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Prospecting Videos: 5 Proven Strategies To Increase Turnover

If your job was to prospect for potential clients looking to buy from your company, what strategies can you use to help close more deals? 

Ten years ago, just about any business owner that possessed a camcorder, a tripod, and the ability to turn on the recorder could film a commercial. These days, video marketing needs a little more creativity and professionalism. Video offers a personal touch when communicating with prospects and lets them know that you care enough to put in extra effort for them.

How To Prospect Using Video: Our Top Tips

How To Prospect Using Video: Keep ‘Em Short, Simple, Sweet.

#1: Keep ‘Em Short, Simple, Sweet.

A sales prospecting video is the first impression, so it must be top-notch.

If you’re looking to create a video that will truly stand out, then it’s essential to follow these guidelines:

Keep it short and sweet. Keep your sales prospecting videos under two minutes. This ensures you can get your point across without overwhelming your customer.

Make sure your script is on point and tight. A poorly written script for a sales prospecting video can lead to even worse results than no video. You want to make sure you’re saying what you need to say to get those prospects on board with your brand message and sales pitch.

Keep it simple and easy to understand. Don’t overcomplicate things by being fancy or clever — it won’t work in this situation! Everything about this video makes sense for your audience, from start to finish.

How To Prospect Using Video: Always Leave a CTA.

#2: Always Leave a CTA.

A call to action (CTA) is simply an instruction that encourages people to take some kind of action. This could be signing up for something, buying a product, or even sharing the video with their friends.

It can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, downloading an ebook, sharing, subscribing, or following you on social media.

There are many ways of including a call to action in your video. Here are some ideas:

  • At the beginning of your video – If you want people to take action at the end of your video (for example, subscribe or share), then it’s best to include the CTA in the beginning. This way, viewers will remember what they’re supposed to do when they reach the end of your video.
  • In the end – This is probably how most people include CTAs in their videos. You can either ask directly for viewers to take action (for example, “please subscribe”) or use a subtle hint – for instance, by saying something like “make sure you don’t miss out on our next video.” You can also leave it up to the viewer’s imagination by asking, “what should we talk about next?”
How To Prospect Using Video: Be Prepared. Have a Script Ready.

#3: Be Prepared. Have a Script Ready.

We’ve all been there. You’re recording a video, and you realize that you don’t know what you’re going to say.

It’s not a good feeling, and it can make the difference between a successful video and one that flops.

To avoid this scenario in your videos, write down your talking points before recording. When it comes time to record, you’ll be prepared with ideas for what to say next.

This can be as simple as writing down bullet points on paper or in a word processor — whatever works best for you.

It’s common for people to get nervous about being on camera and forget what they want to say, so you must have everything written down ahead of time.

You can use bullet points or complete sentences, but it’s best if the notes are short and concise. Don’t worry about the length of the talking points — just get the main points out there.

Once you’ve written down your talking points, you’ll need to memorize them. Practice saying them out loud until they feel natural. If you’re not sure how to practice, try reciting them while driving or doing chores around your house.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask someone else for help if they notice something that needs fixing or improving in your presentation style. You’ll be surprised at how better people will react when they see that you’re trying hard — not just winging it!

How To Prospect Using Video: Connect with Your Audience.

#4: Connect with Your Audience.

When speaking to someone on camera, your eyes are the most essential part of your body. When you talk to your audience on camera, make sure that you look at them as they watch what’s happening in front of them with interest and focus.

When we speak to someone, there’s an unconscious connection between our eyes and theirs. To make it work in a video, simply turn the camera toward yourself to capture your face from the side while you’re talking. Then, turn the camera back toward whoever is listening to you so they can see what you see onscreen.

The viewer will be able to see that connection between their eyes and yours through this process — making it easier for them to feel like they know who you are and what you’re experiencing together in real-time. 

Because video is an emotional medium, it’s important that your viewers feel connected to you through their feelings about what’s happening onscreen — rather than just watching passively from an outsider’s perspective.

How To Prospect Using Video: Add Some Personality To Your Videos!

#5: Add Some Personality To Your Videos!

A sales prospecting video is one of the best ways to get your message to your target audience in a way that they can relate to. It’s a great way to show off your personality, and it offers you an opportunity to be yourself.

For example, if you’re a consultant, you might want to show how easy it is for people to reach out and ask you questions. Maybe you want to explain why you do what you do, or perhaps you just want to give some tips on how they can get started on their businesses.

If you’re a freelancer or contractor, your prospecting videos should focus on why clients should hire you instead of everyone else offering similar services. Show them why they should choose you over all the other options!

When producing a sales prospecting video, it’s tempting to use stock images and generic music. You may think that having a generic look will help as many people hear your message as possible.

That might be true, but it also means that your prospects will be less likely to pay attention. If they’ve seen a million videos just like yours, they’ll tune out before you get started.

The best way to promote yourself is to show off who you are through the videos you create. Don’t hide behind the camera or pretend that you’re someone else — let your personality shine through so that prospects can see who they’re dealing with.

Here are some tips to achieve this:

Show off your office space. 

This is a great way to give prospects a chance to see what working at your company would look like, but it also gives them a chance to see where the work they do every day happens. If you have any cool features like slide shows or other office amenities, definitely include those!

Have fun with it! 

This is an opportunity for you and your team members to be themselves—show off their personalities and let people get to know them better. This can help build trust with viewers since they’ll be able to see that they’re dealing with real people who care about what they do.

Use humor whenever possible!

It goes without saying: people love humor, especially when it’s used effectively—and the best part is that there’s no wrong way to do it! Just make sure that whatever jokes or puns you use are appropriate for the audience you’re reaching out to

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The Importance of Reskilling Senior Sales Professionals

Maintaining competitive agility is becoming an essential corporate demand as new-age technologies dominate the business environment across industries. Traditional corporate operations are being disrupted, and new growth strategies and organizational processes are being implemented due to the ‘digital age.’

For both B2C and B2B markets, more businesses are changing how they sell and recognizing changing consumption trends. Artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, virtual reality, and chatbots, among other emerging technologies, are increasingly finding uses in sales.

Finding industry-ready people is getting more difficult as sales processes undergo this technological update, with a large gap between available and desired skill sets. Any investment in new-age sales tools will be a waste if teams cannot successfully use or interpret them.

The annual cost of lost production owing to a lack of essential attention to training and other learning activities is estimated to be almost $7 trillion. As a result, businesses must upskill their senior sellers for effective sales enablement, and they may ensure that their sales team remains relevant by implementing regular training efforts. This will ensure that they are prepared to respond to market shifts and technological advances.

opportunities for current and future sellers

Providing opportunities for current and future sellers

Sellers play a critical role in propelling the global economy forward. In today’s digital world, when tech-powered sales enablement tactics reinvent the seller’s journey, staying relevant necessitates knowledge with the most up-to-date tools. With practically every market player using cutting-edge tools, sellers must be kept up to date on the latest developments at each stage of the trip, or they will be left behind.

Sellers utilize AI-powered intelligent database systems to find new clients and expand their market penetration. Advanced data analytics and predictive modeling are becoming increasingly important tools for identifying potential buyers.

Similarly, firms turn to intelligent CRM technologies and marketing process automation for faster prospect outreach and better-qualified leads. Contrary to popular belief, data-driven, automated processes result in quicker sales, allowing sellers to manage their time better and prioritize their tasks. As a result, familiarizing your senior sellers with digital technologies and providing them with the necessary training is essential for a company’s sales divisions to become future-ready.

proper training strategy

Incorporating the proper training strategy

While training is essential for future-ready sellers, selecting the correct training concept and the program is equally important. You may start with an overview examination of the business functions to be trained and the identification of skill gaps and other factors, including location, medium, duration, and accessibility. The data gathered can be used to create an appropriate training structure aligned with essential business goals.

You may then streamline tasks following the training delivery plan. Finally, you must conduct a full assessment of the training program to determine top learning and make necessary modifications.

This training process can be considered a cycle aimed at sustaining sales team development in the face of technological disruption, diversification of the company’s operations, or even labor churn.

Aside from a well-thought-out approach, it’s critical to remember that the primary goal of training should not simply be to conduct an employee upskilling session. Instead, the focus should be on developing a long-term practice that adapts to shifting needs and market trends.

Furthermore, these programs should hone the analytical abilities of the sellers to use data-driven reports and draw meaningful insights, in addition to providing them with the know-how of the latest sales technologies.

In today’s technology-driven world, training programs must recognize the importance of the human voice and teach sellers how to improve their soft skills and have more personal client conversations. While most sellers acknowledge that quality training programs positively impact their engagements, businesses may reach 73 percent quota attainment with constant coaching methods. These efforts can aid companies in developing multitasking, dynamism, and culture of staying current in their sales force.

Coordinated actions to achieve actual reforms

Coordinated actions to achieve actual reforms

The training or learning strategy will need to be changed to account for the different skill requirements and forthcoming trends to tackle the problem of extraordinary market developments. It will also be critical to develop future-ready sellers by establishing a flexible and innovative curriculum in academic institutes and combining it with vocational courses and R&D centers to prepare the workforce to be industry-ready.

It is feasible to find and outline solutions for the most prominent learning demands of sellers by bringing together government functionaries, industry experts, and leading academics worldwide, thereby adjusting future sales teams to technologies that will likely arise.

Such coordinated efforts will not only build teams capable of delivering results in a fast-paced, continuously changing sales environment but will also instill a growth attitude in salespeople, allowing them to upskill and re-skill to stay ahead of the competition constantly.

As a result, educating the sales force and providing them with the abilities they will need to succeed in the future is critical to establishing long-term success.

To guarantee that learning experiences are engaging, enjoyable, and challenging, businesses must prioritize the need to upskill and reskill their sellers, especially the senior ones, and promote learning.

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Sales Technology

Embracing Sales Technology Trends

B2B selling has evolved in recent years, although at a glacial rate, as the digital world has provided expanded access to data and enhanced insights. While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause issues for many businesses, and the gap between surviving and shutting down hangs on a knife’s edge, the online sales movement has gone from zero to sixty in a matter of days.

To deal with this new reality, sellers are expanding their emotional intelligence to attract new consumers and ease the worries of existing ones, using new selling approaches, bolstering their customer service skills, and using new sales technology. 

It has been said that the future of sales is the irreversible shift of organizations’ sales and marketing tactics, procedures, and allocation of resources to a buyer-centric model, as well as the shift from analog selling process to highly automated, virtual client engagements.

There is now a growing emphasis on sellers’ roles and the tools and technology that may assist them in doing what they do best. That’s the basis on which we’re forecasting sales patterns and trends in the years to come. 

Trends in B2B sales

Trends in B2B sales

Growth Driven by Products

If you operate in the software sector, you’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase product-led expansion a few times. Companies, as you may know, can have a variety of growth and revenue strategies. Some companies rely on sales-driven growth, while others rely on marketing-driven growth. Product-led growth is the newest buzzword. It’s a marketing strategy in which sales and customer retention are all predominantly driven by the product.

Firmographics 2.0 

Firmographic data sets, such as size, location, and industry, are without a doubt the most often utilized prospecting and ideal customer profile criteria. These factors guide the judgments of millions of sellers throughout the world on who to approach and not. 

When it comes to firmographics, we’ve depended on very static and limited data sets for decades. The primary address is used as a location indication, while standard industry designations are used as industry information.

Sales tech developments are seen to improve firmographics data gathering. When machine learning methods can profile organizations with much greater accuracy, outdated and generally 10-15-year-old sector codes can be discarded.

Today, revenue teams may now choose from a variety of areas, including 3D technology, data visualization, network security, and green technology.

The same may be said for data on location and business size. Target groups may now be built based on the headquarters site and sub-locations.

Moreover, rather than focusing just on revenue and employee numbers, perhaps a focus on growing momentum is a preferable selection criterion as well. What is the rate of growth in online traffic, and how are searching and hiring volumes behaving? Sales and marketing personnel will become more precise in the years to come, which we refer to as firmographics 2.0 in targeting.

Digital sales 

Modern selling will become highly automated. Sales teams will devote more time to larger possibilities that need a consultative approach, discovery sessions, and customized bids. More individuals will become involved, both as buyers and sellers.

Client-facing digital portals and microsites will grow in popularity as a result of these broader sales processes. Parties can share important documents, communicate with one another, and create customized bids for potential leads.

In reducing any buyer friction before the contract is signed, the purpose is to deepen the connection. These portals also allow vendors to evaluate the material their clients watch and engage with, which is essential for determining which content has the most impact.

Versatile sellers

The COVID-19 pandemic has solidified omnichannel interactions as the preferred sales channel for B2B companies. When given the option of in-person, distant, or e-commerce channels, buyers have demonstrated that they desire all of them. Sales models will become hybrid as purchasing becomes multichannel.

A versatile salesman communicates with consumers via phone, emails, online chat, video, applications, and in-person appointments on occasion. This will almost certainly result in channel disputes, as well as a significant need to rethink the onboarding process for new sellers.

As the sales and revenue operations team transitions from a multichannel to an omnichannel approach, attribution becomes even more critical. However, it may result in channel conflicts, such as when two agents approach and engage with the same consumer at the same time, disrupting the buyer experience.

Most sales executives, who began their careers using a more linear sales style, will need to return to school to improve their abilities in all of these new tools and apps. Proposals may be participatory and trackable, and the first point of contact doesn’t have to be a well-written email or a well-rehearsed cold-call script, but rather something altogether different, such as a customized video message sent right to recipients’ social network inboxes.

Conclusion

This year, innovation, expertise, and transparency will continue to merge in B2B sales to answer the concerns of corporate buyers. The trend is turning toward account-based selling and digital transformation, driven by client behavior and sales technology.

It’s time to do an honest self-evaluation and figure out what will help your sales organization rise with the tide and what will sink it.

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Buyer hate when you begin a discovery call asking them a series of questions that’s CLEARLY available information in the public domain.This constant eye-rolling scenario is played out countless times a day.The seller acquires knowledge, but the customer gets nothing out of the 30 minute call.

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Why Relationships Are Key To Success in Sales (And How To Build Them Using Social Media)

Serious question: How well do you think you could function in sales today without technology and automation?

According to a study done by Linkedin in 2017, sales tech is used by over 91% of all salespeople (and only 2% of the top sales performers in the world don’t use it). At Sales for Life, we’re obviously fans of tech, and we use a number of digital tools to manage our own sales process for ATP (more on that later).