Top Skills You Need to Succeed at Remote Sales

If you're a sales rep who's accustomed to selling in person, the switch to remote sales can be an adjustment. When you're selling in person, you depend on relationship building, physical engagement, establishing trust and reading, body language and other social cues. It's relational. Remote sales, however, is more transactional. Sales reps who sell remotely are very dependent on their superior product knowledge, time management, strategic prospecting, and virtual demonstration ability. Hi, I'm Dane with HubSpot Academy. If you're new to remote sales or you've made the transition from field sales to remote sales, let's take a look at the skills that will help you succeed at selling remotely. First is time management. Time is everything in sales and even more so in remote sales. When you sell remotely, you have more time. You don't have to commute, travel, or visit buyers in person. You can really maximize the hours in your day, so it's likely you're managing and working more than one deal at a time. That said, it's impossible to keep track of all the interactions, keynotes, requests and progress of each of your prospects or deals at once. You'll want to build out your regular schedule in your calendar to help you dedicate time to the high priority tasks you have on a day to day basis. Next, one of the most important skills you need to master is learning how to use video throughout the sales process. When all your conversations are virtual, you lose that hands on interaction with prospects and it can be tough to stand out. Using video throughout your process can help with this. When it comes to video, don't limit the use of video to presentations and demos. Think about how you can incorporate video throughout the sales process. From prospecting all the way to close. Send a recorded video in your prospecting and follow up emails and as a best practice during meetings, keep your video turned on and encourage your prospects to keep their video turned on too. This will help you empathize and be more relatable with your customers and prospects. You'll also want to leverage content when selling remotely. Yes, I know what you're thinking. And no, content is not just a marketing thing. It's just as important in sales as it is in marketing. Why? Well, content can sell when you can't. It's impossible to be in front of your buyers all the time, whether that's virtually or in person, but that shouldn't stop you from selling. For example, early on, when your prospects know that they have a problem and they need a solution, you'll want to reach out and share content that helps address their pain points, maybe some helpful tip sheets, infographics or blog posts. Then finally, when your prospects are close to making a decision, you want to send content that helps validate the decision they're going to make. You want to instill a sense of confidence in them. A video or personalized demo works well here. And lastly, you want to master the follow up. Because sales cycles are shorter online than they are in person, it's absolutely essential that you master the follow up and communicate clear next steps for your prospects. You want to make sure you have the next meeting scheduled before you leave the one you're in. You can do this by starting that dialogue early on. So as you're talking to your prospect, use phrases like in the next meeting, we'll cover this. Set the expectation early on. Don't leave your prospect without an idea about what happens next. There are countless skills you could develop to improve your ability when it comes to remote sales. For more skills and tips like these, check out the online Sales Training lesson at HubSpot Academy. Till next time.