Screen-sharing to close more deals: How to get your team on-board

Outbound sales teams: What is one of your biggest pain points, once you’ve got leads in the pipeline? Are your leads hard-to-reach, so it needs to be easy for them to consider a solution and say yes? Does it take more than one call to qualify a lead, and then close a deal? Do sales leads drop out of the pipeline?

If these sound like familiar problems, then know you aren’t alone in dealing with them. Too many outbound sales teams are dialing, or using the phone and a mix of other channels, to get leads into the funnel, only to lose them in the pipeline.

It’s a frustrating problem to have, especially when your solution is proven, relatively low-ticket (doesn’t require a big investment), and largely transactional. When selling those types of products or services, such as digital marketing, it shouldn’t be difficult once a decision maker is on the phone, sounds interested, and has been qualified in some way.

Why one-call close should be the goal?

When sales are transactional, and therefore at greater risk from competitors jumping in with different offerings at alternative - and sometimes cheaper or promotional price points - speed is essential. Otherwise you risk losing qualified leads to the competition.

One of the easiest ways to lose qualified leads is when they ask for more information.

More information comes in many formats. Usually a presentation document, or PDF sales brochure, or a modified version of that which includes the quote/proposal. In most cases, these pieces of sales enablement material are useful. They often include visuals of the product or service, so that a potential client can see what is on offer.

Inexperienced salespeople might think sending this information to a prospect is a good idea. However, those with more experience know that too often this is a signal of false optimism. Even if a prospect is genuinely interested, the urgency is lost, and slowly dissipates the longer a prospect has this information to review.

Getting an answer on a single call should always be the aim. Otherwise sales teams are having calls, sending more information, and chasing prospects for that often elusive second call to close a deal. Too many companies are losing too much money between those first and second calls.

Deals disappear when prospects are sent more information then given time to review it, only for it to be pushed to the bottom of their to-do lists. Getting a quicker answer is better for everyone. Quicker answers saves both the salespeople and prospects time.

Why instant screen-sharing is the solution?

Instead of dealing with the scenario outlined above, instant screen-sharing can solve those problems.

A Yellow Pages Canada brand was experiencing the sort of problems mentioned above. CrankWheel was the solution that took them from being a two-call to a one-call close company. Cutting the sales cycle in half.

However, one of the challenges they encountered when on-boarding was getting the sales team to use it. Making it a normal part of the sales process. In this article, we look at how that was done and therefore how screen-sharing made it possible to cut the sales cycle in half, close more deals, and hit targets more effectively.

“Overnight, it completely turned our business around. From the day we rolled it out, and started using it in 411.ca, sales went up”, said Mike, Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development,

411.ca, a division of Yellow Pages Canada, in a case study interview.

How to embed screen-sharing as a sales solution

It might take a few months, but as 411.ca found, the results are worth the investment of time. From a sales and revenue perspective, this is a solution that generates a long-term and sustainable ROI.

#1: Get comfortable using CrankWheel

Firstly, sales teams often start using this when a sales manager (and/or Head of Sales or Sales Director) start using the tool themselves, for free, and testing it out on a few sales/demo calls.

Once a sales leader is comfortable using it, then the potential exists for it to be rolled-out for a whole team. At that point, we can help with any questions and putting the case together for getting a cost-effective budget allocated. Once the go-ahead is given, sales leaders can start giving members of the team accounts.

#2: Encourage early-adopters

As with any new solution, sales teams are generally somewhat resistant to using it at first. Don’t be concerned. New technology means adopting new processes and ways of working, so the concern is that it will take time and therefore reduce the amount of sales calls that can be done.

One of the easiest ways to overcome this problem is through encouraging early-adopters to use the product. Pick members of the team that others respect and ask for advice and help. Usually the ones who are consistently known for hitting targets.

Give them a day or so to get comfortable using it, and testing it out on prospect/client calls, before these early-adopters can start encouraging others to use CrankWheel. Once people see others using a product with success, using it to close more deals, it won’t take long before everyone wants to achieve the same.

#3: Become a screen-share and online presentation expert

As a sales leader, your role is to become an expert in this. Continued use, and therefore the ongoing benefits from CrankWheel, as 411.ca found, happens more easily when there is the right kind of support from management.

Sales team members feel empowered when others in the team, and the manager, can help them get better at screen-sharing demo calls. Every team is different, which means the kind of support people need depends on the dynamics of the team and how well people are using this solution.

In some cases, the support could be a small collection of demo presentation documents; whereas, in other cases, recorded demos that have gone really well could be incredibly useful for training purposes.

#4: Have sales enablement materials created

For teams that don’t have presentation/demo assets in-place, this could prove useful. Sales team members need a quick and easy way to present a product/service to a prospect. If you don’t already have these kind of materials, it would be useful to have them made or spend time creating them.

#5: Make screen-sharing a KPI

Finally, the road to adopting any new solution, is normalized when it’s made a key performance indicator (KPI). Once everyone is comfortable using it, and there are materials and best practice examples in place, then using CrankWheel for as many demo calls as possible is a natural next step.

Making it a KPI should be part of that because this way people don’t forget to use it. Performance can be assessed against the number of instant online demo screen-sharing calls sales team members do every week, month and quarter. Before rolling this out, make sure everyone is comfortable using it and any problems or concerns are resolved.

As 411.ca, Yell, and numerous other large and small companies have found, CrankWheel solves a serious sales challenge. It helps sales teams reduce the number of calls needed to close deals and hit targets. It can cut a sales cycle in half.

Achieving these sort of results doesn’t happen overnight. Sales leaders need to take ownership of product adoption internally, support the team, encourage early-adopters and in time, make screen share an important and everyday KPI.