Remote Selling Skills

Many organizations which were forced to find ways of conducting business remotely this past 18 months are now finding this to be the new normal moving forward. Many employees report before the pandemic began, company policy prohibited working remotely. Having seen first hand, the possibility of successful work, many employers are forgoing past requirements for office based work.

There has been much forgiveness in dealing with the inexperience of working remotely. There are many viral videos captured from Zoom meeting which depict interruptions from family members, people inadvertently using video filters, or people making poor background choices while conducting meetings in inappropriate environments.

The expectation of more skilled use of these remote business tools is now upon us. There are many useful articles online, providing excellent tips and examples of how to conduct better meetings. These range from setting up a more professional video studio (green-screen suggestions to enable a more reliable and higher quality use of professional backgrounds, lighting suggestions), better use of tools (using a pre-call checklist to ensure you are prepared, becoming more skilled at muting oneself, using the correct type of microphone, introducing a white board to the discussion), and better meeting management ideas (always use your camera, have an agenda that flows and ends with follow up activities, and send a meeting summary which includes actionable items with party responsibilities). These are just some ideas and the internet us flush full of more for those wishing to improve their business successes.

Meeting remotely presents difficulties not typically experienced with normal in-person meetings, but these challenges can be overcome with skilled planning and practice. Many are finding they can have a much more focused meeting and hold client attention more closely if there is good planning around having very pertinent and interesting visual tools as the focal part of the discussion. Just another example of the possibility of turning lemons into lemonade.