Any drawbacks?
Selling virtually certainly comes with a few disadvantages. Let’s look at them and discuss how they can be best mitigated.
Potential lack of feet on the ground
So here we’re of course talking about the lack of physical presence in a particular country or geographical area. For example, your SaaS company is based in the US and you are selling to Singapore. In that scenario, you could be prospecting and your prospect says ‘let’s meet for a coffee at 9am on Tuesday’. This is not really something that’s feasible for you. What can you do in such situation?
One of the ways to do so is to organise occasional travel to the places you normally sell virtually into. The key here is to try to make the most of such travel, keep in mind other prospects, existing customers, and of course channel partners.
Speaking of channel partners, that is another way how you can mitigate your lack of feet on the ground in a particular market: working with partners who have offices and people in those markets that you sell remotely into.
Limited ability to develop and maintain relationships
If you’re used to fostering your relationships with key partners and customers through things like events, lunches, drinks, etc. you might struggle a bit if your main way of communicating with these parties is now virtual.
There are a few things you can do here. Firstly, double down on the reason for the relationship in the first place. If your partner works with you because you bring them leads, they might enjoy that you’ll take them to lunch, but aren’t likely to keep working with you if you consistently don’t deliver on your leads. If you are doing a superb job for them leads-wise, however, they’ll want to keep working with you even if you can’t buy them drinks on a weekly or monthly basis.
Additionally, there is a lot that can be done virtually in terms of fun/relationship building if a bit of creativity and budget is approved. With budget, it is also extremely important to spend on your partners and customers; sending something nice their way, especially at key partnership milestones and events, can be a great way to show your appreciation and grow the relationship.
Collaboration
This disadvantage as well as the next one apply mainly to SaaS professionals who are not only selling virtually, but also work in a remote/distributed employee type of setting within their own organisation.
In such environment, collaboration can be challenging. What’s crucial here to mitigate this challenge is to ensure you have the right remote collaboration software tools as well as leader(s) who have experience with leading remote teams and fostering remote collaboration.
Mental health
Selling virtually, especially if coupled a lack of human interaction within your organisation, can certainly take a toll on anyone if not managed properly. Therefore, we’d strongly advise any organisation to set up their remote employees with best mental health practices in mind as well as have all the resources required if any mental health assistance is required.