Creating a virtual sales model
1 like134 views
The document discusses the need to transform customer engagement models due to changes brought by COVID-19, highlighting opportunities to enhance digital capabilities for sales and account management. It emphasizes the benefits of reduced business travel, including cost savings, improved employee well-being, and a lower environmental impact, while suggesting strategies for effective virtual meetings and engagement. Additionally, it outlines steps for reshaping sales activities, developing virtual skills, and reinventing marketing to foster frequent, impactful interactions with customers.
Creating a virtual sales model
- 1. 1
- 2. 4 Rethink your customer engagement model WHY CHANGE? • Double face time with the same or less resources. • More sustainable andresistant sales model. • Significant savings potential from reduced travelling. • Higher customer satisfaction enabled by more frequent touchpoints with multiple customer stakeholders. • A DIGITALLY transformed sales and account management model after the COVID-19 crisis. WHY NOW? • The current COVID-19 situation prevents us from meeting customers andprospects. • Our commercial frontline has more idle time now due to social distancing. • We have a window of opportunity now to accelerate the introduction of current and new additional digitaltools. • We can come out of the COVID-19 period with more mature digital commercial capabilities anda sales model that is more sustainable and has reduced cost. THE IDEA IN BRIEF Going from … Primarily long physical meetings with low frequency, many items on the agenda, long preparation time, many people at the same time and long transport time. … to Primarily higher frequency of bite-sized interactions, conducted virtually, few but relevant topics per interaction, targeted information, no transport and less preparation time.
- 3. 5 COVID-19 has created urgency, but the good reasons for digitalising sales have been around for a while. This is an opportunity to get fit for the future! PEOPLE Improve the health and well-being of employees Less than 30% of business travellers think that it is optimal to travel for work more than once per quarter.1 More than 50% of employees state that business travels affect their personal life.*2 More than 60% of employees state that they get stressed about business travels.2 Employees who travel 21 or more nights for a six-month period are more likely to**3: • Smoke • Have trouble sleeping • Be obese • Have alcohol dependencies • Get depression or anxiety PROFIT Reduce the monetary cost of travels Business travel is the most unpredictable financial cost rather than a positive visible revenue generator. 70% of organisations lack the insight to forecast travel and expense spend.7 50% of organisations don’t have full visibility of the ROI of business travel.7 Commercial teams account for 80% of business travel and expense spend.7 The average business trip costs $1,073-$2,537 per person per trip.8 PLANET Reduce the environmental impact on the planet Business travel represents on average 50% of a company’s greenhouse gas emissions.4 In the United States alone, an average of 1.1 million people travel by plane for business each day – emitting nearly 2 million tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere.5 Aviation is set to consume up towards 25% of the global carbon budget for 1.5°C by 2050.6
- 4. 6 What It Takes to Run a Great Virtual Meeting The Next Best Thing to Being There WE HAVE STUDIED 100+ ARTICLES AND RESEARCH PAPERS TO LEARN HOW TO CONDUCT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL VIRTUAL CUSTOMER MEETINGS The Rules of Virtual Groups: Trust, Liking, and Performance in Computer- Mediated Communication How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings Getting Virtual Teams Right The Art of Building Trust on Virtual Platforms A of sources
- 5. 7 Research stresses the importance of teaching employees how to facilitate virtual meetings to ensure engagement and focus An American study of 500 people showed that people tend to defocus and disengage when attending a virtual meeting 44% text 43% look at social media 25% play video games 21% shop online 65% do other work 63% send emails 55% eat or make food 47% go to the restroom
- 6. 8 “Specific guidelines for team interaction are vital; research shows that rules reduce uncertainty and enhance trust in social groups, thereby improving productivity.” HBR Clarifying behavioral guidelines Clarifying team goals Setting expectations for trust Introducing the meeting participants – for example, make people describe something personal; what they expect to get out of the meeting, something about their background etc. To conduct effective virtual meetings, we need to create trust – and underlining clear rules of interaction is one way of doing so Deloitte: HBR: Getting Virtual Teams Right, 2014; The Art of Building Trust on Virtual Platforms, 2020 * compared to physical presence The perceived level of trust is likely to drop up to 83% when people interact virtually Missing trust within and meetings leads to reduced meeting impact as people become disengaged in the meeting, hesitant to speak up, share ideas etc. We need to focus on creating trust within virtual settings to increase impact THE FACT IS THAT WAYS TO CREATE TRUST
- 7. 9 We experience a huge disconnect between sales reps’ perception and behaviour in relation to conducting virtual meetings 53%of sales reps believe that they tailor their content to virtual meetings well. But only 12% use interactive tools in meetings, which are perceived and proven to be the most effective ones.
- 8. 10 How can we reshape towards a virtual sales engine, fast and effectively RESHAPE KEY SALES ACTIVITIES Virtual playbooks: Dealing with different meeting types Virtual sales coaching and sales management BUILD VIRTUAL CAPABILITIES Professional web conferencing solution Virtual facilitation skills REINVENT MARKETING Design bite-sized insights Tailor content for virtual meetings Reinvent Commercial Operating Model
- 9. 12 Virtualplaybooks: Dealing with different meeting types RESHAPE KEY SALES ACTIVITIES Virtualsales coaching and sales management Professionalweb conferencing solution Virtual facilitation skills BUILD VIRTUAL CAPABILITIES Tailorcontent for virtual meetings Design bite-sized insights REINVENT MARKETING to change? Professional web conferencing solution Can provide your desired customer experience Can cover the different interactions with customers Virtual facilitation skills Upskill sales reps/account managers on their virtual facilitation skills and technical competencies Make “dry-run” meetings Create a safe environment for testing and prototyping virtual sales meetings BUILD VIRTUAL CAPABILITIES
- 10. 13 to change? Tailor content to virtual meetings Adapt existing materials for virtual meetings: build short presentations ensuring customer involvement Align between sales and marketing on existing material and virtual-specific content and format(s) needs Design bite-sized insights Design short insights that educate the digital buyer and reframe their original ideas and visions Build the digital marketing muscle and enable webinars, e-books and chat functions REINVENTING MARKETING Professionalweb conferencing solution Virtual facilitation skills BUILD VIRTUAL CAPABILITIES Tailorcontent for virtual meetings Design bite-sized insights REINVENT MARKETING Virtualplaybooks: Dealing with different meeting types RESHAPE KEY SALES ACTIVITIES Virtualsales coaching and sales management
- 11. 14 to change? Virtual playbooks: Dealing with different meeting types Establish playbooks for the most important sales meeting types to ensure a common understanding of “what good looks like” Cater for the virtual context and engage customers actively Virtual sales coaching and sales management Redefine your operating model for more frequent touchpoints and better knowledge sharing in teams Use the technological advantages to ensure even better skill coaching (joining meetings, recordings etc.). RESHAPE KEY SALES ACTIVITIES Virtualplaybooks: Dealing with different meeting types Virtualsales coaching and sales management RESHAPE KEY SALES ACTIVITIES Tailorcontent for virtual meetings Design bite-sized insights REINVENT MARKETING Professionalweb conferencing solution Virtual facilitation skills BUILD VIRTUAL CAPABILITIES
- 12. 15 to change? Reinvent commercial operating model Continue operating and expanding your virtual customer engagement model (include digital) Support sales leaders drive behavioral change Continue virtual experiments to expand model into more areas (marketing, service, …) Follow key KPI’s (# of meetings, conversion rates, meeting quality ratings, customer satisfaction) REINVENT COMMERCIAL OPERATING MODEL Reinvent Commercial Operating Model