2020 has revolutionized people’s lives as well as internal processes of companies. In b2b relationships, virtual selling has established itself as a necessary practice to continue sales but has also ended up becoming the preferred approach for buyers.
In many cases, pre-existing business habits have proven incompatible with a world where in-person meetings are no longer possible or desirable. But there’s more! Find out in the article below!
What is virtual selling?
Virtual selling is the process in which the phone number database analysis of the prospect’s needs, interactions, sales presentation and proposal definition all take place remotely.
All companies that have a sales department invest time and resources to pursue the competitive advantages offered by technology .
Just think of the potential inherent in data analysis , but other examples are the prioritization of the pipeline in a marketing strategy or the building of virtual relationships .
It is an established fact that the sellers who achieve the best results in Europe are those who adopt advanced sales tools .
Why is traditional B2B sales management no longer an option?
Companies tend to stick to sales techniques that their Draw up contracts carefully salespeople feel comfortable with.
It was a choice that could be understood until 2020: maintaining a lower growth rate , with a slower process, because we were more comfortable managing sales the old way .
The idea was that there could also be fewer negotiations, as long as they were then finalized .
In a certain sense, one preferred to remain in a reassuring present without worrying about what work in the future would be like .
When that future arrived, unfortunately it did so suddenly and sooner than expected, bringing with it painful events: 2020, pandemic, Covid-19. The option of selling with traditional techniques was no longer among those available.
Why can’t we go back to traditional sales techniques?
Interestingly, buyers are not at all concerned about the cell phone number disappearance of face-to-face meetings, while sales managers are.
In September 2020, a McKinsey survey found that globally only 20-30% of B2B buyers want to return to in-person sales interactions , even in an ideal, Covid-free world.
In fact, 96% of respondents said they were happy to manage corporate purchasing through a completely digital virtual selling journey.
