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Video Sales Call Guide
It’s time to adapt. The world is changing before our eyes.
Businesses in many countries have suddenly been forced into a completely different work situation: that of being 100% remote with no warning and no time to prepare really. If you’ve suddenly gone from working in an office to working in remote sales…
You need to make some big adjustments.
Now is not the time to look longingly at the past.
Now is the time to adapt and keep moving forward.
If you’re reading this, it means you’re looking for resources to keep you working effectively from home and sell effectively over the phone, and the internet at large.
In this guide, you’re going to learn everything you need to become a master of video sales calls. Use the steps in this book to prepare well, run a stunning sales presentation, and close deals remotely, even when you don’t feel comfortable doing so.
Before The Call
If you hate video sales calls, or if you’ve just never done them before, then this is where you need to start. How can you schedule a video call with your prospects that they’ll actually want to attend? How can you prepare for the call so that your palms aren’t sweaty and your mouse isn’t shaky? What do you do when the prospect doesn’t show? Let's get started.
How to schedule your remote sales call
Before you even think about selling your product, you need to sell the call.
When you’re scheduling a remote sales call with your prospects, show them why this call is going to benefit them. Don’t focus on the features of your product or service just yet: instead, focus on the call itself.
Basically, you need to answer this question:
Why should your prospects take time from their schedule to meet with you?
The answer should be one of these two reasons:
Attending this video sales call will save them time
Attending this video sales call with help them be more successful
For example, if the prospect is objecting to a video sales call because of the time involved, you could say something like this:
"From what you’ve told me, your business could see huge benefits in X and Y from using our product. This could be a real game-changer for you, and I’m sure you’ll figure that out if you keep reading the doc and trying out our software. But if you want, we can take 30 minutes and I’ll show you exactly how our product can solve X and Y problems for you.”
If your prospect is objecting because they just don’t see the value in the video call (and don’t want to change out of their pyjamas to meet with you on Zoom), you could say something like this:
When you point to the real value of the video call itself, you’ll help convince your prospects that it’s worth their time and effort.
If you’re not used to doing video sales calls, your nerves are going to show.
That’s why it’s essential to prepare in advance and get those first-time jitters out of your system before you’re presenting to prospects. Here are some top ways to prepare both your agenda and your tech for the perfect remote call:
How to prepare for a video sales call
Know and test your tools
If you’re not used to doing video sales calls, you’re probably not comfortable with the tools you’ll need to do so. Before you even think about getting on a call, it’s essential that you learn the ins and outs of these tools.
Start with your video chat tool, like Zoom.
You need to learn how to set up a call, start a meeting, toggle the mute button, share your screen, and invite new participants.
Before your remote sales call, make sure you test all of the tools you’re planning on using. That way, you won’t have any surprises.
Have a clear agenda and goal
Just like any sales meeting, you need to have a clear agenda to follow for your video sales call. To create an agenda, focus first on the main goal for this call. What will be your next steps? What’s the ideal outcome for this meeting? Then, work backward.
How can you get the prospect from where they are now to that goal? If you want this to end in a close, how can you use this call to make your product irresistible? If you want to get multiple decision-makers on board, how can you address their needs or concerns during the presentation?
By working backward from the goal, you’ll be able to set a clear agenda that will guide the call in the right direction.
Set up your video and background
It’s already hard enough to make sure your prospects are paying attention to you on a video call. So, don’t let your webcam placement or background distract them even more.
Start by making sure that your webcam is placed at eye level, and isn’t off to the side of the screen you’ll be looking at during your presentation.
Next, check your lighting. Make sure light is coming from in front of you, not behind you. If possible, get a small desk light that brightens your face, and avoid having a window or lamp behind you.
Finally, check your background for distractions.
Turn on your camera before the call to check what can actually be seen behind you. Then, clean up that view.
Prepare your tabs and windows on the screen
Right before the call, open up any tabs, slide decks, or apps that you plan on using or showing during the video call. You don’t want to have your audience waiting while each new screen loads.
You’ll also want to make sure that all notifications and pop-ups are turned off. That way, your prospects won’t see your new emails or Slack messages from your team or other prospects.
Remember to record
With Zoom and many other video call tools, you can automatically record your video calls and save those recordings for later.
Dealing with no-shows
It’s a lot easier to miss a meeting scheduled via video chat than to miss a physical meeting at your office. That’s why you may see more no-shows on video sales calls than you did with in-person meetings.
How can you deal with no-shows?
First, before your meeting, send multiple reminders. Let the prospect know that you’re committed to and invested in this remote sales call, and they’ll be more likely to take it seriously.
Next, if the prospect doesn’t show after a couple of minutes, send an email with the Zoom link and information again. After 10 minutes, don’t keep waiting. It’s time to reschedule that meeting.
Be gentle, but clear. Tell them you missed them, and ask them if a specific time and day works for them to reschedule this meeting.
Finally, if your prospect is a no-show, make sure you spend the time you planned to use with them productively. Don’t fill those 30-60 minutes with busy work: have a backup plan in place and use that time wisely.
Now that you’re prepared for your video sales call...
Let’s level up your skills during the call.
During The Call
You finally got your prospect to agree to a video call. You’ve prepped your agenda, your background, and your tabs are all open. They log in, and they even have their webcam on!
Looks like you’re off to a great start.
Now what?
Use qualifying questions to make the call relevant
Your qualifying questions will be the basis for structuring your call.
Hopefully, you’ve already done some qualifying with this prospect before the call. You probably know their biggest pain points and some information about their business. But you need more.
Obviously, you can’t start talking about a solution when you don’t fully understand the problem. On the other hand, don’t turn this video sales call into an interrogation. Weave the right questions into your conversation to get a better understanding of their needs.
Start by asking them to clarify or open up more about a subject you’ve already discussed.
For example:
“I understand that you're having issues with keeping track of leads. Where are you currently storing leads? Why isn’t that working for you?”
Or:
“From what we talked about on the phone last week, it sounds like your sales team is lacking a clear view of their pipeline. Can you walk me through your current pipeline setup?”
Then, use their answers to make the sales call even more relevant to their individual current situation.
How to make prospects pay attention
When you're not face-to-face with a prospect, you should never assume that you have their undivided attention. They're most likely on their phone and have 17 other browser tabs open while they're on a call with you.
If it's a video call and they also turn on the camera, at least you can gauge from their facial expressions and their eyes if they're focused on the call.
But if not, how can you tell whether they are paying attention?
And most importantly, how can you keep their attention?
Pick three main points you want your prospects to walk away with
When creating your agenda, you decided on a goal and worked backward to build a sales call that would lead the prospect to that goal. Within that, you need to fix three absolutely essential points that your prospects should remember.
Obviously, your prospects won’t remember everything you said.
But if you pick three unforgettable points, you can highlight those to make sure your prospects are paying attention.
Here’s how to introduce your essential points so they’ll pay attention:
Start by saying their name
Tell them clearly that what you’re about to say is important Lower your volume to make them listen more
When you pick three essential points and highlight them during the call, your prospect will be more likely to remember these after the call.
Put value into context with questions
A video sales call should be more dynamic and interactive than an in-person meeting would be. When a remote call is presented as a conversation rather than a monologue, you’ll be able to judge how attentive your prospects are.
This is especially true when your prospects don’t turn on their video.
By asking questions, you ensure your prospects are involved in the call and can judge their reaction by the tone of voice even if you can’t see their face.
One way to use questions is to put context around the value of your product and the benefits of using it. For example:
You: “I understand your sales team isn’t as productive as you’d like them to be. How much time do you think your team wastes every week on lead generation, data entry, and other repetitive tasks?”
Prospect: “I’d say each rep spends at least 5 hours per week on these kinds of tasks.”
You: “Okay, and how many reps do you have on your team?”
Prospect: “We have 15 reps.”
You: “So we’re talking about 300 hours per month that your sales team is losing. That’s more than 3,000 hours in a year that your sales team isn’t using to sell. Now, I’d like to show you how we can get your team back those 3,000 hours and spend them actually selling to your prospects. Does that interest you?”
Prospect: “Yes for sure!"
Use relevant, simple slides to visualize your points
Another way to make sure your prospects are paying attention is to optimize your sales decks for video sales calls. First of all, make sure all of those slides are relevant. Cut down on extemporaneous information: focus on what’s really relevant to their business.
Next, make your slides simple. Don’t crowd them with text or visuals.
Make them clean, interesting, and easy to understand.
You don’t want your prospects wondering about the meaning of a graph while you’re trying to explain an important benefit of your solution.
Using these tips, your video sales presentations will capture and hold the attention of your prospects, at least for the most important points.
How to deal with technical difficulties
Not all of your video sales calls will run smoothly.
Maybe the internet will lag and you’ll both have to turn off video. Maybe your presentation will get stuck. Or maybe that tab you prepared just won’t open. When things go wrong, don’t panic (easier said than done).
To reduce panic when things aren’t going right, have a few lines prepared in advance. For example, if a window is taking longer to load than expected, don’t just wait in awkward silence.
Have something prepared to say while you wait, that way the delay won’t seem so eternal. Keep working on the skills above to adapt your presentation skills to the new normal of video sales calls. This will help you be calmer on the call, and prepare you for the perfect ending.
End The Call
Your time is up: you’re ready to do that awkward video wave and say goodbye. Or are you? Before you end your remote sales call, make sure you go through these three essential steps:
Summarize your three important points
Remember those three essential points you wanted your prospects to remember? The last few minutes of your call are your last chance to make sure your prospects remember those points after you hang up.
So, ask a question like:
What were the highlights of this conversation for you?
In the demo today, what did you find most impactful?
What was the most interesting thing you learned?
If they don’t hit all three of your main points, add something like this:
“That’s true, what you said was really important. One more thing I want you to take away from this call is...”
Highlight your weaknesses
Every solution has its problems and weak points. Most sales reps spend a great deal of their presentation praying that the prospect doesn’t bring up those objections. Thankfully, you’re not like most sales reps.
Don’t wait for prospects to bring up the weak points of your solution and then fumble for an answer you don’t have. Instead, turn the situation around by highlighting the weaknesses of your solution beforehand.
When you bake those objections into your presentation, you can also prepare concise solutions to each problem, even if that just means acknowledging the problem exists and explaining how you plan to fix it.
Why does this work?
Because it’s an excellent way to build trust. And building trust is even more important on a video sales call than in an in-person meeting.
Since both parties will be missing some of the social cues you’d normally get when in person, you need to work harder to be that trustworthy figure your prospects want to buy from.
That’s why including your product’s weak points in your video sales call is so important: you’ll contribute to a transparent, honest exchange and will gain the trust of your prospects.
End with a close
If a specific goodbye isn’t in your sales script, it should be.
Why?
Because if you’re not prepared to end this call productively, you’re wasting the most powerful part of your video sales call. You have them on the line now. They’ve just heard about your solution and you’ve essentially removed any objections they might have. Right now, your prospect is excited to buy.
So, sell them while they’re in the buying mood.
Of course, you’ll need to use your good judgment to see if now is the time to close the deal. If you think the prospect isn’t quite there yet, at least sell them on the next step in your sales funnel.
Here’s the point:
Don’t end the call without clearly defining where you’ll go from here.
By the time you end the call, both parties should know what the next steps are and when they’ll be taken. And if you play your cards right, you could actually close the deal right here, right now.
After The Call
You can breathe again: your camera is off, the call is over, and everything went fairly smooth. But your work isn’t over yet. After the call, here are the two main things you need to do:
Realistically evaluate your call
Just because you really got along and your video call didn’t have any major hiccups, doesn’t mean this was a successful remote sales call. To realistically evaluate how things went, ask yourself these questions:
Did the prospect give you clear, detailed information?
Were they open when speaking about their business and needs?
Were the next steps clearly defined at the end of the call?
Did the prospect seem excited to take those next steps?
Using these four questions, you’ll be able to judge the temperature of your prospect and get a better idea of how likely they are to close. But how can you make sure you answer those questions accurately? Simple:
Don’t rely solely on your own imperfect memory.
Follow up, follow up, follow up
Even the best calls can sometimes be followed by crickets.
What if your prospect doesn’t move forward with the next steps?
How long should you wait around for a response? If you follow up once after the call and they don’t respond, what should you do then?
Here’s my rule of thumb:
Keep following up until you get a response. It’s that simple.
You’ve already had a conversation with this person, and they haven’t given you a hard no. If your prospect drops off the face of the planet after a great video sales call, just keep following up until they tell you something.
As far as frequency, you want to start high and decrease over time.
For example:
Day 1
Day 3
Day 7
Day 14
Day 28
Day 58
After day 58, reduce that follow-up frequency to once a month.
Want to make sure your follow-ups are well received?
Follow these three rules:
Never try to guilt them into responding
Keep a warm, friendly tone
Make it short and sweet
By following up consistently until you get a response, you’ll squeeze all the juice out of your pipeline and make sure no deal gets left behind. But what if you do get a response, and it’s not the response you wanted?
What to do when your prospects postpone the purchase
Even though your video sales call went great and the prospect seemed happy, now they’ve changed their tune and it seems like this deal is never going to close.
What happened?
We live in a constantly changing world, and COVID-19 changed the priorities of a lot of companies. Your original pitch may have been based on wants and needs that have morphed over the past weeks for this prospect.
That means a purchase they were excited about just isn’t a priority anymore.
It’s your job to make your solution a priority again.
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