Is it doable?
Is it possible to sell to large enterprise customers remotely/virtually? Yes! In this article, we will discuss how to do it and what to be mindful of.
Qualifying
It is always so exciting when you uncover a potentially very large deal. As with any deal though, you will have to qualify pretty hard. With large enterprise size deals, this is even more important. You really need to make sure that there aren’t any compliance issues that will be holding you back. Some examples would be prospect requirements regarding the location of your data centre or a transacting entity. I have seen way too many sales professionals jump into deals and working the entire sales cycle, just to not be able to win the deal down the road because of a compliance requirement.
Knowing your value and your competition
It’s very important you are aware of your unique value to the enterprise prospect over your competition. If you’re going to handle the sales cycle virtually, you might be going against competitors with much stronger on-the-ground resources than you. It’s very important that it’s clear to you, and subsequently the customer, what makes you so unique that they should go with you as opposed to these competitors. It will also be of great benefit to you if you are knowledgeable about the competition, and as a result, articulate your unique value in a way that addresses the competitive landscape of your deal.
Anticipate the objections to remote presence
I’ve often experienced it where even though there were no problems with handling a large enterprise deal remotely initially, I had to deal with objections regarding remote presence down the sales cycle. 90% of the time, these came down to trust. You need to prepare for these in advance and have a strategy to address these objections. I found the ability to talk to your existing, happy customers to be very powerful here. Also, I discovered that sometimes it’s not so much about you being remote, but potentially about remote implementation delivery. Always be ready to address that and potentially give the option for in-person delivery if that’s possible with your organisation/your partner network.
Leverage partners
On-the-ground partners can be of huge help when handling a large enterprise customer sales cycle. They can often help with the mentioned important compliance issues like a local transacting entity. Partners can also help with things like relationship building, supplementary services that complete your offering, etc. It is highly recommended that you’re not trying to tackle the large enterprise deals on your own but look to potentially involve a trusted partner or even multiple partners depending on the scope of the opportunity.