Seven Ways to Use Online Meetings to Sell Software

There’s one significant benefit to being in the software business – you are generally selling to people who are technically savvy. That means that you’re free to use new technology in your sales process without worrying about boggling the customers’ minds. If you were selling, say, steel girders, using a technology like online meetings (aka Web conferencing) would probably become a distraction. But when selling software, the use of such high tech tools simply serves to make you look smarter and more “cutting edge.” With that in mind, here are seven ways that you can most effectively use online meeting to increase your software sales numbers:

1. Use online meetings to prospect for new customers. Hold an online event at a tiny fraction of the cost of an in-person event. Because your IT customers can logon to the online event while in their own office (or remotely via a wireless laptop), there’s no requirement for special travel, making it much easier to gather an audience. Hint: monitor the audience to see who leaves and who stays, so that, after the meeting, you can zero in on the most likely prospects.

2. Use online meetings to qualify your leads. Hold an online meeting that includes multiple decision makers inside your customer’s organization. During these online meetings, customers can ask you questions, make comments, or simply observe. This allows you to contact and influence a larger number of decision makers and stakeholders in a short amount of time. Hint: don’t forget to invite the lead programmers and lower level IT managers; they’ll appreciate being part of the process and it will help the sale along.

3. Use online meetings to develop an opportunity. When you’re online, you can more quickly react to or head off potential problems, as well as more quickly take advantage of sudden opportunities. As you move the sale toward closing, schedule regular online meetings to discuss and resolve issues. Use online meetings to bring additional resources (like your firm’s technical gurus or support personnel) into the conversation.

4. Use online meetings to scuttle objections early. If you do at least some of your contract negotiations online, it will be easier to get additional stakeholders involved. And because all the stakeholders are viewing the same information, while participating in the same discussions and reviewing the same critical items, the decision-making process will move forward more swiftly.

5. Use online meetings to hone your sales skills. If you’re having problems with a customer, get your sales manager involved online so that he or she can give you suggestions without intruding into the customer relationship. The hidden benefit of this is that your managers will get a clearer view of your strengths and weaknesses and can help you develop a plan to reach the next level of your selling ability.

6. Use online meetings to increase your value to the customer. If you use online meetings to develop an account, you’ll end up reducing the cost of every sale – and that’s going to increase your value to the company, come review time. What’s better, if you’re the first in your group to start using online meetings heavily, you’ll probably be called upon to help others get up-to-speed, and that’s going to impress the boss, and the boss’s boss.

7. Use online meetings to reduce energy-draining travel. While it’s true that online meetings reduce travel expenses, they also reduce the wear and tear on you as an individual. With air travel now a nightmare of delays and hassles, you owe it to yourself to limit trips to those that are really important, and not just part of your day-to-day sales cycle.

The above is loosely based on a conversation with David Berman, Vice President of worldwide sales and services from Webex Communications, Inc.,