The business landscape has shifted toward digital communication big time over the last few years. Video calls, email campaigns, and social media outreach are expected as part of any sales professional’s toolkit. Ironically, at the same time, sellers in companies that still prioritize face-to-face interactions are significantly more likely to close.
34% of deals closed from in-person meetings compared to virtual meetings, according to recent research findings. This is not necessarily a refusal to adapt, but rather a respected, psychological and practical approach to how us human beings respond better to a face-to-face business transaction.
Psychological and Practical Reasons
When people meet each other in person, there is something to be said about body language composing upwards of 55% of communication alongside tone of voice composing 38% – meaning only 7% comes through actual words. Digitally, so much of this bandwidth is lost that it’s impossible to get the real-time read on client reactions needed.
It’s also important to note that trust is formed almost instantaneously – in seconds – according to Harvard Business School, with higher rated accuracy when these assessments are in person compared to digital forms.
From an attention standpoint, in a virtual meeting, someone is distracted by notes, emails or a notification 67% of the time; however, in-person, it’s much easier to mitigate against distractions and ensure that every minute counts toward building rapport and moving the deal forward.
Digital Utilization for Simple Transactions
The efficacy of digital communications works for simple transactions and routine check-ins. With B2B sales often constructed from many decision-makers and complicated solutions, digital interactions fail.
The problem lies in nuance. Digital interactions fail at providing limited feedback opportunities. Unexpectedly come upon objections cannot be adjusted upon without causing additional problems in a video call setting. Presentations given on-demand have a narrow bandwidth which ultimately loses critical information.
For example, if someone leans back in their chair or glances sideways toward another team member during a presentation, a keen salesperson picks up on those subtle, micro-expressions; however, digital formats miss out on any body language cues that could drastically change the interaction’s trajectory.
Companies Who Get Creative
Companies who understand these dynamics don’t want to waste their time or efforts without going the extra mile. Instead of face-to-face meetings as an option, many companies are facilitating events that bring multiple prospects together for professional engagement.
Establishing such events as truly value-added opportunities, instead of ‘data dump’ experiences, work best. Through seminars or roundtable discussions or even expert panels, proactive engagements with multiple parties naturally help build rapport while simultaneously offering preliminary value to attendees.
When companies want to plan these business solutions as strategic events, they often turn to external platforms for professionalism and facilitated efficiency. Services like Loopyah – and other similar platforms – work with companies who want to professionally handle logistics so that sales professionals don’t get bogged down with minutiae that distracts from their value of relationship building.
Benefits of Planned Touchpoints
The benefit of such pre-planned meetings is that they have multiple touchpoints all in one. Prospects get engaged and exposed with multiple team members interested in showing company culture alongside multiple discussions in which they are immediate participants.
They can’t escape being sold while building a relationship that makes sense for them since they are in one place for a prolonged period with other like-minded individuals – often being swayed by the professional environment and shared experience.
When Digital Makes Sense
However, this does not mean that there is no time for digital engagement ever again. Smart companies utilize digital channels for smaller conversations and transitions and understand when they make more sense as a return-on-investment option.
Digital channels work for day-to-day account maintenance or smaller transactions for initial outreach or telecheck-in efforts – as they’re more cost effective and time efficient than accessing everyone in one place simultaneously.
Yet companies know it’s time for in-person engagement when the deal size warrants it; when multiple stakeholders need access; or when deeper trust-building is warranted.
From an account maintenance perspective or minor transaction viewpoint, digital provides a means of returning the most ROI possible. However, from a new client acquisition perspective or complicated solutions viewpoint or bigger ticket closing potential, face-to-face interactions are guaranteed to be more effective than digital ones.
The Cost People Don’t Want To Talk About
Yet companies everywhere want to talk about the cost of going the in-person-only route – the dollars behind the travel, the venue acquisition and time away from the office; however, they fail to talk about the hidden costs of being digital only.
Conversion rates drop and companies need more prospects to achieve the same revenue goals. Sales cycles are longer since trust-building takes longer going digital versus in-person. Deal sizes drop since the relationship isn’t quite there yet.
When all these figures add up effectively, then the true cost of being digital-only comes into play – companies may save money on travels or events but on missed opportunities and compromised deal sizes, they lose exponentially more than they could have saved.
The Investment Decision
It’s not a binary conversation; those who can make it investment versus non-investment only often suffer significant losses. Companies who can identify systematic processes to incorporate how digital tools offer efficiency while face-to-face meetings offer maximized impact thrive.
Perhaps it’s using video calls to assess interest level before flying into final presentations; perhaps it’s quarterly company events for existing clients who still need routine engagement while meeting on a more proximate basis digitally – whatever it is, successful companies learn how human connection can make the difference between losing or winning a deal.
Companies invest where they see fit; what’s critical is knowing that some relationships – and some deals – require the full bandwidth of human effort.
Smart sales organizations keep track of conversion rates based on engagement type and adjust accordingly; however, research shows consistently enough that while digital tools provide necessary means for efficiency it’s still face-to-face interaction that trumps any effort without maximizing benefits necessary for trust-building relationships that yield serious business impact (or interpersonal impact).
