As a tech entrepreneur, field sales expert and sales leader with Google, Autonomy and IBM, Steve Benson has run some amazing sales teams, and weathered a storm or two.
I so enjoyed this interview with Steve, where we discussed the keys for field sales reps and managers to survive the current uncertainty and drive performance despite the challenges we were newly facing at the beginning of the Covid crisis.
He had some wonderful insight into how we could better engage colleagues and customers alike in our new virtual environments. Here are some key take-aways:
On why it is important to make engagement a priority now-
“In general, if you sell efficiency or things that make companies work better, (a company that’s just, you know, reduced its headcount by 20 percent, for example), like maybe you’re selling to an accounting department of a company, they may need your software now more than ever!”
And how to make that engagement happen via virtual calls and why “less is more”:
“The products that have traditionally needed to be sold in person in the field face to face are generally not as easy to sell over the phone or over zoom…
Communicating effectively over this – over the phone or over zoom – is different. I mean, you can still communicate the same things, but a lot of them do have to be done in a different way. I mean, audiences over the phone or over zoom, I think they lose attention after about 10 minutes after hearing the same presenter, so if you have more than ten minutes of content, you really have to be interactive to keep your audience engaged. You know, do Polls, quizzes, asking questions…
You’ve got to keep things simpler than you do in face to face meetings. You know, you can’t have slides with too many words, and graphics and animations are your friends! In general, less is more.”
Listen to the full episode here! https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Fe1zhGxt6EBS3CAC8Rjy3
Keep it simple, EVOLVERS!
Until next time…
#salesenablement #mapping #salesautomation #salesoptimization #outsidesales #fieldsales #salesmanagement #salescoaching #salestechnology #salestech #salestools #sellingtools #salesplanning #valueselling #financialjustification #ROI
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