As more and more people work from home permanently, remote sales positions have become a lot more common. While some businesses still expect door-to-door sales approaches, others have gotten comfortable with the idea of a salesperson talking to a potential customer via the internet. Here are a few tips for becoming a top-tier virtual salesperson.
1. Get Online
Think about it: where are most of your customers going to find out about your products and services? The obvious answer is the internet. Doing virtual sales makes it absolutely essential for your product to have an online presence. Social selling ensures that you’re casting a wider net and connecting to more potential customers than you ever would with traditional sales tactics.
You can create eye-catching content to generate more engagement, get important statistics to improve your sales techniques, and share relevant information about your products. Plus, you’ll have more opportunities to listen to customer feedback. You’ll also be able to watch your competitors, to a degree, and assimilate any strategies that appear to be working for them.
2. Fill Your Tool belt
Selling online is going to require a lot of great technology, and investing in the right tools is going to make your job a lot easier. If you’re selling with a team, get together and brainstorm which tools will best serve the team as a whole. Every team is going to have their unique needs and preferences, and it’s likely your salesmen already have tools they like to use. Don’t be afraid to just try something out for a while – if it doesn’t work, at least you’ll know what to avoid in the future.
3. Be Prepared
One of the big downsides to virtual sales is the ever-present possibility of technical issues on both sides of the sales call. Whether it’s your sound cutting out or your picture freezing, a lot can happen to make a call go south quickly. Some customers will be understanding, but others will be annoyed that their time is being wasted.
To avoid this occurrence as much as possible, it’s important to be prepared for calls. Never take a call in a crowded, noisy coffee shop if you can avoid it – instead, opt for your desk at home with a high-speed WiFi connection. Send your sales materials ahead of time so that if all else fails, the customer will at least have what they need on their end. Even if the internet fails, you can still call them up and give them your pitch while they look at the materials.
In general, be as prepared as humanly possible for each sale call you make. When your body language is no longer as big a factor in your success, it becomes twice as important to rehearse your pitch and prepare for any possibilities. You’ll want any information you want to share on hand and pull up for easy access, so you’re not clicking around your desktop whenever you’re asked a question.
4. Partner With Marketing
In virtual sales, the marketing department becomes a more relevant aspect of the job. They’re going to be the ones creating the content and strategies you’ll need to succeed with social selling. It’s important for both teams to communicate and collaborate as much as possible to create a unified front across the company. Too many times businesses neglect this aspect of sales, and the result is confusing. Customers need to see that all aspects of the business are sending the same message and using the same strategies to win sales.
5. Back to Basics
No matter how different virtual sales might feel, it’s still sales. Don’t neglect the basics you learned when becoming a salesman – instead, use them as building blocks to add more skills on top of. Enjoy the learning process and lean into developing your sales techniques. No matter what happens, your dedication to excellence in sales will help you come out on top in the end.
