If you’re a sales leader or an account executive, chances are you’re facing a lot of challenges doing what used to make you successful today.

We’re mostly remote today. We can’t be in front of our customer base like we want to, so how are we actually reaching out to them and keeping our sales cycle personalized and ultimately condensing it because that close-knit relationship forms sooner rather than later.

Today’s Chalk Talk is gonna focus on video and how it can ultimately shorten your sales cycle, make your customer and your relationship that much tighter, and ultimately close more deals for your business.

Chances are you’re facing a few challenges today throughout the sales cycle, and these are likely some of them.

Relationships.

How are we actually building strong relationships when we’re not in front of our customers as much as we’d like to be?

Trust.

Speaking of relationships, we need to supporters, strong supporters, and champions in order to bring things over the line for us. If we’re not talking to them in a personalized and humanized way,
how are we actually building that?

Showing value.

Showing is so much more important than just telling somebody something. Let’s face it. I’m sure a lot of everyone that’s watching this knows they’re a visual learner. So why aren’t we leveraging the powerful tools that we have at our disposal to make sure we’re sharing the messaging we want in the right ways?

Buying groups.

Today, there’s huge buying groups out there. There’s not small ones like there used to be in the good old days where we could call somebody up, convert them over as a strong supporter, and they’ll ultimately sign the agreement or get it put through for us.

Now, there’s multiple stakeholders that we have to make sure we’re reaching them with the right messaging and not relying on a broken game of telephone to actually convey the strong value that your solution brings.

Today, we’re gonna talk about how video can impact and help you in all of these core challenges
that you’re facing today, and the first one we’re gonna talk about is personalized video, creating quick, easy, personalized messaging that you can send out using your laptop video camera as easily and seamlessly as you would an e-mail.

Custom screen captures.

Making sure that you’re sharing the relevant information that a customer wants to see while still remaining a part of that shot.

Off-the-shelf marketing videos.

Let’s face it. Marketing is creating all kinds of great content that we need to leverage throughout the sales cycle. How do we have it at our disposal to easily inject into the messaging that we’re sending out?

Custom sourced videos.

Questions and concerns always come up throughout the sales process. Being able to quick, off the cuff go to the people and resources you have in the organization to create videos to address those concerns and challenges very quickly in a way that a customer can really understand.

Now that we know the different types of videos we have at our disposal; how do we leverage them throughout the sales cycle and deal process?

Early in the sales cycle, everyone’s always looking for that silver bullet. How am I gonna cut through and actually get the message that I want around my customer?

They’re inundated. There’s so much stuff coming at them a mile a minute. Personal video outreach is your silver bullet. It’s that compelling call-to-action that everyone’s talking about today, the play button, and it’s got a personalized message behind it that a customer can’t wait to hear.

Personal intro videos.

If your organization is like ours and many out there, chances are there’s gonna be pass offs throughout the deal cycle. This is a great way to create a warm introduction to that next person in the process, for instance, from a BDR to an account executive.

“This is the person that’s gonna be taking your next call. We thought we’d introduce them.”

At this point in the sales cycle, we also leverage the playlist capabilities in our tool GoVideo.

That’s right.

Playlists.

You can actually leverage marketing content at this point to create a personalized message followed by that marketing content, and it’ll automatically play.

We’ve done a lot of research on this account. We know what they’re interested in, so let’s take some specific messaging, and add it as a secondary message so the customer really gets a feel for how we can benefit their business.

As we move through the sales process, we continue to use video at every step of the process. Before a call, we can send a video to outline what the agenda is for that call.

“What are we actually gonna be going through today, and are you on board with going through these specific points?”

After the call, we’re all used to doing nice big summaries after a call to say,

“Hey, this is the actions that I have to take away to show that I’m on the ball, and these are the things that you committed to.”

Why not do that in video format?

As we continue to go through this, presentations are so important. We talked about it earlier, but making sure that you convey the right message to the right people in the organization is pivotal to the execution of the deal.

So why aren’t we creating videos and actually having that message sent through the organization so we’re avoiding that broken game of telephone? At this point, we can also leverage the playlist capability within the tool to show testimonials and customer stories that relate to what your customer is currently experiencing and the benefit that your platform or solution can provide to them.

Late in the sales cycle.

Sadly, we’ve all been to this point where we think we’re about to close it, and all of a sudden, the customer goes dark. Well, video can be a great way to revive the sales cycle. If e-mail and phone hasn’t worked, why not try something totally different and send a video message to different people that you’ve communicated with throughout the organization?

Exec sponsor videos.

These are so important. At the end of the deal, usually executive sponsorship is key to actually bringing it over the line. Having your CEO or an executive within the organization create a personalized video, sending it out to one of their executives, creates a more personalized connection and ultimately helps you close that deal.

Video proposal.

We’re talking numbers now. We’re talking financials. So what’s behind that financial? We’ve always had these questions. Why is that price where it is?

Wouldn’t it be better if you were able to explain the reasoning behind that as opposed to having a customer potentially do it on your behalf?

At this point, we can also send video testimonials to really emphasize the ROI that a customer’s worried about that they’re gonna be able to achieve.

Chances are you’re not too familiar with using video, especially throughout the sales cycle. So let me talk to you about a couple of tips and tricks that’s gonna make it super successful within your organization.

The first one has to be easy.

There’s so many sales tools out there that you can purchase, but if it’s not easy for people to use, it’ll ultimately fall by the wayside. The good news for you is Vidyard’s Go Video product is as easy and simple to use that many people actually prefer it to writing an e-mail. They can do it that quickly and that effectively.

Second, be authentic.

Be yourself. If you’re in front of a customer, how would you be? Don’t be scripted. Let’s face it. You’re a sales professional for a reason. You’ve got a great personality, and this video method is giving you a form to actually showcase it.

Finally, create shared video libraries.

Leverage the powerful marketing tools that are at your disposal, the testimonials, the micro demos. Create playlists that are gonna be effective for your customers to actually engage with.

We talked about a lot of challenges today that we face in sales cycle and how you can overcome them with video.

I hope this has been super helpful for you, and I’m Jesse Cournoyer, and this has been a Vidyard Chalk Talk.