Boosting sales performance during tough times

How salespeople are leveraging instant Web conferencing for success

White paper

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The perfect storm has arrived, greatly slowing the salesperson’s path to success. Powered by an economic downturn and strengthened by highly informed prospects, salespeople face a nearly impenetrable wall of resistance. When times are tough, it’s harder to sell, yet the sales team must deliver.

One proven technique involves building relationships with prospects. However, gaining rapport often takes time and, sometimes, travel—two luxuries that are no longer an option. Add the reality of budget cuts facing most businesses, and breaking through to prospects becomes harder. If salespeople are not able to quickly nurture relationships, their ability to build a valuable pipeline of opportunity is greatly hindered.

How can sales cost-effectively build relationships with prospects? Is there a way to accelerate sales performance without investing enormous amounts of time?

To meet these challenges, many sales organizations are turning to instant Web conferencing solutions. Designed to help build prospect relations without physically being there, salespeople are using instant Web conferencing solutions to accelerate the sales process, quickly demonstrate solutions and build stronger connections with prospects. This white paper will examine key sales challenges and reveal the many advantages of selling with instant Web conferencing.

Sales challenges during an economic downturn

According to a CSO Insight report, history proves that when the economy is bad, sales suffer because (1) buying decisions require multiple approvals to close a deal, (2) decision cycles are longer and (3) businesses tend to work with known and trusted vendors.1 These realities make it difficult to build trusted relationships with prospects.

The slowing economy has caused panic among many prospects and salespeople. “Even a strong, motivated sales force can only read so much negative financial data without getting down. When that happens, instead of making those 10 calls a day, it might drop to six and then three and then two and one and then nothing. And all of a sudden, even when things turn around, that’s become the norm. And they’re not doing what they were doing when they were successful. There’s nothing like a downturn to turn good habits into bad habits,” said Luke Kujawa, president of 150-employee Crystal Pierz.2

For the sales team, working the phone may be harder. Prospects are more likely to shun sales calls, making the first impression essential. Overcoming the initial distrust of salespeople is extra-challenging when all that connects a salesperson to a prospect is a telephone.

When a poor economy is coupled with highly informed prospects, the sales task is even harder. The Internet has made it easy for businesses to determine their own needs, fully bypassing salespeople. “If we are to reverse this trend, we are going to have to find new and more effective ways to interact with customers and prospects so they see the value-add of having a salesperson involved in their buying process,” said a CSO Insights report.3

1 Dickie, J. & Trailer, B. (2008). CSO Insights. Hitting your numbers in a slow economy: Lessons learned from the past.

2 Nelson, T. (October 20, 2008). Minneapolis Star Tribune. How to sell when fewer are buying.

3 Dickie, J. & Trailer, B. (2008). CSO Insights. Building customer relationships: Part 2.

When the economy slows, prospects are less likely to engage salespeople, creating many challenges

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“You’ve got to get back to building relationships and getting yourself in front of people,” said Kujawa.4 Fortunately, new technology is providing innovative ways for sales to build stronger relationships.

Reaching out and touching more prospects

For salespeople selling costly solutions, the sales cycle will likely stretch longer during an economic downturn. This means more prospects must be contacted to fill the sales funnel. It also means that building trusted relationships will become more important.

However, making connections will be harder. “During tough times, prospects feel like they’re in a small boat floating on a big sea. Economic forces beyond their control are impacting their ability to move toward their goals. Their focus is to avert disaster and keep afloat, not build new relationships,” said Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies.

For field salespeople, the travel and entertainment budget has vaporized. There’s nothing like a face-to-face interaction to build relationships with prospects. However, costly travel is no longer an option for many businesses. In the end, salespeople are forced to do more with less.

A brief examination of the history of building prospect relations provides further insight.

Brief history of sales relationship-building

In the mid-1990s, the sales process typically involved traveling to visit prospects and clients for face time. Booking airline flights, staying in hotels, renting cars and taking prospects and clients to events were common ways salespeople built trusted relationships. In addition, expensive print collateral was often sent or hand-delivered. These steps were time-consuming and costly.

By the late 1990s, the Internet provided new, lower-cost ways to connect with prospects and customers. Web sites expanded the reach of sales and often replaced brochures. With an expanding market came new competition. Many transactions still involved travel to clients. However, using the Internet to help close deals was growing in popularity.

By 2001, the Web became a central communication tool for sales. Email, electronic faxing and electronic document transmission began replacing physical communications.

A few years later, Web conferencing grew in popularity, allowing virtual meetings. Salespeople could show a PowerPoint presentation without being physically present. This opened up more opportunities for sales, but had its drawbacks. For example, getting prospects into a Web conference involved complicated downloads, often limited by client firewalls. These bandwidth-intensive Web conferencing applications were also very slow.

By around 2005, more sophisticated prospecting tools emerged. For example, next-generation Web conferencing allowed salespeople to share what was on their desktop, enabling them to perform live product demos remotely. As Internet speeds improved, the bandwidth limitations were largely eliminated. Now salespeople are frequently using this type of technology to immediately bring a prospect into a live demo in new and creative ways.

4 Nelson, T. (October 20, 2008). Minneapolis Star Tribune. How to sell when fewer are buying.

During slow times, sales must make contact with more prospects to keep the pipeline full

Over the last 15 years salespeople have moved from face-to-face contact to largely online communications with prospects

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The next step: selling with instant Web conferencing

Designed to help salespeople rapidly develop rapport with prospects, instant Web conferencing solutions enable salespeople to build stronger relationships with prospects without being there in person. Now anything that can be displayed on a computer desktop can be shown to any prospect anywhere—at any time.

This service allows a salesperson to perform a wide range of sales functions, such as giving a spontaneous presentation, walking a prospect through a Website or demonstrating a software product. By stretching across the miles and showing prospects exactly what’s on a salesperson’s screen, it’s as if the prospect was physically on site. Now a prospect call can be transformed into a product demo in mere seconds, eliminating costly travel or time-consuming meeting arrangements.

All a salesperson needs to say is, “Can I show you?” and confirm Internet access. Within mere seconds, the salesperson and the prospect are seeing the same thing. A prospect can also take control of anything on the salesperson’s desktop. This allows a prospect to experience software products firsthand. In addition, the prospect can show the salesperson anything on his or her computer.

Simply said, many of the benefits of being physically present are achieved when salespeople leverage instant Web conferencing

Figure 1: A salesperson can immediately launch a live Web conference and show a remote prospect slides from a PowerPoint presentation.

A CSO Insight report explained that instant Web conferencing solutions “can help you not only make a great first impression when you are meeting with a client virtually, but continue that level of service and professionalism all the way through the sales process.”5

The sales benefits of instant Web conferencing

Instant Web conferencing provides many significant benefits to salespeople:

Transforms a prospecting call into a live demo, speeding the sales cycle and helping establish a •stronger bond with prospects

Extends a salesperson’s geographic reach without costly travel•

Speeds the qualification process by quickly showing prospects critical information or asking them to •show what’s on their screens

Improves the value of the salesperson in the eyes of the prospect by enabling him or her to quickly •demonstrate relevant content

Provides a path to up-sell or cross-sell existing customers•

Improves engagement by providing a highly customized visual experience•

Accomplishes everything achievable in a face-to-face meeting without time-consuming travel, •allowing more contact with more prospects each day

Lowers the cost of sales by boosting productivity and minimizing travel requirements•

5 Dickie, J. & Trailer, B. (2008). CSO Insights. Building customer relationships: Part 2.

Instant Web conferencing allows salespeople to quickly show anything on their screen to prospects located anywhere

Instant Web conferencing allows a prospecting call to immediately morph into a product demo

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Improves communication by tailoring what is shown on-the-fly, allowing salespeople to quickly •respond to objections

Allows other people within the company to quickly join a conference and share their screen (such as •a sales engineer) to help close the sale

Optimizes salespeople’s time, allowing them to more easily pitch and qualify prospects remotely•

Assists in contract negotiations by allowing both parties to examine and edit documents•

Enables a group sales presentation, allowing many people to join a meeting•

Helps increase the reach of a salesperson by providing a recorded copy of a Web conference to a •prospect, enabling that person to share it with others at his or her company

Avoids wasted trips to client sites by quickly qualifying prospects•

Improves conversion metrics by conveying concepts verbally and visually •

What to look for in an instant Web conferencing solution

When seeking an instant Web conferencing solution to assist a sales team, consider the following important requirements:

Speed to plan a meeting: Look for a solution that allows a meeting to start literally in seconds without any effort for the prospect. There should be no registration requirement or large application downloads that could deter a prospect from joining an instant meeting.

Real-time screen sharing: Make sure prospects can see exactly what the salesperson sees—when he or she sees it—ensuring what is said tracks with what is shown. This requires a solution with real-time refresh rates.

One-click meetings from the desktop: To ensure an excellent experience for sales professionals, the solution should be very easy to use, enabling meeting setup with the simple click of a button from the desktop.

Push-button recording: Look for the ability to record and play back meetings without special plug-ins. This allows prospects to easily share recorded meetings with key decision makers.

Integrated audio conferencing: For follow-up meetings, the solution should include an audio conferencing bridge at no extra cost. Make sure the solution can effortlessly record the audio and the visuals for playback.

Internet audio capabilities: Look for a solution that allows the salesperson and the prospect to bypass the telephone and communicate verbally using their computers. This reduces phone expenses and simplifies communication with international prospects.

Intuitive interface: Seek a solution that does not require extensive training, but rather allows a salesperson to immediately leverage the solution. The solution should not take over the salesperson’s entire screen, but should operate transparently in the background.

Support and training: Ask if the company provides 24/7 support, best practices guides and free training to help maximize use of the product.

When seeking an instant Web conferencing solution, ask how quickly a conference can be established to ensure a prospect call can be easily transformed into a demo

Flat rate pricing: Look for a solution that offers flat rate pricing for Web conferencing and teleconferencing, regardless of use. This helps in establishing budgets and eliminating unexpected costs.

The GoToMeeting® Corporate advantage

Citrix® GoToMeeting® Corporate empowers salespeople to greatly improve their communications with prospects and customers by remotely demonstrating anything on a salesperson’s computer desktop. The award-winning solution is helping salespeople around the globe improve their performance. Recent awards include Frost & Sullivan’s 2008 Web Conferencing Company of the Year and Small Business Computing’s 2008 Excellence in Technology award.

Built to meet all the requirements outlined in this paper, GoToMeeting Corporate also offers the following advantages:

Easy to use, GoToMeeting Corporate enables salespeople to begin meeting with prospects and •clients right away.

Patented bandwidth-adaptive compression technology ensures exceptional performance and •successful meetings over any Internet connection.

All You Can Meet• ® pricing eliminates meeting duration limits and overage charges, encouraging salespeople to use the service as often as they’d like and increasing their productivity.

Industry-standard security features are built in to ensure that confidential meeting information •remains private.

GoToMeeting Corporate also includes a full array of functionality, including:

One-click meetings: By simply clicking an icon, a salesperson can begin a meeting.•

Instantly change presenters: A salesperson can pass control to the prospect or another employee •who can show what is on his or her screen.

Easy integration: Meetings can be started, scheduled or joined through Microsoft• ® Outlook®, Microsoft Office®, IBM® Lotus Notes® or various instant-messaging applications.

Shared mouse control: A prospect can be granted the right to take over the salesperson’s mouse •on his or her desktop, enabling the prospect to experience a product firsthand.

Full or partial desktop viewing: Without needing to upload content, the solution allows a salesperson •to show an entire desktop or specific open applications.

GoToMeeting Corporate in action

Cornerstone Information Systems, a software development company specializing in travel reservation systems, needed to reduce its cost of sales while improving productivity. “Our sales cycle was typically between 60 and 70 days,” said Alan Minton, Cornerstone’s vice president of marketing. The sales process also involved several on-site visits per prospect, limiting the productivity of the sales team. Minton’s goal was to reduce travel, freeing his sales team for more sales functions and cutting costs.

Minton selected GoToMeeting Corporate. Now his salespeople “can easily demonstrate the product for them [prospects] and let them drive. We call it a ‘proof of capabilities,’” said Minton.

GoToMeeting Corporate was awarded Small Business Computing’s 2008 Excellence in Technology award

Cornerstone was able to cut two out of every three on-site sales meetings with GoToMeeting Corporate, eliminating airfare, car rentals and hotels. “We reduced our cost of sales almost 50 percent,” reported Minton.

Sales productivity also increased. “We can conduct three product demonstrations in a day with GoToMeeting versus one in a day and a half when traveling,” said Minton. Actual sales increased after the company implemented GoToMeeting Corporate. “A lot of our success can be attributed to the fact that we’re able to present our solutions more effectively to more people,” said Minton.

Take your sales team’s performance to the next level with GoToMeeting Corporate.

For a live demonstration of GoToMeeting Corporate or to learn more about instant Web conferencing, please call 1-800-372-6207 or visit www.GoToMeeting.com/corp/. If you’re calling from outside the United States, please call +1-805-690-2340.

Citrix OnlineCitrix Online division

Product information: www.gotomeeting.com/corp

Sales inquiries:gotomeeting@citrixonline.comPhone: 1-800-372-6207+1-805-690-2340

Media inquiries: pr@citrixonline.com Phone: +1-805-690-2969

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For more information on Citrix GoToMeeting Corporate, visit www.gotomeeting.com/corp

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About Citrix Online

Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone. Whether using GoToMyPC® to access and work on a remote PC, GoToAssist® to support customers or GoToMeeting® to hold online meetings and Webinars, our customers – more than 35,000 businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals – are increasing productivity, decreasing travel costs and improving sales, training and service on a global basis. A division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), Citrix Online is based in Santa Barbara, California. For more information, visit www.citrixonline.com or call 805-690-6400.

©2008 Citrix Online, LLC. All rights reserved. Citrix® is a registered trademark of Citrix Systems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. GoToMyPC®, GoToAssist® and GoToMeeting® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Online, LLC, in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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