Why just having digital meetings is not enough for B2B sales

The digitalization trend in combination with the pandemic has accelerated the changes that will be needed to adapt B2B sales organizations towards Virtual Selling. Virtual selling is all about being able to effectively handle the sales process and the customer journey in a digital context.

‍According to research by RainGroup

“Only 27% reported conducting more than half of their sales activities virtually pre-pandemic. Now, 71% are conducting more than half their sales virtually. That’s a 163% increase—a major shift in a very short period of time.”

The current situation for many B2B organizations is that we are conducting digital meetings when we try to sell virtually using the standard meeting platforms like Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom. These platforms are not tailored to work well in a B2B sales context. They do not deliver the experience that is needed and they are challenging for the Sales Executives and buyers to use effectively.

Based on research from Rain Group the modern buyer sees some major challenges with the buyers’ journey and how B2B Sales Executives manage to live up to their expectations. Top of that list where more than 80% of the buyers see challenges are:

‍Top of that list where more than 80% of the buyers see challenges are:

• Experience technology problems during digital meetings
• Using poor or no visuals during online meetings
• Not prepared
• Lacking presentation skills via digital meetings

According to the research, the B2B Sales Executives do not see this as a major challenge. This creates a GAP in understanding the expectations and the expectations from the buyers that need to be handled.

Great digital meetings are not enough

Except for the actual meetings we need to support the buyer’s journey from the buyer’s perspective a lot more effectively.
Being able to effectively share information and collaborate with the buyer during the buyer’s journey is one of them. The normal digital meeting platforms do not provide any support for that. Sharing information and collaboration before, after, and between meetings is critical for us and the buyer but also for the buyer to be able to have access to the correct information for the internal discussions and decisions that need to be taken before an order can be placed.

Another challenge is that the Chief Sales Officers (CSO) need to be able to understand how effective we are in supporting the digital buyer’s journey so that we can improve and increase our effectiveness. Drive down the cost of customer acquisition and increase the hit rate. To be able to do that data from the buyer’s journey and the sales process is critical. The normal digital meeting platforms do not provide any support for that.

It is also important that the data from meetings can be saved efficiently in CRM systems. That type of functionality is also not provided in the standard digital meeting platforms.
There is a need for a new type of platform that is built for sales and that can deliver a solution for these challenges. Virtual Sales Platforms (VSP) have started to appear on the market. Pitchflow is the first platform that is specifically built for Virtual Sales.

It includes functions like:‍

Virtual meetings

• Intuitive for new prospects
• Branded & professional
• Easy to share updated content
• Made for sales
• Enriched recordings

Sales Rooms

• One common room for the deal
• Branded & professional
• Always updated content
• All stakeholders have access
• Easy to follow the deal conversation

Content Hub

• All sales content in one place
• Easy to personalize content
• Easy to find content
  
• Available in meeting and rooms

Insights

• Insights into meetings
• Insights into rooms
• Insights into content usage
• Insights into sales metrics
• Insights into customer journeys

‍Compliance

• Should be EU owned
• Servers in EU
• Settings for screen sharing
• Who should see what document, recordings, statistics, etc?

‍Experience digital meetings using a Virtual Sales Platform

We recommend that your first step is to experience Virtual Selling and a VSP yourself. It is an eye-opener and will help you to understand how it can be implemented in your sales team, deliver benefits to the sales team and yourself and deliver a better experience for the buyer. Virtual Selling is here to stay is clear according to Gartner and others. Take your first step now and book a meeting with us here we will demonstrate a VSP for you.