Episode #181: Presenting Your Solution On line In Japan

When we sit down with a client for a face to face meeting there are a number of phases to the time together. The initial stage is spent catching up over some small talk on what has been happening for them personally. The conversation is then directed back to business and their current needs. Having heard that, possible solutions are introduced. The client says they will think about it and get back to you. Later based on a followup meeting or an email or phone exchange, the decision to move forward or not is relayed to the salesperson. What about when they are sitting at home and so are we?

With the video conferencing technology available today, we can have a face to screen meeting together and pretty much replicate the usual in-office exchanges. Japanese apartments and homes are usually very humble for most salespeople and for their clients too, so there can be some reluctance to reveal too many details of your abode to the client.

The kids are also at home with no school, so trying to have a meeting can be fraught with domestic issues as well. We have all probably seen Robert Kelly, an expert on Korean politics being interviewed live for the BBC in 2017. Suddenly his two very young children decide to crash the interview and then the video went viral globally. How about if you are in the middle of your sales conversation with the client and you have the same thing happen to you?

There are green screen backgrounds available which provide any background you wish rather than having to show the inside of your home. Or there may be a rather blank background wall where you can set up the laptop. Make sure wherever you set up, that you can raise the camera level on the laptop to your own eye level. Make sure that we are not looking up at you, which can be very unnerving or at the least distracting. Use a headset to get the best possible clarity, because the audio the technology allows is often the weakest link in the process. The clients also understand that only you are privy to what they are saying, which makes the conversation more secure.

If the kids come bursting into the video background like John Wayne leading a 5th Cavalry charge over a sand hill, just apologise and excuse yourself for a minute while you relocate them and then return to the video meeting. Clients will understand and I am sure Robert Kelly wishes he had done that at the time too.

The video technology allows you to share your screen and show slides and video to the client. Be careful of this attribute. The rule for in the room meeting and for the virtual meeting does not change. Never show the client anything until you have a very clear idea what they want. In person, flogging the client with your product catalogue or pelting them with a flyer storm is the mark of the rank amateur. Moving proceeding to the virtual world doesn’t change anything. Keep the visuals in abeyance until the timing calls for their appearance.

With flyers and catalogues, it is easy to move to the page or select the flyer when in person with the client. On screen, the slide deck can’t be so easily manipulated, so the process of locating the right information is a bit clumsy. Don’t hold up physical documents to the camera please – that doesn’t work well and makes you look clownish. You can always send the client the information by post and then have another meeting where you can reference page numbers or just send the relevant materials related to the conversation you had previously.

When preparing the slide materials try to make sure you animate the slide deck so that the text lines, photos or videos only appear when you click on the mouse. Use video sparingly because it is rarely specific enough for your purposes. We are trying to control how much visual information the client receives at any one point in time.

A flyer or a brochure has a lot of information and we would use our pen in person and direct the buyers gaze only to those parts of the page, we want to highlight. We can’t do that in the virtual world but we can still look for ways to control the information flow. WebEx allows you to move your pointer to any part of the slide, allowing you to highlight a particular piece of information and that is a handy functionality when selling.

Don’t forget that whether in person or virtually we can’t get trapped at detailing the spec. We have to educate the buyer on the general benefits of your solution and very, very importantly, talk about how these benefits can be applied in their business. When it comes to the evidence component, demonstrating where this has worked for another firm, this is where a video or audio testimonial would be genius if you can organise one.

The basics of sales don’t change, even if these new mediums for your delivery seem strange and foreign to you. The tech is here for us to utilise, so we need to study about it, as well as about our product line-up. Don’t practice on the client. Do sales presentation rehearsals on line, record them and then ascertain where improvements can be made. This will also put you in command of the tech rather than the other way around. You will come across as a professional in every dimension.