SalesVPI

Watching Webex Webinar on Sales 2.0 Enabled Business

Do you want to see a fantastic topic mangled by inept programming?

Webex Sales2.0 Webinar

Two major points to be made about this webinar:

1) The ideas behind Sales 2.0 are very important for sales professionals and have important implications for the suppot marketing can provide sales

2) This is a classic example of many of the problems with the way webinars are run today

The Sales 2.0 topic will be covered extensively over the next few months.

Let's look at the bigger implications raised by the production issues with this webinar.

We are all going to be incredibly challenged to master communication principles and practices in this new era of web and multimedia communications.

For over 15 years I've been declaring the coming role of the "new producers". People on the front line of business in sales, sales support, marketing, even the executive ranks who will be producing the equivalent of TV or video programs. Well folks, here we are. It's called the webinar.

When communicating through the web, we have to rely on our visuals, our voice and our messages. It's a a completely different experience from live delivery for both presenters and audiences.

While many are challenged to deliver effective live presentations, this medium really ups the ante.

If we don't learn to produce quality programming, we'll kill our opportunities, our brand and ultimately our businesses as we turn off viewers and mangle our messages. If you thought controlling these things in the era of PowerPoint was a challenge, get ready for a multimedia nightmare!

But to not learn and master the effective production of multimedia programming as a marketing or sales professional is to put yourself and your organization at a competitive disadvantage. If you're not working your way -- and your organization's way -- up this learning curve, best get started.

A Few Observations

• A lot of learning about what not to do can be taken from this program:
• Get the audio levels correct before you start the program -- poor audio levels are both distracting and unprofessional
• Have a clear communication paradigm -- is this a monologue by two independent speakers, a phone conversation we're listening in on, or a presentation of ideas?
• Eliminate off the cuff ramblings -- stay focused on a tight outline if not a script
• Structure the program -- the end slides did a better job of explaining what Sales 2.0 is and why I should care, they should have been at the beginning.
• Have slides support commentary -- don't talk for more than a minute on one slide, and certainly not for 12 minutes on slide 1 and 6 minutes on slide 2
• Design the program -- especially when there are multiple speakers, each should know what the other will say and the parameters of the program

A Few Ideas

• A talk show is a lousy communication paradigm -- especially for business webinars. I'm not coming to this program just to be entertained, but to be informed, to learn something.
• I listen at 200 words-per-minute (wpm), but you speak at 100 wpm. Keep it moving! I've got a lot of other things to do. According to Wikipedia:
  • 150-160 words per minute, is the range that people comfortably hear words. Slide presentations tend to be closer to 100 wpm. Conversations are maintained at around 200 wpm.  Wikipedia WPM
• We've all grown up learning how to deliver live presentations. In live presentations we minimize the use of visuals, to avoid "blazing PowerPoints". "You are the message" Roger Ailes has told us.
• But on-line, multimedia communications are a different medium, a different experience. I think we're closer to Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message."  What did McLuhan mean?
• Most of us have little, if any, training or experience producing TV or video programs. We need to get some, and work with people who do have this experience, to come up the learning curve quickly, and to avoid mangling our opportunities.
• Rather than using a presentation paradigm when preparing a webinar, I suggest a "virtual video" paradigm. Video was originally 30 frames per second, that is, 30 pictures per second. Turns out, for most applications, you really don't need 30 fps. One picture every 10 to 60 seconds will do. In this medium more is better. Changing pictures engage people's attention. It will also force you to create better visuals. Because we don't see the presenter, all we have are the visuals. The user experience from this medium is akin to watching a video than a presentation.
• Make it easy for me to know where you are in your program, where you are going, and how long it will take you to get there. I am constantly considering my option to discontinue viewing. If you move to an uninteresting or irrelevant topic for me, how will I know it's worth staying?
• Think in terms of "series", as in TV series. Think also of your personal brand as a program host or expert. Are you creating an experience that will have me prioritize you and your programs in my future, limited time inventory?

Watch the webinar. There is good content embedded, and the lessons for producing webinars might be more evident through this experience than through a more professional program.

New Approach to Web and Multimedia Communications

Most new technology is first applied in pretty traditional ways. TV programs were first created by recording live stage plays. Computers were used as advanced calculating machines, then as electronic typewriters. And today, web and multimedia communications are predominantly electronic mail, website and presentation formats.

Asking: "given my business and how I market and sell, how should I use web and multimedia communications?" is fundamentally the wrong question. But that's the approach most customers and vendors have taken today. "Get Webex and cut down your sales travel, have more meetings."

A more helpful question is: "Given web and multimedia communications technologies, how should I be marketing and selling?"

Multimedia technologies were first applied in the corporate space in the learning organizations (e-learning) and then in marketing as short video clips on websites, or webinars for internal, customer and prospect communications.

Despite Webex and others spending millions to promote the use of live, synchronous web communication technologies, in the selling domain, adoption is still in its infancy. Often the initial experiences are under-whelming, below expectations set by vendors. To date there has been little education around best practices beyond how to use the functions of the tools. I'm hard pressed to name a "whole solution" provider, in the Geoffrey Moore sense.

Breakthrough comes when we re-engineer the process before we apply the new technology.

How have you changed the way you sell by using web and multimedia communications, beyond putting your transactional sales online as online catalogs?

How have you changed the way marketing support sales with new processes and content to support the use of these new technologies?

Are you looking at these as limited tactical tools providing efficiency benefits, or as strategic applications that can fundamentally alter selling, customer engagement and competitive advantage factors? I'm thinking of ways to make it the latter.

Why Sales VPI?

Why Sales VPI? Many years ago I was accused of being a "veritable plethora of information," as a result of a habit of reading and filing insights on my topics of interest.

The label has stuck. I apply my peculiarity to tracking information and insights on the topics of selling, business communications and marketing. I am especially interested in the topic of professional "solution selling", aka consultative selling, or the complex sale.

In addition to capturing, sharing and commenting on these insights, I will add my voice to  ideas about new ways to sell by leveraging the communication power of multimedia and the delivery power of the web.

In 1994 I started a company which today is called Avitage, to develop, refine and implement many of these ideas. This has been my workshop. The resulting system, production services and processes are due to the innovation and input of many employees and customers.

Our company has embraced a larger purpose: to revolutionize the complex, business-to-business sale through innovative communications.

Innovative communications involve new processes by which the front line -- sales, sales support, marketing, training, "even executives" -- produce multimedia shows that are tailored to the particular interests of each intended audience. These shows are delivered using the preferred delivery method of each audience. These processes enable mass customization and personalization of multimedia shows.

Our approach is very different from the "tools" approach typically offered. Tools are a good way to start and are fine for tool users. But front line communicators really don't have the time, desire, or expertise for a tools approach.

Our criteria demonstrates why the tools approach is problematic. We want:

• Quality communications, that are
• Rapidly (instantly) developed, at
• Low (zero marginal) cost (time, effort & dollars)

Our company strives to create a competitive advantage for our customers through innovative communications. This impacts individual and group productivity, through new methods for acquiring and sharing knowledge, new processes for building, managing and deploying content, especially multimedia content, and new approaches for delivering messages and content.

This is a fascinating journey filled with great possibilities and some remarkable accomplishments. As Tony Robbins has said, "if life is worth living, it's worth recording." I invite you to join me. Check in now and then and see what we're learning about selling, business communications, marketing, ourselves, and maybe even about life.

Competitive Advantage Through Sales Communications

Selling is fundamentally a communications profession. But sales professionals, while personable, engaging and energetic, are often poor communicators. Reference the aphorism: "tellin' ain't sellin'".

In companies that are changing their selling model from sales as product providers to sales as consultative, solution specialists, the level of communication profeciency will have to be significantly higher.

This selling model requires superior listening, questioning, messaging, speaking, writing, and soon, production skills. But communications is more often associated with marketing -- as in marcom -- or marketing communications.

What are the implications for sales and marketing organizations, as well as individual sales professionals?

We have customers who's primary business strategy is to "out articulate the competition". For them, the conversations their sales people conduct with customers are THE basis for their competitive advantage.

If you consciously thought about sales communications as the basis for your corporate competitive advantage, what impact might it have on your business? What actions would it drive? What behavior changes would it require?

This blog will investigate how innovative communications can help in the execution of the complex sale, and what is required to make that possible.