Interpersonal communication is a combination of words, voice tone, body language, and facial expression.
Since stakeholders cannot associate the words in your text messages with the context of your voice tone and facial expressions, they assign their own meaning, which can lead to miscommunication, or, in Jeb’s case, resentment.Virtual Selling is Here to Stay
Unless you’re floating in a sea of delusion hoping for the winds of change to blow you to safety, you’ve at least started blending virtual selling into your current sales strategies.
Some of you might still be holding on to the idea of things “returning back to normal” as a justification for not converting to virtual selling techniques.
Companies (which include your customers) have begun to realize that employees can be just as effective from home. This means that the people you want to physically meet with may not be at the office, even after the dust settles.
Business is successfully being transacted virtually. As such, companies are going to challenge the need for travel and onsite meetings. They’ll at least require that reasonable effort be put into virtual technologies before rich people database they yield to face-to-face.
Everyone has been forced to optimize their day-to-day operations using virtual collaboration technologies. The Band-Aid was ripped off, and everyone started to gain efficiency fast with tools like Zoom, Webex, and Teams. Companies realized that traditional meetings (and the inefficiencies they bring) aren’t as necessary as we once thought.
#VirtualSellingTruths
Virtual Selling isn’t going anywhere.
You’re going to need to adopt it; however, the best way forward will be blending. In Jeb Blount’s book, Virtual Selling, he describes just how to do this. Mastering the art of blending virtual with traditional selling will be the new normal.
Everyone who wants to survive will embrace virtual selling.
The good news is that your customers have and will continue to embrace it. The bad news is that your competition will, too.
