Getting Face to Face to Increase Sales: The 2018 Sales Video Awards

No matter the product or service you’re selling, when people say yes, they’re saying yes to you. To who you are. They’re saying yes to the trust and relationship you’ve built. In 2018, there’s no reason to continue restricting yourself or your sales reps to traditional emails and voicemails. Getting face to face with video helps you communicate more clearly, connect more effectively, and convert at a higher rate.

With years of experience helping tens of thousands of sales leaders, inside and outside sales reps, customer success associates, account-based marketers, and business professionals of all kinds improve their results with video, BombBomb was honored and excited to partner with Selling Power and the Sales 3.0 Conference to present the 2018 Sales Video Awards.

In judging the nominated videos, we saw it all, including:

• Simple mobile and screen recording video emails to cold prospects that landed Kaleb Jensen and Lincoln Bradshaw at Xvoyant the appointments they sought.
• Nicely-produced customer onboarding videos in a well-designed space that color matches and brings to life the company logo by Matthew Pollard of Rapid Growth. Even better: He draws on his own experience to illustrate the customer’s transformation through the program.
• Truly personal and evergreen videos sent to new connections through LinkedIn Messaging by Greg Rosner, at PitchKitchen, and sales trainer Ronnell Richards, who’s doing all kinds of video in LinkedIn.
• Smart but simple lead-generating videos teaching sales tactics from Steve Benson at Badger Mapping, hosted in YouTube.

Sales Video Awards Categories
Because video’s simply a way to communicate, a medium for your message, it can be used throughout the customer journey – from cold prospecting through retention and referrals. To celebrate success in various stages of relationships, we created five specific categories for the awards.

1. Prospecting, Branding, or Personal Pitch – Creating opportunities and differentiating from competitors with videos for cold prospects.
2. Appointment Setting and/or Follow-up – Moving opportunities forward and warming up prospects.
3. Customer Education and Information Sharing – Demos, features, releases, updates, proof of concept for progress with prospects and customers.
4. Staying in Touch for Retention and Referral – Building and maintaining relationships with thank you, check in, birthday, holiday, special occasion, transaction anniversary, and more.
5. Internal Training, Motivation, and Culture – Product, program, or package introductions; recruiting and onboarding; internal education; personal recognition to empower sales reps.

2018 Sales Video Awards Winners
For each nominated video, we evaluated the message quality and structure, use of the medium to connect with people, and specific results and outcomes produced. I announced the winners in all five categories live on stage with Gerhard Gschwandtner at the Sales 3.0 Conference in Las Vegas on October 26, 2018. Your winners are:

Category 1 (Prospecting, Branding, or Personal Pitch): Darren LaCroix
Founder, Stage Time University, Las Vegas, NV

Darren’s “Got a mission?” video locks in on clear heroes, villains, passion, and purpose to draw in prospects and make them excitedly self-identify. His clear vision and high energy carry his message. Set in a clean and well-branded office, his video uses shots from two angles, bold graphics, and clips of his community members in action.

If you want to know how to attract and engage the right prospects, watch Darren’s video.

Category 2 (Appointment Setting and/or Follow-up): Tobe Hester
VP of Growth, Agile Partnering, Charleston, SC

Tobe’s 57-second Webcam video not only earned an appointment with the CEO he targeted, it also inspired the CEO to ask to use his strategy as a case study for his own sales team. Why? It’s simple and personal. Tobe did a great job making sure his prospect knew the video had been recorded just for him. He named a mutual connection and spoke to the prospect’s specific needs and opportunities. We also know a bit about him from the personal elements in his background (college certificate, golf trophies, family photos, guitar on the wall).

If you want people to feel like they know you even before they take your appointment, watch Tobe’s video.

Category 3 (Customer Education and Information Sharing): David Bauders and Team
President and CEO, SPASIGMA, Cleveland, OH

If you’ve watched a lot of sales training videos, you know that some can be painfully boring. Not with SPASIGMA. This sales training company goes all in with professional scripting, casting, lighting, production, and editing of sales training videos with fictional characters in mock sales scenarios. In the role play, Break (the CEO of Wave Rider) harks back to Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Each scene is followed by a play-by-play breakdown of the mock scenario by real sales leaders.

For sales training that blends the best in education and entertainment value, watch SPASIGMA’s customer training video.

Category 4 (Staying in Touch for Retention and Referral): Mario Martinez, Jr
Co-founder and CEO, Vengreso, Walnut Creek, CA

Mario’s Webcam video from a hotel room is the perfect out-of-office message. This is a style he’s perfected through multiple rounds of iteration as he’s been in and out of the office. This video produced 1,261 views and 2,648 total clicks to the Vengreso Website, Vengreso YouTube channel, and his personal LinkedIn profile. The video’s lightly branded, starts with a thank you, and is loaded with strong calls to action.

If you want to get face to face with people when you’re out of the office – and have prospects, customers, employees, and others choose their own learning path – learn from Mario’s example.

Category 5 (Internal Training, Motivation, and Culture): Mason Bernard and Team
Account Development Rep, Highspot, Seattle, WA

The narrative, time-based structure of this day-in-the-life office and culture tour makes all 2 minutes and 57 seconds highly watchable. A Top 50 LinkedIn Startup and one of Selling Power’s 50 Best Companies to Sell For, Highspot uses this video to recruit top talent. You see the space, learn the perks, meet the people, tour the area, and feel the brand.

If you want to see how to make your company attractive and to see an example you could alter slightly into an onboarding video, give Highspot’s video a play.

Your Next Steps
Too long the province of the marketing department or creative agency, video is now in your hands. It’s useful at any point in the sales process and customer lifecycle to make your communication more personal, more clear, and more effective. With a Webcam and smartphone, you already have what you need to get started to lead more often with your very best sales asset…you! Your plain, typed-out text looks exactly like your competitors’; instead, stand out in the inbox, on social networks, and in social messaging by being who you are. Because you’re not one in a million, you’re one of a kind – and, other than being there in person, there’s no better way to show that than through video.

Nominations for the 2019 Sales Video Awards open next fall and we want to see you among the nominees! Learn from this year’s winners and from others in your company and in your network. Find one- or two-ways video fits into your sales process and try it out. Or equip your team and teach from the early adopters. If you need help along the way, reach out to us at BombBomb. In Gmail, Chrome, Outlook, Salesforce, iOS, Android, and more, individuals, teams, and enterprises have been getting face to face and winning more opportunities with us since 2006.

Steve Pacinelli is the CMO of BombBomb.