In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are spending our days working from home. Clearly we’re missing face-to-face meetings with colleagues, customers and suppliers. But with that comes a unique gift – additional time. For sales reps in our industry that can mean no more long commutes or frustrating traffic snarls or spending time in the lobby checking email while waiting for customers to fit you in.
So with this extra time comes the opportunity to sit back, take a breath and figure out ways to maximize these challenging times and learn some new skills.
And to practice what I’m preaching – I spent a fascinating hour on a webinar hosted and shared with the full label industry by Flexo Label Advantage Group (FLAG). I was intrigued by the title “Keys for Connecting and Selling in a Digital World.”
The webinar was led by Ryan Jenkins – an internationally-recognized keynote speaker and a generations expert. Ryan helps organizations gain clarity around Millennials and Generation Z so professionals can effectively work and lead across generations. He has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal.
Ryan’s presentation focused on digital disruption – what’s changing and why and he then provided some handy strategies and tools. Here are a few highlights/key takeaways from his presentation:
- Technology is changing everything about business – including company structure, information flow, leadership approach and roles and responsibilities. These changes impact now provide us with abundant access to connectivity, opportunities, capital, products & services, travel and transportation and tools.
- Each generation has varying preferences for communication. For example boomers tend to be formal and direct and prefer face-to-face, phone and email while at the other end of the spectrum Gen Z are transparent and highly visual and communicate via text, Snapchat, FaceTime, WhatsApp and TikTok. Gen X is bottom line and product focused preferring phone and email, while millennials are social proof and go for online, social media and mobile. Really makes you wonder if you’re using the right tools to connect with customers, prospects and potential employees. And are you selling in a way that corresponds to your target audience’s buying preference?
Ryan’s six strategies were really useful:
1. Defer your communications – use generations as clue and make sure all your communications are mobile.
Check out Canvas – world’s first text-based interviewing platform.
2. Mirror your communications – respond to communications using the same channel in which it was received.
Don’t try and force a phone call if you received a text.
3. Clarify the emotional intent of a digital message.
Use emojis to ensure negative biases don’t hijack the intended meaning. Check out emojipedia.org to find the right emoji.
4. Use video to engage buyers
Help buyers visualize themselves working with you and/or purchasing your product/service.
5. Enhance the buyer experience.
Discover ways that technology can create a more effortless and seamless experience for your customers.
6. Position yourself as the authority.
Create content that differentiates you, and answers top 5 burning questions in the mind of your buyer. Write a LinkedIn article, create an infographic or make a YouTube video.
Lastly, Ryan suggested some great digital selling tool to help execute these strategies:
A: BombBomb Video – email plugin that allows for quickly and adding video to any message.
B: Calendly – appointment scheduling software that makes scheduling meetings effortless.
C: Boomerang for Gmail – email plugin that allows you to send later, track responses and use AI to write better emails
D: RocketReach – plugin that allows you to find email addresses from anyone with a LinkedIn account
Closing out – my favorite quote of the seminar:
Keep learning folks. See you on the other side!
*Full disclosure – FLAG is one of our LPC clients. The full webinar was recorded and available for viewing through May 31, 2020 at https://flexolabeladvantagegroup.com/events/
Ryan can be reached at ryan@ryan-jenkins.com or follow him on Twitter @theryanjenks