I was recently working with Agnes* who is a leadership communications consultant. She had a large proposal to work with an organisation and really wanted the decision makers to see that she was the right person to help them. As part of her sales communication, Agnes usually submitted a written proposal. But here she was concerned that there were people involved in the process that she may not get to have a conversation with and she didn’t want to lose the opportunity.

What she was undervaluing was her humanness. She is not only super smart but warm, humorous, friendly. This gives a buyer a real sense of human connection and the essence that Agnes brings to get the most out of their people. It’s not just the proposal that needs to show the return on investment (ROI). It’s also the ‘how will she make our people feel and therefore transform?’ ROI.

Humanising Your Sales Communication

Agnes needed to recognise and embrace the human element in her sales communication. So, working together we talked about:

• Who might her audience be?

• What message did she most want them to hear?

• How could she recreate the experience of being with her in person?

• What did she want them to do next?

Research shows that only 17% of the time spent selling to an organisation is in the sales meeting itself. It’s so easy to over-value the sales meeting and undervalue all the other connection points that create key influential moments related to the decision on working with you.

Interestingly, almost 30% of the client’s overall time in the sales process is researching independently online (whether it’s part of the search to find suppliers or to do a more comparative analysis of the supplier against others).

Equally, another 22% of that time is spent meeting with the buying group. This is usually around five to seven other people. And another 18% of the time finding and deciding on a supplier is researching independently offline. This can often mean asking around networks to find out what others in the industry have worked with and therefore trust.

So, what does all this mean?

The Importance of Your Sales Collateral

Well, you need to ensure you have collateral talking for you if you’re not in the room. Whilst we might think we’re just formalising what we’re talking about in the sales meeting, your collateral moves through the organisation. In Agnes’ case, she tracked a video she created as part of the sales collateral and it was viewed 27 times!

Now whilst you might wonder if that number is actually high or low — it turned out to be fantastic because she closed her sale with the buyers’ commenting, ‘we loved your video. Thank you for taking the time to create it!’.

Questions

Some key questions to ask yourself include:

1.     Are you including video as part of the post meeting sales communication?
2.     Do you have videos that are search engine optimised on your website or YouTube?
3.     Are you staying visible daily on social platforms to stay top of mind for referrals?

As the one and only, Gary Vaynerchuk says, ‘We are living at the beginning of the humanisation of business’, and I reckon he’s right.

*Agnes is not her real name but used for this article to maintain confidentiality.