10 Tips To Nail Your Virtual Sales Presentation
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We’ve entered an era where connecting virtually has become the new norm.
Globalization and the recent events of COVID-19 have proven that connecting virtually is the way of the future. Commutes are shorter to non-existent, time zone differences are easier to manage and overall productivity is at an all-time high thanks to employee satisfaction increasing by being able to work from.
What’s not to love?
But, as the times are changing, so are our techniques. Sales techniques need to adapt and change with the times in order to remain effective.
Seeing as virtual sales meetings are still a fairly new concept, we’ve gone ahead and compiled a list of 10 tips to help you nail your next virtual sales presentation.
What Are Virtual Sales Presentations?
Before we get into the tips of mastering a virtual sales presentation, we need to understand what a virtual sales presentation is.
A virtual sales presentation is a technique used to persuade someone with a planned strategy of a product or service designed to initiate and close a sale of a product or service done remotely via the internet.
A virtual sales presentation is facilitated through online video conferencing software such as Zoom, Google Meets or Microsoft Teams.
A virtual sales presentation should incorporate a combination of presentation visual aids to help engage potential clients.
Creating An Effective Virtual Sales Presentation
Now that we know what a virtual sales presentation is, let’s go over how to create an effective virtual sales presentation to help you close more business.
Below we’ve put together our top 10 tips to help you master your next virtual sales meeting.
1 - Have A Discovery Call First
Before you even begin putting together your PowerPoint slides, you need to do some research on your prospective clients. When a lead first enters your sales cycle, you should connect with the lead and set up an initial discovery call.
In this discovery call, you should gather the following information:
Why are they reaching out to you to begin with?
If you offer more than one service or product, which one are they interested in and why?
What is their desired outcome?
Who are their decision makers?
What is their budget?
What is their timeline?
If you’re able to connect with your prospective client and get these first 6 questions answered, you have a higher chance of closing the deal.
As for next steps, once you know who their decision makers are, get their contact info and set up a virtual sales presentation with the initial lead contact and the decision makers.
Bonus tip – when setting up the meeting, don’t title it, “[company] virtual sales presentations”. Use an engaging title and one that will make the client want to reconnect. For example, ” [company] live demo”.
2 - Create A Custom Presentation
Once your sales presentation has been set in the calendars, it’s time to begin working on the presentation itself.
You want to create a highly custom presentation focused on the client and the organization they represent. You do not want to use a cookie-cutter presentation used over and over again for different clients. Depending on what you offer, your clients might be from different industries and your presentation should reflect how your product or service can solve their industry-specific problem.
Additionally, you should show that you’ve done your homework and you know:
Who they are
What they do
Who their target audience is
By being able to demonstrate you know what it’s like to be in their shoes and what they’re looking for, you’ll make the sales process run a whole lot smoother.
3 - Use Storytelling Techniques
One of the most effective techniques to have your presentation resonate with your audience is using storytelling techniques.
Whether it’s an informal presentation or formal presentation, storytelling helps engage the audience and helps create a structure in the audience’s mind.
Storytelling techniques have been used for decades and they’re one of the greatest tools used by humans to help share information and knowledge. If you’re able to master the art of storytelling, you’ll be on your way to becoming not only a better salesperson, but becoming a better presenter.
4 - Turn Your Webcam On
As beneficial as a virtual sales meeting is, we shouldn’t take it for granted or get lazy.
Even though the application of a sales pitch has changed, the formula has remained the same. Sales leaders and sales professionals alike will continue to remind their sales team to create a personal connection. Creating a personal connection creates an emotional connection and an emotional connection is the art of presentation psychology.
If you’re unable to create the connection with your client and the product or service you offer, you will have a harder time closing the sale. Humans are emotional creatures and it doesn’t matter if you’re telling a story or pitching a client presentation, you need to create that connection.
One way to create that connection between both you and the client is to turn on your webcam. Don’t get lazy and keep your webcam off and hide behind a headshot image, dress professionally for your virtual sales presentation and show your face.
5 - Handouts Vs. Sharing Your Screen
Knowing when to share your screen vs. relying on a handout you provide to your prospective client is critical. If you provide too much information ahead of time, your client may skip ahead to get to the information they care about, for example the price, without hearing the full story you have to share.
There’s nothing wrong with sharing a handout with your client. In fact, we encourage it. The only thing we caution about is when to send it to the client.
A great time to send a document to your client is after the call. This will allow you to hear from the client what information they want to receive, if any, and it also gives you an opportunity to follow a specific follow-up schedule by having a touchpoint with the client after the sales presentation.
6 - Annotate PDF Handouts
If you do send any documentation over, be sure to annotate the PDF document with key points you want to highlight, as well as making any links clickable.
Annotating PDFs allows you to speak to points on a PDF long after you’ve presented the information. These annotations can be used to remind the client of what was discussed such as key data points.
7 - Use Visual Aids
Your sales presentation should be engaging.
Creating an engaging presentation is created by targeting as many senses of the human body as possible. While some people are auditory learners, others are visual learners. This is why you should use visual aids such as pictures, colors, graphics and charts to help communicate your information.
Although this may seem time consuming, you can always outsource your presentation design. Enlist the help of a presentation design team such as Presentation Geeks to get professionally created presentation slide decks equipped with engaging visual aids.
8 - Provide Product Demonstration
Virtual sales presentations should offer value to the client. One way to provide value to the client is by offering a live product demonstration.
Rather than only offering a free-trial where the prospect can go and do a self-guided tour, a live practice run will allow the client to ask specific, pain-point questions allowing you to provide the proper solution.
A live demonstration is far better than an explainer video because it allows for a real-time conversation to take place. An explainer video is restricted to what was recorded at the time of the demonstration leading to one-way communication. By being able to provide your prospective client with a 1:1 demonstration in real-time, you’ll be able to pinpoint the benefits of your product or service to the problems they’re looking to solve as well as creating an opportunity for two-way communication.
9 - Calculate ROI Live In Spreadsheet
On top of providing a demonstration in real-time, you might also want to consider calculating the ROI live in a spreadsheet.
As mentioned earlier, one of the things your prospective customers will care most about is the price, specifically how it relates to a return on their investment.
By being able to calculate the ROI live on the call with them, you’re arming yourself with objection handling ammunition. You’re also able to get a better idea of what their problems are and what their budget is like.
10 - Practice
Your skills in sales is one thing that will get better with time and practice.
The more you practice engaging in virtual presentations, the more likely you’ll ace your virtual presentation. There are few options you can take to practice your remote sales presentations.
First option is to practice solo. If you’re unable to collaborate with a team member, you can try talking to a mirror or recording videos of your trial runs. This way, you can go back and review how you presented and self-analyze whether or not you’re working in the right direction.
Secondly, our preferred method is to practice with a colleague. Practicing with a colleague, especially one who may have more virtual presentation experience can be advantageous as they’ll be able to provide presentation feedback from an unbiased perspective.
Your practice run should emulate how the presentation will be done on the set date. That means, you should be practicing in a virtual environment using the virtual meeting platform you intend to use. This will allow you to get acquainted with the software and troubleshoot any technology issues ahead of time.
