Virtual Sales Meetings: 6 Ways to Train Your Sales Teams to Grow Revenue

If your sales team is consistently booking virtual sales calls and demos, yet you see the same appalling results — something is definitely wrong.

Let’s be honest: cracking the code of converting prospects during virtual sales meetings is not easy.

In fact, a survey conducted by Rain Group confirms that 91% of sales reps find it challenging to gain а buyer’s attention and keep buyer engagement virtually.

A good sales manager knows the strengths and weaknesses of their sales team.

And to be a great remote sales manager, you need to know how to get the most out of your sales team.

In this article, we’ll teach you the exact virtual sales ideas and techniques that our sales team at 3veta has applied to enable the growth of our remote-first company.

6 virtual sales meeting activities to grow your company’s revenue

Imagine each sales rep has a target of closing 50 new prospects per month and only 60% of your sales team meets the target.

The results are shocking.

This is a big problem when your monthly goal is to get 250 new customers. Out of 5 sales reps, 3 are closing only 30 prospects.

If you do your maths right, the sales reps, in this scenario, close 190 prospects. Clearly, your sales team is not able to meet the set monthly target you have set. And it’s leading to a bigger problem—reduced revenue flow.

As a remote sales manager, you need to find a solution. Execute these six virtual sales meeting ideas in your team discussions.

Make sales reps contribute

The bigger problem with your sales team: they are focusing on hitting the targets without educating themselves on how to meet these targets.

This happens because of a lack of information on how to do it. So, feed the sales reps with relevant information to find new ways of selling while working from home.

When you enable your sales team to come up with innovative ideas, they are making efforts to improve their ongoing performance and increase the chances of converting the prospects virtually.

A simple way to get started: come up with the concept during an online team meeting, ask the sales reps to come up with a few ideas, and give feedback.

Here are a few ways to suggest ideas:

• Initiate a brainstorming session and share your input—e.g., “how to make prospecting emails engaging”
• Ask them to do their research and come up with resources and then discuss the discovered strategies—e.g., a case study that reflects actionable selling strategies
• Ask your sales teams to research and create templates to improve their virtual selling skills, discuss them and collect feedback to finalize them—e.g., taking inspiration from bigger brands like Hubspot to create a sales meeting playbook to close more deals

Involve the sales reps in your sales process

Involving your virtual sales team in the entire process—from pre-sales to client onboarding—motivates them to work.

It’s important for sales reps to see the practical work in action—they’ll learn prompt ways to improve their skills and understand the loopholes in their virtual selling process.

This also instigates a sense of ownership in your sales reps in every task they perform.

Here are two approaches to achieve this:

Approach 1: Let your reps lead a section of the team meeting every week

Assign your sales reps one task every meeting. For example:

• Meeting 1, Member 1 – share their week’s best deal.
• Meeting 2, Member 2 – give an update on the sales pipeline.
• Meeting 3, Member 3 – share one strategy they learned.

Approach 2: Assign problems in groups and seek solutions

Divide your sales teams into smaller groups and assign every group a specific problem/idea to discuss. Ask them to brainstorm and share their solutions, and give detailed feedback.

Use 3veta’s breakout rooms to allow your sales reps (in groups) to brainstorm and discuss the solution.

Once each group is done with the brainstorming session, ask them to present their ideas in the meeting room and give feedback.

Lead teams with inclusive decisions

Incorporating new ideas from your sales reps is the foundation of an inclusive environment. 48% of senior executives strongly agree that diversity and inclusivity in a company’s workforce are crucial to innovation.

Here’s how you can make inclusive decisions involving your sales team:

Approach 1: Ask your team to note down their ideas

When you assign a topic, allow your reps to jot down their ideas on sticky pads. Once done, let them share their ideas with the team.

Note the similarities between your team members’ answers and translate them into a cohesive solution.

Approach 2: Encourage a vote

Your team members may have different opinions on the new idea or strategy you shared. So, how can you deal with this?

Your best option: Create a poll and ask your sales reps to vote. Give your team 4 to 5 options to choose from.

When you conduct an online meeting with your sales team with 3veta, you’ll see the option to create a poll and share it with your team members to take their vote.

How to do it: start the video call with 3veta → open the chat box → click on Polls → select create a poll → enter the question and options → click on Send.

Have sales roleplays

A sales roleplay helps your reps learn and practice sales enablement content and prepare for unexpected meeting situations.

When you enact the sales conversations during such situations, your sales team watches the experience in action and learns on the go. With every play, you allow your sales reps to learn new skills and implement them in online sales meetings.

For example, Toolfetch shares a tweet where their CEO consistently dedicates an hour to roleplays with their sales team.

Here’s how you can do roleplays with your sales team:

Step #1: Enact pitches

Show sales reps how to deal with argumentative prospects and advance the conversation by enacting a scenario with a fellow sales leader or team member.

Once you deliver the pitch, ask your sales reps to share what they’ve learned and feedback.

Step #2: Assign roleplays to your team

Divide your sales reps into teams of 2 and assign each team a scenario to enact.

When they enact the pitch, listen to their conversation and take notes to give them feedback later.

Step #3: Ask the reps to share scary sales stories

Invite your sales reps to share their scary experiences with prospects. Listen to their stories and then share a tip or two on what they could have done better. This does two things:

• Your reps will know what exactly can go wrong in prospect meetings, and
• Your sales team will learn how to deal with similar situations.

Invite subject matter experts to share expertise

Your sales reps know about the product very well, no doubt.

But they might not be well-versed in different industries.

That’s where inviting subject matter experts to share their knowledge with your sales team comes in.

With insights from SMEs, your sales team can seal the deal with the right tactics and subject intelligence required to convince the prospect.

For example, you sell a mental health tracker, and the sales team knows how it helps people keep their mental health in check. But they might not know the science behind mental health monitoring and why it should not be ignored

That’s where healthcare SMEs come in.

They can share their knowledge on mental health and illnesses, which helps the sales reps address the exact pain points of their prospects with your product.

Provide support and training

Your sales team needs continuous upskilling to keep up with the existing trends and evolving prospect demands.

To help them achieve this, ensure they have learning arsenals.

Three ways to do this:

• schedule monthly online training—e.g., webinars, SME sessions, and virtual ride-along
• provide training material—e.g., sales enablement content, books, courses
• sponsor courses—pay for the courses and training your reps are interested in

Take a peek at this LinkedIn post by Geoffrey B., the CEO, and owner of Reflex Mediagroup who sponsored a MasterClass training to help his sales reps upskill. The best part: he attends the training with his team.

While providing continuous training sessions helps your sales team upskill, they still need your support and motivation to perform well.

Keep checking on your virtual team members to understand their challenges and provide feedback so they stay motivated and scale their performance throughout their journey with your organization.

3 virtual selling best practices from experts

Here are three best practices that experts preach and your sales team can use next time they go virtual to conduct a meeting with the prospect.

Send virtual sales meeting agenda

A virtual sales meeting agenda keeps the sales rep and the prospect on track with clear expectations.

Sam Feldotto, Chief Revenue Officer at SalesHive, has shared how impactful sending a meeting agenda can be:

“The most impactful change we’ve made as a Sales team has been to set a basic agenda for the meeting, include it on the calendar invite, and send a confirmation email to the prospect the morning of the meeting reminding them of the agenda.”

By making these simple changes to their sales strategy, Sam notes, “Our show rate for meetings increased by 20%, which has converted to significantly more opportunities for our sales team and has been a major contributing factor to our 60% growth in new business revenue.”

Record the sales meetings

Recording a sales meeting allows your sales team to:

• refer to the meeting to take notes
• review prospect concerns and use them in future conversations
• improve communication skills
• find out ways to improve the next meeting

Cayla Thurman, the Business Reputation Consultant at Rize Reviews, agrees on the importance of recording and reviewing the sales meetings too:

“One routine to get more beneficial at conducting virtual sales meetings is to record yourself and then review the tape.

By studying your arrangement after every virtual sales meeting, you can continuously find paths to make the following one sufficiently.”

Most sales teams rely on Zoom for conducting sales meetings, but there’s a drawback—it doesn’t let you download the recorded meeting and review it later.

When sales reps conduct and record a video meeting with 3veta, the meeting is automatically transcribed. And they have two options: to download the recording directly to their PC and save the recording on the cloud.

Conduct prospect research

Before you get on a virtual sales call with your prospect, it’s important to know the ins and outs of their company, and the pain points they are struggling with, and then offer them the right solution with your offer.

Sales Readiness Group CEO Ray Makela emphasizes the importance of prospect research and how it contributes to relationship building too.

He says, “I think the age-old relationship building, rapport building, really doing our research and understanding that person and the organization and making that connection, finding a way that we can demonstrate our expertise and show trust.”

Some best practices to conduct prospect research:

• Check out their company website and study their products and offerings
• Go through their company’s social channels and find more information about their brand and achievements
• Check the prospect’s social media accounts—LinkedIn and Twitter to know them better

What’s one mistake you should avoid while doing a virtual sales meeting?

Simple answer: focusing on creating presentations.

Virtual sellers prioritize presentations so much that they forget the importance of the natural conversation required to make a decision. Even the prospect gets distracted by the heavy animations and visuals.

Result: the primary goal of the meeting is sidelined.

So, to avoid this blunder and use presentations effectively:

• Showcase what you want to explain—use a whiteboard for illustration or show the product in action
• Keep your presentations minimal

How to follow up virtually after your sales meeting?

The art of following up with your prospects is a must-have virtual meeting etiquette.

In fact, 80% of sales need 5 follow-ups, and 60% of people reject your pitch 4 times before signing up for your product or service.

Approach 1: Share meeting notes with your prospect

Review the recorded meeting and highlight the prospect’s exact words they used during the meeting. and use them to make a point (position your solution).

Approach 2: Add a clip of the meeting to the email

Use the recording to create a bite-sized video that captures meeting highlights. And in your follow-up email, say:

“Joe, We had a great conversation. Our discussion touched on these three points, and I look forward to sending you the proposal tomorrow.”

Conduct virtual sales meetings with a bang!

The “perfect ingredient” to spice up your virtual sales meeting is a balanced combination of selling skills and using technology.

Your selling skills set the stage, and the right technology—the virtual meeting platform—helps you close the deal.

So, invest in a platform that aids you throughout your sales cycle—from sending a prospecting mail to onboarding a client.

And what better than 3veta to smash your sales goals?! Sign up for a free trial today.

About the author

Nidhi Kala

Freelance SaaS Writer at Nidhi Kala

Nidhi Kala is a freelance writer for B2B SaaS brands in marketing, HR, and eCommerce. When she's not writing, her artistic mind is buried in creating a new journaling spread or exploring calligraphy scripts. Connect with her on LinkedIn.