How To Be Remarkable, Memorable, And Compelling In A Remote Call
Ryan Breneman
Yes, you can still impress your client even in a remote call! Here are some tips to help you boost sales through remote calling.
RELATED: Cold Calling Secrets: How To Eliminate Fear, Failure, And Rejection
In this article:
- Remote Calling Your Business to Success
- Delivering Great Conversations in Remote Meetings
- The Picture Superiority Effect
- The Whiteboard vs PowerPoint Experiment
- Reducing Friction in the Remote Sales Call
How To Increase Sales Even With a Remote Call
Remote Calling Your Business to Success
As consumers are becoming more tech-savvy, sales professionals are increasingly using the digital sales environment to close business. But how do you make sure you leave your mark, even in a remote call?
What is a remote call? This is communication between a sales rep and a potential customer using phone calls and messaging apps to close a deal and increase sales.
A call or an online meeting is not the same as face-to-face, as certain non-verbal cues might be lost. Let’s review what the data is so far about how you can make your remote calls more successful.
Currently, the trend in companies large and small is to increase their inside sales motion. Studies show that the lines between inside and outside sales are blurring. Field sales reps now spend more than 45% of their time selling remotely.
It’s only natural for them to do so.
As consumers experience positive user experience interacting with online businesses, they come to expect the same customer service in any setting, including business technology acquisitions.
Delivering Great Conversations in Remote Meetings
With today’s technology, conducting a meeting via a remote call seems to be a convenient, if not necessary option.
However, this begs the question: how do you deliver a great conversation in a remote meeting?
Do you simply modify existing engagement techniques to a phone or web conference environment? Or do these environments demand a major change in terms of how you deliver the message?
Corporate Visions identifies a few schools of thought on the methods you should use for remote calling:
Verbal-Only
Try to “reduce friction” by keeping the conversation verbal only and not directing prospects and customers to web links, apps, or other visual storytelling aids for fear of disrupting or reducing their willingness to participate.
Most potential clients are busy and always on-the-go. Redirecting your prospect to another type of application may end up with rejection, as they do not have the time to open a remote program.
Web Link with PowerPoint
If you do find yourself talking to someone more interested in your pitch, then redirect them to a virtual visual aid. Ask prospects and customers to go to a web link to show them some form of PowerPoint presentation deck or screen share demonstration to help tell your story.
Dynamic Visual Storytelling
Use interactive visual storytelling over the phone, either “hand drawing” simple concrete images using a whiteboard app or dynamic visual builds in your presentation.
Active Customer Participation
Asking prospects and customers to hand-draw certain concepts that help illustrate your core message and value proposition to move them from passive observer to active participant.
RELATED: Stop Pitching: Start Solving Problems For Your Customers
The Picture Superiority Effect
We know empirically a picture is worth a thousand words. There is solid research on the concept of “picture superiority.”
Pictures are way more effective than text or words alone at getting people to remember what you’re telling them. In fact, some studies report they are six or seven times better than words.
So using a visual aid, whether an app or even a simple drawing will help you make a lasting impression with the prospect you had a remote call with.
The Whiteboard vs PowerPoint Experiment
However, there’s evidence that you should not automatically use a PowerPoint presentation in a remote meeting. This is the result of an experiment conducted by Corporate Visions experiment in collaboration with Dr. Zakary Tormala, an expert in messaging and persuasion (and social psychologist at the Stanford Graduate School of Business).
They developed a simulation that involved 351 participants. They randomly assigned test subjects to one of three different presentation conditions. These were all covering the same concept through different modes of visual storytelling.
Participants saw a whiteboard session, a PowerPoint presentation, and a zen presentation covering just one slide with a photograph and some facts.
What the study revealed is that the whiteboard presentation format outperformed the two PowerPoint presentations across a wide range of metrics.
Participants who attended the whiteboard session did better to recall the story. They had higher engagement levels and they thought the presentation was higher quality. Moreover, they had better-perceived credibility and thought it was more persuasive.
Reducing Friction in the Remote Sales Call
Now, there is something to be said about the online consumer — they are fickle and demanding, and if anything like me, they lose patience after about 15 seconds.
This is why some are interested in reducing friction on sales calls — meaning, asking the prospect to open a web link or draw a visual could reduce or interfere with your audience’s willingness to participate.
There is little research to back up the theory.
How To Make Your Remote Calls Rock
Luckily, Corporate Visions has a study underway to determine whether inside sellers can and should go beyond the phone call and static PowerPoint to more compelling forms of prospect and customer engagement.
They have teamed up with Dr. Nick Lee at Warwick Business School in Coventry, UK, to find out:
- Should sellers employ visuals or keep it verbal?
- What kind of engagement strategy drives the most persuasive intent?
- Should there be less drawing or more drawing?
- If more, who should do the bulk of it – the seller or the prospect?
- What is the role of PowerPoint?
- What kind of visual storytelling strategy needs to be incorporated into PowerPoints to make them most impactful?
You can get a sneak peek from, the research in the Corporate Visions webinar here.
Making a remote call doesn’t necessarily have to be a daunting task. By keeping in mind the tips, findings, and solutions mentioned here, you can create a lasting impression with your client.
For a sales manager, it’s essential to train employees and keep them updated on the latest best practices in remote calling. We hope these tips here can help you strategize and guide your team in boosting sales and crushing quotas through remote calling.
Have you tried using virtual visual aids with your remote call? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
UP NEXT:
- 7 Ways To Boost Sales Effectiveness
- How to Dramatically Improve Your Virtual Sales
- Three Steps For Breaking Through The Fear And Doing The Hard Things
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 11, 2018, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
