaders have.

Gerhard shared several facts that every sales leader must know to win in the current market and beyond. Yes, we will accelerate past this. Thirty eight per cent of today’s deals end up in a no decision. That number has increased from 17% ten years ago. Your competition is not who you think it is!

Virtual meetings have created their own challenges for sales and marketing teams.

• 91% of sellers have a difficult time getting the buyers’ attention.
• 89% have technology challenges.
• Forrester Research has found that 78% executive buyers find current content does not meet their needs.
• Most buying teams today have over 7 people involved in the deal from the client’s organization.

These new facts require us to take our sales teams’ efforts to a new level to succeed. We must become masters of virtual meetings.

I don’t think this is the whole story. I believe your customers and clients are changing. Women and minorities are moving into many leadership roles in their organizations.

Virtual meetings success leads to ongoing sales success.

Many times, men are not prepared for these changes with their customers. I’m saying this from having been involved in several situations where men have not only missed a sale, but they may also have lost the client by not relating well to their new buyer’s goals and needs. These situations force my clients to take a hard look at the way they hire and develop their sales teams.

Your clients are changing

Some research that I found for one of my clients on diversity and inclusion in their supplier base should make you concerned. Roughly 10% of black women and 19% of Latinas say they have white colleagues who are strong allies in the workplace. This problem not only impacts the customers’ organizations but who should be selling to these new customers. WE must attract more women and diversity candidates into careers as sales professionals.  

In a recent survey of 1,100 US working adults over age 18, Catalyst, a nonprofit that works to accelerate women into leadership, found that 45% of woman business leaders say its difficult for women to speak up in virtual meetings.

Women are being overlooked in virtual meetings!

One in five women say they’ve felt ignored or overlooked by colleagues during video meetings.  Additionally, three in five female employees say they feel like their prospects of getting a promotion are worse in their new remote work environment.  

You can find more information about how the pandemic is impacting your future career prospects at the Catalyst site.

Now you might think this is a relatively new problem for women, introverts, and remote workers. Its not! I found articles going back to 2016, including one from HBR on how to Run Meetings That Are Fair to Introverts, Women, and Remote Workers. 

Now you can see why my client might be concerned. Over half of their clients are women and remote workers today. What can they do to accelerate their sales teams learning on this topic? Can we help our sales professionals connect and engage at a deeper level while working remotely? The best news for you is this is all coachable!

Accelerate your learning and success curve!

I’m working on an event called Virtual Conference Mastery. This program focuses on what individuals and organizations can do to be more effective when using Zoom and other virtual event platforms. We are creating several of these programs for events that include sales and marketing professionals, professional service markets, speakers, and midsize businesses.

We started out with the most challenging group, speakers. More and more organizations are incorporating webinar, seminars, and virtual events as part of their marketing mix.  Speakers who can communicate in a virtual world are a must. Speakers and consultants who influence from the platform are not shy about sharing their ideas on what works.

I think you might find this 90 minute preview helpful.  Everyone I’ve shared it with has gotten several great ideas on which to take action immediately. We also answer questions for the community to support this program. All you have to do is ask.

You can find the event here at Virtual Conference Mastery LIVE Event February 25th, 2021.  

Take time to learn from the video on YouTube and then feel free to ask any questions you’d like in the forum.  We answer them as they come up. I look forward to seeing you there.