web conference – webinars

David CJ Jones asked:




The advent of the Internet has caused many ripples in the sales world, one of the major ones being sales conferencing. This is a method of conducting a sales presentation or sales demo using the Internet for the visual portion of the presentation over the Internet and the audio over the phone or the Internet.

Benefits to Sales Conferencing

There are many advantages that companies have found in doing sales conferencing for their sales presentations. The major one is the cost savings that comes with replacing traveling for in person meetings with this video conferencing sales method. A typical sales trip can cost anywhere from $500 – $1,000 per day with airfare, car rental, hotel room and dining as well as any other additional costs like parking and other amenities. The cost savings can be very significant if sales reps are required to take multiple sales trips per month.

Another great benefit to web sales conferencing is being able to do more sales presentations in a short amount of time. A typical sales trip maybe able to get in 3-5 sales presentations per day if the sales rep is efficient and packs his day in. By using this video conferencing sales method, you can drastically increase the number of sales presentations that you can do. Some sales reps are able to do sales conferencing sessions every hour if there are able to get attendees on.

One of the great challenges to doing web sales conferencing is that you lose a bit of that personal touch that comes with seeing someone face to face in their office. But many companies have found that the increase quantity of sales presentations they can do, even with a lower conversion rate, still increases their sales and revenue. And because you’re saving considerably on the traveling costs, there is a much higher return on investment even if the conversion rate is lower.

In addition, many companies still incorporate traveling as part of their sales model, but they use the sales conferencing method to qualify their prospects and warm up their prospects. If you do a sales presentation over a web sales conferencing webinar first before you see them face to face, it will dramatically increase the effectiveness of that in person meeting. The propsects will already get a good sense of what the product or service is like. Now you can just focus on them and how your company can help your prospect.

If a prospect as agreed to a in person meeting after they’ve already attended a sales conferencing session, it is more likely that they really need the product. I can’t say how many times I’ve gone to see a propsect only to find that they don’t really need our company’s services. It’s usually something I couldn’t have known from a cold call, but could have discovered during a sales presentation on a sales conference call.

How to Overcome Challenges

One of the greatest challenges in using the sales conferencing method is that the attendance rate goes down drastically. When some schedules an in person meeting, it is almost 90% certain that the person will attend, mainly because you’re going to their office with an appointment. People are more likely to keep a face to face meeting.

Sales conferencing is a bit different as you can imagine. Prospects who schedule a webinar will be a lot less likely to remember the appointment and a lot less likely to show up. Most companies using this method has discovered this problem and have take steps to overcome them.

The best and most simple way to overcome the attendance rate problem is to merely do a reminder and confirmation call. When the prospect is scheduled for a morning sales conferencing webinar, the sales rep should call them the afternoon before. If the webinar is on an afternoon, the sales rep should call that morning to remind them. I’ve seen companies’ attendence rate increase from 30% to 70% using this method.

The other challenge of course is the lack of personal touch and interaction. Again, you’ll find that this loss will be made up for more than enough by your number of conversions. Additionally, you can always choose to go see them at any point. Studies have shown that most sales are closed with 7 sales calls. It’s a more effective if you use web sales conferencing for one of those calls than to go see them each time or merely give a phone call.

Sales Conferencing Services

There are many great companies that offer video conferencing sales services. Webex and Go To Meeting are two good companies that I’ve used before. I won’t say how much I paid because their rates probably change with new technologies and changes in the market. Needless to say, their services are relatively cheap if you compare them with travel costs to see a prospect in person.

Marcia