For years, enterprise software has been a business with a heavy focus on face to face meetings. With millions of dollars at stake, it is obvious why looking someone in the eye is important to any decision. However, are we really using everyone’s time effectively by jumping on planes and flying all day and night to meet with prospects? For years we were told about the future of video conferencing and how it would change business travel forever. Most of us experienced video conferencing in its infancy in the mid-90’s when a high bandwidth office connection was something that resembled my current cable modem for my home network. In addition, the hardware was expensive and didn’t have the benefit of today’s CPU/RAM. So, in many respects, video conferencing was somewhat like most people’s first internet experience. We all used to refer to the internet as the world wide wait, remember… Now, we live in a world where I can watch a March Madness basketball game on my smartphone from an airport as I am boarding a plan. Yes, we sure have moved forward with technology. While everyone gave the internet first, second, and third chance before making a decision about the technology, most of us have not done the same with video conferencing. Why? Is the vision of the 90’s not possible today? Did we all just get too frustrated by the first few attempts and decided to write-off the technology forever? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I would like to explore new advancements in technology to see if we might be missing something on the sales potential that was once oversold and now may be a helpful tool that is being overlooked.
Web Conferencing
The one area of technology that needs to be explored in any topic regarding new sales tools is web conferencing. We have all used WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc…there are so many vendors that I can’t possibly list them all. We know the names, and we all agree that they have solidified their place as software sales tools. It is fair to say that these tools are still mainly used to do basic screen sharing and occasionally more advanced document collaboration or audience surveys. In most cases, they tools are used by the Marketing Department to present “webinars” that help create leads and drive traffic to the site. The webinar has grown as a critical tool to offload “suspect” demo’s to the marketing department. I discuss the difference between actual “prospects” (Sales Owns) and “suspects” (Marketing Owns) in a previous blog on lead generation. So, if marketing uses the webinar tool, what is used by the sales organization? In many companies, web conferencing technology is also used by the sales team. Typically, a sales team would use web conferencing technology to demo the software instead flying to the prospect for the initial meeting. Web conferencing is a valuable tool for inside sales teams who are qualifying prospects and providing them with a high level overview of the solution. Some companies like Salesforce.com and SugarCRM even allow prospects to get a trial license for their software so that they can use the solution and get a hands-on feel for the software. Then, they typically engage with a sales team to receive a guided demonstration by a sales resource that has been trained on the software to answer their more advanced “How do I…” and “Does it do…”.
So What Happened to Video Conferencing?
While I’m sure we all enjoyed the elementary overview of web conferencing above, I still did not begin to answer the previous question. What happened to video conferencing? More importantly, I didn’t answer the original question. Do we really need to fly to our prospect meetings every week? To answer both these questions, I think that we must explore the former question first. What happened to video conferencing and is it a viable option today? We reviewed the WebEx type solutions above and probably all agree that they do not go far enough to replace face to face meetings for enterprise software sales pursuits. So, our only saving grace must be the often dismissed video conferencing technology, right. Well, not exactly. Instead of trying to bring back video conferencing and suggest that it was just too early for that technology, I think we should further examine the more advanced capabilities of web conferencing that include components of video conferencing. In other words, the compromise may be the ability to extend the use of web conferencing technology by providing a real-time streaming video image of the presenter. Many of the web conferencing technologies already provide this feature, but it s very rarely used today. I would suggest that each sales organization begin to use this feature in an attempt to bridge the gap between face to face meetings and onsite presentations. While this small change will not immediately change the need to meet with large enterprises for major deals, it does begin to establish the face to face relationship that is desperately need in enterprise sales and often lost with web conferencing demonstrations.
Organizational Change
If you are going to attempt to use the video portion of your web conferencing software, there are a few key requirements before moving forward. First, you must test the connection to make sure that you have the required bandwidth to stream your video and screen sharing application. If you do not have the required bandwidth, then speak with your network admin and suggest moving into the year 2007. The cost of bandwidth is not that expensive, so don’t cheap out on this critical requirement. Second, you will need to make a policy that states all web conferencing sales demo’s require the presenter to be dressed in business attire. This may bring resistance at first, but if you do not portray a professional image, the streaming video will have a reverse effect on your sales. Finally, start to use the video tools for internal meetings so that your internal organization becomes very familiar with the look/feel and user experience associated with streaming video during a web conference. I suggest using web conferencing for all pipeline calls, organizational con calls, and even basic status update calls. The more that your sales organization becomes familiar with using video, the better the tool will work for your sales pursuits.
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