One Sunday, my next-door neighbor and I were visiting on my front porch when he suddenly realized the time. “Ooof, I’ve gotta go. My Zoom Sunday School class is about to start and I’m the teacher.” He’s 80. Yes, he’s 80 and he’s using the term Zoom like any other word in the dictionary. Seven months ago, I had to convince him that he’d like texting. Seriously, he didn’t really know what texting was. He still goes to his law office four days a week but wasn’t using text messaging. Today, he’s set up to teach Sunday School through Zoom.
As we’re managing all the changes brought on by the COVID pandemic, which type salesperson are you? Are you waiting for a vaccine to get us back to normal and doing whatever you have to do to survive right now; or are you taking advantage of this opportunity to work in new ways with your customers? As I mentioned in the opening post of this series, we’re not going to be doing business like we were in 2019 ever again. We’ll meet in person and build lasting relationships and socialize and all that stuff that make us human. However, our customers have gone through an accelerated class on communicating virtually and they like a lot of it. They don’t like all of it and might be getting burned out on the half-day virtual meetings, but for the most part, they like these changes … and that’s the difference. In January, many of these cool ideas of communicating were good ideas, but our market wasn’t ready for it. If you sent a video email, most of the recipients would have judged you as being annoying or sophomoric, but today they’d think it was refreshing and might even ask you how to do it. Our marketplace is now ready for new and progressive ways of communicating with you … and you need to give it to them.
Below are four ideas that might spark four more ideas. Think about them. Try them. Try them now while we have a free pass of trying new and innovating things.
Brief Recorded MP4 Sales Presentations. In case you missed the first word in the title … BRIEF. Instead of taking up 60-90 minutes of your customer’s or prospect’s time by presenting your overview to them, simply send them a 10-minute version as a teaser. For one, they’ll watch it if it’s 10 minutes. Secondly, you’ll be able to focus only on the key points if you only have 10 minutes. And finally, you only have to record it once. This won’t replace your in-person discovery and introductory meetings, but it will enhance it and your presentation will get seen by x-times more people that the traditional 90-minute snooze fest.
You can create these MP4 recordings with your virtual calling app. I use GoToMeeting, but all of them should work. Just start a call with no one on the other end and start recording.
Video Emails. Instead of typing a bunch of words, record a video of yourself speaking to the recipient. It’s best to embed the videos right into the email. Studies have shown that using a GIF of you speaking with the play button on top of the image gets the best results of clicks.
We use Vidyard, but YouTube can do the trick, too.
Three-Minute Training Demos. A friend of mine built a nice business that she sold by simply providing three-minute videos of tricks to using Excel. Do this for the applications you sell and watch the feedback you start to receive from people who have never replied to you in the past.
LinkedIn 10-Minute Conversations. LinkedIn allows you to post videos that are less than 10 minutes in length. What if you could set up a series of interviews with technology partners or customers to discuss specific topics and post to LinkedIn? As long as you keep it under 10 minutes and provide helpful content, you’ll build a loyal following. Check out one we do every month to recap our lesson on Vector Firm Sales Academy at https://www.linkedin.com/company/vector-firm-academy/videos/?viewAsMember=true .
