Even though interruption advertising is dead, there are still some things we can learn from the old model. One of them is known as “multiple touches”. In the old model the multiple touches were different ways that the same ad was shown to consumers. If the same ad was shown on TV, in magazines, on billboards or other media the message would eventually get through. I’ve applied this model to my current sales crew and it is working.
In the old days of software sales a team of two traveled to almost every meeting; a sales rep and a sales engineer. This was a time-consuming and thus costly model. It worked when software sales to the enterprise produced large up-front payments. These large up-front payments allowed software companies to pay the large expenses involved. These expenses included paying the rep six figures, paying the sales engineer somewhat less and paying travel expenses for both of them. In addition, there needed to be a large number of these teams because traveling to meet prospects in person restricts the amount of territory that one sales team can cover.
The world has changed since those days. Now we have virtual meetings enabled by technology like WebEx, GoToMeeting, Live Meeting, etc. And software is typically delivered via a subscription model which does not produce large up-front payments. Software sales organizations have had to adapt to a different model. My reps use a combination of phone, internet and SOME travel to get the job done. We spend a lot of time on the phone with prospects and using the internet to have virtual meetings. This allows one rep to cover a large (multi-state) territory. One rep can have as many as three or four meetings per day when they don’t have to waste time traveling.
I strongly encourage the use of virtual meetings for qualifying calls. It’s much easier to sell someone on the idea of spending half an hour or less on a virtual meeting to see if the product is even a good fit for them than it is to convince them to set up an in-person meeting where they will risk wasting at least an hour. Even if the item being sold is a high-ticket item, I would encourage the use of virtual meetings for qualifying meetings. Use virtual meetings to weed out the ones who are not going to buy and then travel to see the prospects who are well qualified. This is a more efficient use of resources.
In this new model even sales engineering resources can be leveraged much more effectively. One sales engineer can be involved in multiple virtual sales meetings from a single location and thus used to cover a wider territory. However, we have found that there are limits to this model. The human touch still counts. People buy from people they like, and this has not changed.
Given the lower cost of software these days we seldom travel to see just one client. What we do is use the trade shows to maximize the investment we make with our travel budget. Trade shows are places where large numbers of potential buyers gather in one place. This allows us to have multiple meetings in a single trip and get the most from our sales and marketing investment. A trade show not only allows us to meet new prospects, we can also arrange to meet current prospects for lunch or dinner while we are all in the same place.
These multiple touches are the key. Just using the phones and web alone is not enough. We’ve noticed that some deals will stall. Then we meet the people in person at a trade show and the deal is no longer stalled. We still need to do all the work on the phones and in virtual meetings to create the opportunity in the first place, but creating a real relationship with a person helps to close more of the deals.
Hope this helps
Steve
innovatorstraction
