Episode #178: Selling From Your Home Office

Normally we lob up to meet the buyer in their office meeting room. With the buyer and ourselves now working from home, we have to switch gears on how we interact. Usually there are a number of people on the buying side for us to meet and there is no reason why we can’t meet them all on-line. The technology today can handle multiple people in the same virtual meeting. We should encourage everyone to attend because we want as many on the decision making side to hear our presentation as possible.

It gets a bit tricky though, because other key decision makers are not online in the meeting and we are at the mercy of our champions, to be able to sell our message in the on-line environment. That means we cannot rely on just the virtual meeting to do the selling for us and we need additional documents to be distributed to everyone involved. It also means that the entire process slows down because the buyer team may not be confortable or adept at working on-line.

Normally we don’t want the buyer looking at our materials while we are talking during the meeting. We want them focused on us and what we are saying and this is the same situation. Don’t use the technology to go into a slide show with your commentary, until you know what they want. The temptation is to hammer the buyer with as much information as possible during the meeting. It makes no sense when we are face to face, so the virtual environment doesn’t make a virtue of this approach either. Ask good questions, wait for answers and don’t feel pressure in the on-line environment to have to keep doing all the talking. Sometimes there is a delay in the audio and the silence can make us uncomfortable. Ask your question and then relax and wait for them to answer. They may be thinking what they want to say. Don’t cut them off when they are talking or interrupt them on-line, as the technology doesn’t handle this well. Actually we shouldn’t be doing it in face to face meetings either, but it creates real dissonance when we are all on-line.

In a face to face meeting we can easily go to the relevant materials quickly but on-line there is a bit of potential fumbling around, to get to the right place. You can bring up the slide deck on-line. The slide you want may be in the middle of the document and so you have to spend some time finding it. Just take your time and don’t feel any pressure for speed. Just excuse yourself and ask for a minute so you can bring it up. Buyers understand this is an on-line environment and don’t expect the same fluency from you that you would normally demonstrate with your materials in a face to face meeting.

Because of the impersonal nature of the on-line exchange, make sure to check for understanding with the buyers. The audio isn’t always reliable, so it makes sense to allow for that and from time to time summarise what you were saying and check that this was clear. Also, don’t feel pressure to do all the work. Remember the ratio of buyer to seller should be 80/20 speaking time, so let them do most of the talking.

They may be flat and operating in a monotone when they are on-line, but we shouldn’t mirror that approach. Use your energy to add credibility and belief to what you are saying, just as you would in a face to face meeting. Just be careful about speaking too quickly, because the technology can be unforgiving in these circumstances. You may need to pace yourself a little more than normal. Bring your passion though, don’t let that slip.

Remember, for most on-line technology, the person who is speaking becomes full screen. Get your laptop camera to be at eye height, so the buyers are not getting a great view of your nostrils. Also make sure you have plenty of light on you in the room. At home this may require some rearranging of the environment. You may also have some issues with the background when in shot. Most of the cameras have quite a wide shot, so a lot of stuff gets picked up on screen. Go on line by yourself and check how you look and the room looks, before you do anything on-line with buyers. Some technology allows you to create a virtual background so that the family chaos is not visible.

The secret is to practice before you go on-line. You may be very comfortable in face to face meetings, but that skill doesn’t necessarily transfer to a virtual sales meeting. Check your skills handling the technology, the lighting, the arrangements etc., and you can record yourself to see how you come across. It is a bit like starting our sales careers over again, but this is a different medium and we need to master it.

Free LIVE On Line Stress Management Sessions

On a separate note, we are running public LIVE On Line Stress Management classes, which will be free to all attendees on April 16th (Japanese) and 17th (English). We are also offering the same thing as an in-house programme, delivered LIVE On Line for our existing clients and for prospective clients. This allows us to help our clients and our community.

The registration process for these free stress management sessions is being offered on our website, so please go to this specific page: http://bit.ly/dale_stress_e