What’s the most embarrassing moment you’ve ever had as a virtual sales team? If it hasn’t happened yet, it will soon. Research by McKinsey recently found that 71% of revenue at the average B2B company is now driven by virtual activities, and it’s not going away. Buyers are increasingly choosing digital or remote purchasing options.

Here are five common #virtualsalesteamproblems—and how to prevent them:

1. Name (Mis)Pronunciation

Have you ever pulled in your VP of sales to help close the deal, but they made it worse by completely butchering the prospect’s name? Mispronouncing someone’s moniker can be as offensive as using the wrong pronoun. Virtual calls have opened up the sales pipeline globally in both directions. Your coworkers, prospects, and even other sellers may be coming from anywhere in the world. Nothing can turn a prospect from hot to cold faster than feeling disrespected. That’s why we added autogenerated name pronunciations from Namecoach to the Warmly Zoom App, so you can instantly learn how to say it right—before or during your meeting.

2. A Forever Silent Prospect

Your sales team logs into a meeting. You have 30 minutes to impress the buyer, but first you have to go through a round of introductions. Everyone says their name, title, how long they’ve worked at the company, and basically gives a one-minute diatribe to prove that they’re a professional. At this point, you’re six minutes into a 30-minute meeting, and the prospect hasn’t even said a word.

You’ve just wasted a third of the customer’s time on something that isn’t meaningful! With Warmly, you can start the meeting with a suggested icebreaker to help you immediately connect on a warm note. You can also just say “Hey, my name is so-and-so, and you can learn more about my teammates in their Zoom backgrounds.” Goal: save time and get down to business.

3. Sorry, Wrong Zoom Chat

Have you ever tried to send an in-meeting Zoom Chat to your coworker, then realize three seconds later that the message was sent to everyone? Maybe it was a funny joke, or even something you thought your coworker should know about the customer to help seal the deal. Don’t risk it - stick to text or Slack for internal communication to coworkers.

4. “Where r u?”

Picture this: Your teammate is running late to the virtual meeting. You need to ping them, but also want the prospect to think they have your undivided attention. Most of the time when you head to Slack to say “WTF,” you just end up seeming distracted. Not a great look for a sales call. Thankfully, Warmly has a fix for this, too. With one click in the Zoom app, you can send a “Where are you?” message to your teammate, freeing you to focus on the customer while your teammate gets it together.

5. Cat Behind Ya

Have you ever showed up to a call and realized your background is still the meme you put on to make your friends laugh? Maybe you’re trying to talk to a prospect, but your coworker’s cat is running around behind them. The last thing you want is what’s happening in the back to distract from what—or who—is in front of you. This problem is easily solved by Warmly’s matching background feature. One person can upload an image, and it will automatically populate the backgrounds of everyone on your team. Bonus: your crew instantly looks unified and more professional.

Sales managers know that the best way to get a prospect to a ‘Yes’ is by building trust. Studies show that trustworthiness is essential to building strong relationships. There are three main ways that salespeople can build trust with prospects over Zoom:

1. Establish Credibility – That means not only the credibility of your company or your product, but also the credibility of the salesperson.
2. Forge Authenticity – Deeply understanding a person’s problems and reflecting it back to them is a powerful driver of an authentic connection. It also comes from a salesperson that is open, honest, and connects on a human-level with the prospect.
3. Finding Commonality – Your company may have worked with their competitors, and therefore understand their problems possibly better than they do. This principle is also about the people in the rooms finding commonalities around hobbies, location, weather, kids, and things of that nature.

In 2022, the sales email sequence is still the most effective way to generate leads and lay the foundation of trust for your brand. How effective is it? Even in 2019, before every corporate employee in the world was plugged in 24/7, the ROI on email marketing was 4,200%.

Your sales development representatives have worked hard to send the email sequences. Those email sequences work, whether it’s the fifth attempt or the 10th. At some point, one of your value propositions resonates with the prospect and brings them to the table.

Once the prospect is logged in, however, most sales team stop the slow drip of showing them all the different things your company can do. Instead, many sales teams word vomit everything the product can do in a hard-hitting sales pitch—to the point that it drives them away. Or they hyperfocus on the one thing the prospect responded to in the marketing process, ignoring all the other aspects that would actually help make the sale.

What if there was a way to keep up the automated email sequences—without the automated email sequences?

Top sellers today continue building trust beyond the email sequence and into the first meeting with a new concept we call “Automated Ambient Messaging.”

Automated Ambient Messaging

Say the company just completed its Series C. This is a huge vote of confidence from investors, and would tell prospective clients that your business has a track record of success. You could randomly throw it out during a sales meeting. Or you can have creative assets advertising this news automatically pop up in ordinary communication your sales team is already having with prospects in the buying cycle.

Warmly is a customer experience platform that helps VPs of Sales continue ambient messaging through previous touch points with prospects and clients: their email signatures, calendar invites, and Zoom backgrounds.

These messages will also appear alongside the individual touches of the salesperson like hobbies, location, and fun facts. All of a sudden, it’s not an ad, but a bonus of the relationship they’re building with the salesperson.

The outcome is that your sales team is building trust with prospects faster and more organically. That means shorter buying cycles, and increased sales because you are effectively conveying to prospects all the value that you can bring, one bite-sized chunk at a time.

Excited to see how? Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

1. Case Study – Do you know from experience that certain verticals respond strongly to case studies? An easy way to establish credibility with prospects is ending that follow-up email prospect with a QR code to the case study. Check out this QR code of a Case Study Gainsight did with Warmly!

2. Credentials – A great way to establish credibility is by sharing credentials on your Zoom background. Maybe your company has been rated great place to work, or your flagship software is rated highly on G2 Crowd. You can also use employee’s credentials, such as their school, degrees, years of experience in industry, or related certifications.

3. List Actual Benefits – For every industry you’re targeting, identify how you are solving problems for companies in those arenas. You can even have this information.

4. Title-based Value Props – Think about what value proposition would most resonate with the person you’re targeting. A Chief Data Officer would have different business priorities and pain points than, say, a Head of Digital.

5. Corporate Social Responsibility – If you’re meeting with a prospect or company known for being charitable, you can ambiently highlight things your own firm is doing. Maybe have the bio line in your Zoom background include that “We’re raising $8 million for Feeding America this year.”

6. Location – Having employees put their current location and local weather is an easy, no-effort way to both find commonality and forge authenticity. If you want to go even more granular, have employees list the places they have been and auto-match those with where the prospects are located. Now your entire sales team will have an immediate warm starting point for conversation.

7. Company Commonality – Imagine sticking an overlap of your company’s logo with the prospect company’s logo in every email, Calendar link, and Zoom meeting. Warmly is working on a ‘History of Partnership’ page that catalogues all the times your mutual companies have interacted including a log of meetings, and other shared similarities.

Over the last 20 years, software-as-a-service has all but eliminated companies buying software outright. No more slimy salesperson duping businesses into an expensive (and sticky!) installation, only to disappear when the check clears. These days, products have to complete a repeat sale cycle every time the customer is sent a bill for their subscription.

For a customer success manager at a SAAS company, relationships are currency. If a client is unhappy with the product, you want them to come to you early so you can fix it. The last thing you want is to hop on a regular business review with your boss and hear that the client is calling it quits. The more you get to know the stakeholders, and the deeper your relationship with them, the more likely they are to come to you with grievances in advance.

Before the pandemic, a customer success manager could ‘wine and dine’ clients to help build that bond. Now you have to build that relationship screen-to-screen instead of face-to-face. “Connecting to a Zoom call has never been easier, but connecting to a person has never been harder,” says Chief Customer Officer for AppsFlyer, Ziv Peled.

Some of the world’s best customer success managers have told us they’ve been using our Warmly Zoom app to turbocharge their meetings.

“Warmly is a superpower for CSMs on Zoom because it allows them to build deeper relationships,” says Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta. “Every customer success manager here uses it because we know it works.” Gainsight has currently partnered with Warmly to give all their subscribers free access to our enterprise software.

Here are a few ways top CSMs have told us how they use Warmly to build better relationships over Zoom.

Look omniscient.

Say you’re in a Quarterly Business Review on Zoom and the director ropes in a VP that you’ve never met before. All of a sudden, you’re dealing with a different stakeholder who may not share the same values, objectives, or even veto power as the person you originally planned to meet. Warmly can make a Customer Success Manager seem all-knowing by pulling up information on everybody in the meeting without even leaving Zoom. You’ll never scramble to secretly Google someone while talking to them—and risk looking distracted or disengaged.

Take note.

When you’re in back-to-back meetings handling dozens of clients, it can be hard to keep track of what you know about every single person. Customer success managers love that Warmly lets you take notes on your contacts and pops that information back up every time you meet with that person. You can use it for account-based notes, like feature requests, or to help you remember details specific to the stakeholder—think beloved pets or a touchpoint you share.

Show you’re on their team.

In a survey of 1,000 business professionals in April 2021, 73% said they are more likely to skip a second meeting with someone who wasn’t prepared for the first one. Among C-suite executives, it was 90%. You want to make sure clients know you’ve done your homework. As a CSM, you can look extra professional by having the customer’s logo over your shoulder in every meeting. For extra credit, use their company’s headquarters as your virtual background. Your job as a Customer Success Manager is aligning the client’s outcomes with your company’s. What better way to show them that their success is your success than by visually repping their team?

Save time on introductions.

The customer has an issue, and you smartly rope in the Solutions Engineer to solve it for them. Next thing you know, there’s five people on the sales side, and another five on the customer side. Introducing ten people in a meeting easily eats up time you could instead spend fixing the customer’s problem. Our CSM users have told us that using a Warmly Nametag helped them eliminate formal introductions because everyone’s names, roles, experience, and even pronouns are right there in the Zoom window as they’re talking.

Write a biography.

CSMs that use Warmly to share personal information often tell us that it makes conversations go more fluidly.

“It ends the awkward beginning of every call,” one customer success manager told us. Warmly’s “Bio” section lets you add a few lines under your name.

You could list your hobbies (“Amateur surfer” or “Chipotle enthusiast”), professional credentials (“CCSM-certified”), or by sharing a fun fact about yourself.

Keep Things Fresh

Meetings can get stale when you’re seeing the same people, in the same office, on the same screen over and over. Many customer success managers have told us they use Warmly’s “Conversation Starters” to help keep things fresh. It’s extra important when it’s been a long day and they don’t have the energy to come up with that conversation spark themselves. A pre-written question to break the ice helps everyone get to know each other better, so you can focus on building a durable and more successful relationship.

Read our case study with Gainsights here.

Can you give a brief overview of yourself?

I live in South Africa. I grew up here. For my whole career, I’ve been in sales. My wife and I started working remotely at the beginning of 2020 - just before the pandemic actually hit.

I worked for Crossover for a while. Then, I started working at OneMob, and it was an immediate fit! We clicked really nicely.

On a personal level, my wife and I like hiking and wine tasting. I lived in Cape Town for 17 years before moving back to Port Elizabeth. There, I got into wine tasting and took some wine tasting courses. It's more than just appreciation at this point!

How did you find Warmly and what drew you to Warmly?

I first got to learn about Warmly when I connected with Max Greenwald on LinkedIn. Warmly is effectively a video tool, and OneMob is a video sales enablement platform. The two kind of went together.

I used Warmly to help me stand out – it was different. OneMob and Warmly worked very nicely together. Later on, I started using it on my Zoom calls.

You can always create something in Google slides, but Warmly was just really easy to use. I created my virtual business cards on Warmly and downloaded them. I have a couple different versions.

You're an account executive. How do your clients typically react to your virtual business card?

Oh, they love it! Half of the people I talk to ask me about it. Usually their responses are, “That's really cool! Did you make that yourself?”.

It serves as an interesting talking point and ice breaker. My card shows that I'm from South Africa and that I like wine tasting. Since it gives you something to talk about, the first thirty seconds of the call feels so much smoother.

What Zoom best practices can you share?

I want to be very present in my meetings. I have four monitors, but during my calls I only keep one or two on.

I also record all of my Zoom meetings so I can really concentrate on the call rather than taking notes. I find this allows me to focus on understanding the client. I used to do the same trick with lectures in school.

Another tip is to engage the person by looking them in the eyes. There’s an immediate disconnect when you’re looking at their image instead of looking into the camera.

I also use Krisp. for noise cancellation. I make sure that my Krisp is on because then I know I can focus. I don't have to worry about dog barks or the neighbors mowing the lawn. No matter what is happening around me, I know that my customer can't hear the noise – only the sound of my voice.

How else have you gotten the most out of Warmly? How has it impacted your pre-meeting prep?

I do use [Calendar Signatures] quite a bit. If I go to my calendar, I can see a link or URL to their LinkedIn. I can just quickly pop in there, have a look at what the person has done, and get a little bit of background. It definitely saves on that preparation time.

Sometimes I have back-to-back meetings, and I've only got three minutes before the next one. I don't have to worry because I know the info that I need will be there.

It’s been great chatting with you; Any final thoughts?

In the last two years, we had this huge push to all work from home, and we only used Zoom. And now, it’s kind of a hybrid where a lot of people are required to still go into the office some days and work from home other days. Remote work had a steep growth and may be slightly down now, but I think it will just start going up again from here on out.

It is really important to be confident in your Zoom meetings, and Warmly just gives you that warmth – knowing that you are standing out and that you are a step ahead of the rest. That is a skill – not everybody can do Zoom meetings effectively.

Congrats! You’re a SDR that just landed a huge qualified lead for your AE. In fact, the Account Executive is so impressed that you have been invited to the closing table.

You know the turnover rate for your position is high—34% a year on average, and most people only last a few years. Do well in this meeting, and you could be on your way to an AE position of your own. No more endless days scrolling for outbound leads. The stakes are high.

So how can you prepare yourself to crush this first meeting?

1. Know the Company

Being prepared is an absolute no-brainer. You want to do your research on what the target company does, but also the area where your software can help. For example, if you’re selling an HR tool, you should know what the prospect company’s culture is like. Are they competitive or compassionate? Ping pong tables in the office, or company off-sites at Disney World?

Pick one or two nuggets to show that you’ve done your research and that you understand them. This is also crucial for identifying the specific problem your target company has and that your software solves. Nobody buys software just because. You want the client to believe you care about their company, their goals, and will work with them to figure out the solution.

2. Know the Person

Anything you can find in common with the person you’re meeting will help you start off on the right foot. If your sales meeting is over Zoom, our Warmly Zoom app will do the research for you automatically. One powerful thing you can do is open up the other person’s company org chart and figure out where the person is in the chain of command. If the person you’re meeting isn’t a decision maker, at the ready you’ll know who to ask for introductions to someone more senior. Instead of straight-up asking “Who is your boss?” you’ll be more successful—and look more professional— by asking, “Hey, do you know so-and-so? I was wondering if they might be a good person to talk to next.” Boom.

3. Make Yourself Known

Having shared reality is a powerful way to build relationships. When you find something in common with a new person, you start on a strong foundation on which to build a bond. Pre-meeting prep is a great way to find out things about the other person, but what if you also want them to know things about you?

A really great way to subtly share information about yourself is by using a Warmly Nametag. Add a few personal details in your bio to give you a few extra points to make a connection. Are you a NASCAR fan, or a competitive duck herder?

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Make your Nametag even more powerful by combining it with your pre-meeting prep. If your prospect just posted a picture of their new puppy on Twitter, drop a line in your bio about how you can talk for hours about Terriers, or your weekly volunteering gig at the ASPCA.

Using your Nametag to display your name pronunciation is another crucial trick to starting off on the right foot. Connections are made deeper by being able to say somebody’s name aloud. Even if you think your name is common, it may not be in the region where your customer is calling from. Putting your own name also helps the other person feel more comfortable both in pronouncing your name, and sharing their own.

4. Make an Agenda

We recently released a feature for the Warmly Zoom App called Video Widgets—which are beautiful one-click tools that you can hover over your shoulder during Zoom meetings. One of our most popular Video Widgets is Meeting Agendas.

A common mistake that junior SDRs make is blindly asking questions they were told to ask in a meeting with the prospect. You come off as a robot instead of a person—the opposite of what you want for building rapport. Instead, you can use a meeting agenda to ask the questions for you.

Having a schedule to reference also allows you to let the conversation flow more naturally. You know having the agenda will keep things on track and pull the conversation back if you get too distracted. Crossing items off over your shoulder as you go also helps everyone in the meeting feel like you are collectively making progress and trending toward success.

5. Social Proof Yourself and Your Company

Social proof has been shown over and over to be a powerful driver of buyer behavior for everything from e-books to million dollar enterprise deals. If you know somebody who works (or worked!) at the prospect’s company, try asking that mutual friend to send the prospect a quick note of support for you. Even a, “I’ve worked with so-and-so before and they’re great. Enjoy the meeting,” can make the person you’re meeting feel extra confident in speaking with you. If you don’t have someone in common then how about social proof of your company? Consider adding an image in the Images & Gifs Video Widget with logos of companies you’ve sold to in the past.

6. Pre-Meeting Confirmation

Lots of software buyers might agree to a sales meeting, but either don’t show up or cancel last minute because the problem your software solves is not as urgent as other things on their plate.

People get busy, it happens. To protect your time, make sure you send the prospect a quick text or email before the call to say you look forward to speaking with them. Confirming that they’re still interested will save you time waiting for a no-show, but it can also lower the chance that you’ll be stood up!

Reaching out reaffirms the social obligation. The buyer agreed to this meeting and you, the salesperson, have blocked out this time to talk to them. If you want to make interactions even warmer, use an app like OneMob to record a quick (just 30 seconds!) video of yourself saying hi and reiterating some of the reasons they agreed to take your call.

7. Show Partnership

Another Warmly for Zoom feature you want to consider using is the Company Partnerships widget. It’s a super fast one-click step to hang the prospect company’s logo in the upper corner of your own Zoom window. Now every meeting you have will feel personalized to the prospect. It also shows that you’re on top of your game and well-prepped for the call.

8. Take Better Notes

Taking notes in Salesforce is clunky and almost impossible to do efficiently during a live meeting. You could take notes on your phone or desktop, but you’ll still have to deal with transferring those details to Salesforce after the call. Try a speedier note-taking tool Dooly or Scratchpad during calls to jot down details about the client you want to remember. Both of those apps will also automatically sync your notes to Salesforce, saving you time, headache, and an extra step.

9. Get Your Sh!t Together

While you’re installing the fancy notetaking apps, don’t sleep on the basics of making sure you have a good meeting. Make sure you’re taking the meeting in a quiet place, not a local coffee shop during its daily 2 o’clock rush. Test your wi-fi connection and make sure the lighting isn’t jarring. Invest in a quality microphone to make sure you’re heard clearly. Remember that your prospect is likely in back-to-back meetings with salespeople all day. The best way to stand out at the end of the day is to be different and blow people away with a strong first impression.

Can you please introduce yourself and take me through your day-to-day?

Absolutely. I’m Daniel from Cience. My main role is the director of backlinks, SEO, and marketing.

My day-to-day at Cience is one of my most fun adventures: I just put my hands on a little bit of everything. We have a YouTube channel right now where we are creating some really good content. We have been focusing a lot, in the past few weeks, on blogs and SEO content optimization. I also manage the backlink team, which is in charge of all of the collaborations we have with great companies – we nurture those relationships daily.

One of the things I enjoy the most is having one-on-ones with my team members to see how they are doing, what they might need, and what's their emotional stage during the day. For example, sometimes the end of the month can be a little bit stressful. Some of them might be struggling with something in the outside world that you might not know about. Sometimes they just need to be heard. You have to take all of that into consideration to run a successful team career and company.

So, that's how I break down my daily agenda.

How do you typically manage your schedule with all those meetings remotely?

Nowadays, all these new tools, software, and systems make our lives a lot easier. At Cience, we are an international company, and some of my team members are in Ukraine, Brazil, and Mexico.

We have to be very organized when it comes to this western time schedule as most of our clients are US based. All of our planning is according to their time zones.

Has Warmly helped with your remote culture?

I met with Warmly’s CEO, Max, who showed backgrounds that can tell a little about yourself to break the ice.

It’s necessary because sometimes you have these interactions with clients where it is a little bit more intense. There is not much time for a quick chat. Warmly helps us have something on the Zoom background and be more personalized.

My team members add tags on their [virtual Warmly] background. Sometimes they can ask questions or leave something they might not [want to] forget about or how they feel. I can read it to understand and see what's going on. It helps take the conversation to a deeper level.

Many people might not feel as comfortable speaking in public. Warmly gives you another platform to express yourself and to let people know how you feel, whether you have any questions, or maybe something about you that others might not know.

That’s the personalized touch that Warmly brings to the table.

How have your external stakeholders and clients reacted to Warmly? How has Warmly changed building rapport with your clients?

It's really fun, to be honest with you!

I put general info in my bio, and clients say – “Oh, you have a marketing job. You like coffee! You enjoy jazz music.”

“Where are you located” is another great topic. That's a great icebreaker. You can start with a little bit of personalization.

We deal with many people from different backgrounds, but most of our clients are CEOs for medium and large corporations. It can be strange sometimes in a call because we might not have regular personal human interaction with each other, and everything might be business. When you have Warmly, you can take your mind off your KPIs, goals, day-to-day, and agenda, and you can have a great time talking. We can have those five minutes that make a huge impact.

We start finding more and more common subjects that we look forward to having another meeting. We might even have a whole meeting without even talking about business. And [it] takes you to the next level that creates loyalty with your customers.

This type of rapport just takes you to a different level they might not have before. I take advantage of all these other platforms and tools that can help make remote work easier.

Selling online is hard. You used to be able to walk into a meeting, plug in your laptop to show the presentation, and just hang out with the prospect. It’s hard to feel like you can be successful at selling virtually when you’re juggling a million things at once.

One thing we’ve heard over and over from users of our Warmly add-on for Zoom is that having a professional background makes them feel like a newscaster. Presentations become more like the salesperson’s personal “Weekend Update.” You’ve got the funny and charismatic lead anchor with great lighting and not a hair out of place. Instead of a boring software demo, prospects got to watch a movie with a lead character, intriguing plot points, twists, and value propositions that help the prospect realize how you will change the way they do business.

Our mission is giving salespeople the basic tools to get creative and display their own personal brand in every call. That means being able to fully customize and adjust your in-meeting experience. Let’s compare how screensharing looked like before and after Warmly:

Before Warmly:

• Lose the face-to-face connection when you have to screenshare in order to demo the software you’re selling.
• Triple and quadruple-checking to make sure you don’t show the wrong tab, like your Salesforce window showing all the other prospects you’re meeting that day.
• Kick yourself that you forgot to hide your Bookmarks Bar, and pray the client doesn’t notice the shortcut to Reddit on your work computer.

After Warmly:

• Hover your visuals over your shoulder like a newscaster. If the prospect wants to learn more about pricing, one click will toss up the pricing slide of your presentation.

• The Warmly app is now integrated with GIPHY so you can instantly throw a reaction GIF over your shoulder to sympathize with your prospect—or just make them laugh!

• Meet your prospect where they are with a dynamic presentation that you don’t have to scroll through in the chronological order. Skip straight to the slides your prospect is most interested in based on your questions.

Conclusion

When your prospect is in back-to-back meetings with other sellers, you want to dazzle them with professional polish. Be remembered as the sharp-looking newscaster who commands both screen and attention.

Interested in reducing screensharing mishaps and uplevel your sales team? Check out our Pricing page to get a sense of what Warmly can do for your business.

You know the importance of having a meeting agenda on sales calls. They save time, keep meetings on track, and minimize headaches. You might stick one in a calendar invite, or go over it verbally at the beginning, but then the meeting gets going and everything goes off track. The prospect rabbit holes into something random, and you end up discussing topics irrelevant to your goals for the call.

Warmly is introducing a way to magically hover your agenda over your shoulder during Zoom calls. It allows you to establish the agenda with the prospect at the beginning of the meeting, ask if there is anything else they want to address, then keep that agenda top of mind during the conversation and check things off as you go to make sure everyone stays on track.

Our drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor is built into the Zoom App, so you can make changes on the fly, and it’s already making waves among our top sales users. Here’s how we have seen super sellers use the new Agenda feature to close more deals.

Pace Yourself

Having a meeting agenda is not just great for establishing credibility. It can also help set the pace for the meeting. Research found that top sellers space questions out during calls, while average sellers tend to fire off a string of questions early on. Rapport is part of the sales process too. Don’t be that person awkwardly trying to get through their question list while ignoring the conversation. Having a meeting agenda helps you keep that natural rhythm without losing sight of the finish line.

Show Off Your Expertise

Whether you are selling software or Subarus, trust is essential for achieving the sale, and establishing credibility is crucial. Having an agenda signals to the prospect that this is not your first rodeo, and allows them to trust you in guiding them through the sales process.

The perfect meeting agenda will be centered around the most pressing questions and pain points your prospect has—which is a subtle way to “show not tell” your client that you have a) done your research, and b) understand them/their company/the industry thoroughly.

Make It About The Prospect

Since this is a meeting about them, you should also ask if there is anything else they want to address. With the Agenda feature, you can add their input in the list in front of them, which helps the prospect feel ownership of the meeting and the success of your partnership. You can also drag-and-drop, reorder, check off, and add items mid-conversation as needed without having to fumble with another app and lose connection with the prospect.

Start With an Introduction

The first action item on any meeting agenda with a prospect should always be introductions. This gives everyone permission to orient themselves, see who else is in the meeting, and look for points of connection. You can streamline this process by adding a Warmly Nametag to your Zoom window with your name, location, a short bio, and even the local time and weather. (“Wow, I see that you’re in Colorado. How is ski season this year?”)

End With the Next Step

The goal of every sales meeting is, of course, getting to the next step. Putting it into the agenda will make sure you get to it. Towards the end of the meeting, you can say, “Looks like we haven’t covered ‘Next Steps,’ so let’s make sure we set up our next meeting.” We have seen some pro sellers just put “Schedule Next Meeting” on the agenda. The prospect will see it on the agenda and think, ‘Well it’s on the agenda, so we have to do it’—and makes it more likely they will.

Be More Efficient Overall

Meeting agendas are not just fantastic tools to use in prospect meetings. You can also use it internally to keep managers from rambling or keep team meetings from getting off-track. Salespeople spend an average 12% of their day attending internal meetings. Anything that will cut that down means more time for reaching out to potential customers. Go ahead, impress your manager at your next internal meeting, or surprise and delight clients at your next quarterly business review.

To get more information on which Warmly plan can maximize your team’s revenue goals, check out our Pricing page and reach out for a quote.

Innovative B2B marketers know that decisions are rarely made by a single person. Account-based marketing is not about making the sale to one specific person, but a team of key decision-makers that, together, can sway the account towards being a customer. While you can send out dozens of newsletters and banner ads across the internet peddling the value of your product, we think there are at least 8 better ways to reach your target accounts—and they’re all free.

Think about who is already talking to these people you want to reach?

Your employees.

They can be a walking billboard for your company’s value propositions through their email signatures, calendar invites, and Zoom backgrounds.

8 More Ways to Telegraph Value Without Actually Talking About It

1. Case Study

An easy way to look like a super mind reader is to have employees include a QR code that links to a case study relevant to the industry or vertical you are targeting.

2. Credentials

A great way to establish credibility is by sharing credentials. Maybe your company has been rated a great place to work, or your flagship software is rated highly on G2 Crowd. You can also use employee’s credentials, such as their school, degrees, years of experience in industry, or related certifications.

3. List Actual Benefits

For every industry you’re targeting, identify how you are solving problems for companies in those arenas.

4. Title-based Value Props

What value proposition would most resonate with a customer success person vs. a VP of sales or an engineer?

5. Corporate Social Responsibility

If you’re emailing with a group that are known for being charitable, ambiently highlight things your company is doing. For example, the bio line in your Zoom background might include, “We’re raising $8 million for the Cancer Research Foundation this year.”

6. Diversity/Inclusion

Something as simple as having employees include their pronouns and name pronunciations in their emails, calendar invites, and Zoom backgrounds shows diversity and inclusion is a priority for your firm, which can really resonate with prospective buyers.

7. Location

Having employees put their current location and the weather is the low-hanging fruit of both finding commonality and forging authenticity. If you want to go even more granular, have employees list the places they have been and auto-match those with the prospect. Now they have an immediate warm starting point for conversation.

8. Company Commonality 

Imagine sticking an overlap of your company’s logo with the prospect company’s logo in every email, Calendar link, and Zoom meeting. Warmly is working on a ‘History of Partnership’ page that catalogs all the times your mutual companies have interacted including a log of meetings, and other shared similarities.

And here’s why it works:

Deloitte’s CMO Survey in February found that 57% of marketing budgets are now spent on digital marketing, a third of which is outsourced to external sources. That means a serious chunk of marketing budgets are not even under the company’s control. Meanwhile, your employees are reaching out to, working with, and building connections with the exact people you are trying to reach.

We believe there are three key ways to build trust with prospects and clients.

1. Establish Credibility

Establishing credibility with a prospect is about professionalism and showing a track record of success. In other words, you want to make the buyer feel confident about working with you. The irony is that pushing all that evidence of your professionalism and success can actually drive customers away. Nobody wants the hard-hard-sell in their inboxes or in their face. Instead of a banner ad touting your software’s high rating on G2 Crowd, recent industry award, or other value proposition, why not display that information ambiently in an email signature, Calendar invite, or in your employees’ Zoom backgrounds. You can even bucket those automatically by vertical, so that employees are always displaying the right content for their audience.

2. Forge Authenticity

Forging authenticity is about letting the other person know that you are a kindred spirit who really gets what they’re going through and are trying to help. That you’re a human being, not a sales machine. Employees are great resources for this aspect of connection-building. That’s because they are human beings, with real kids and emotions and problems. Being honest about what they are going through in their natural environment trumps any kind of forced authenticity. Next to all the information about how your product solves XYZ problem, employees can share a personal touch that shows this isn’t a sanitized marketing message.

3. Finding Commonality

Say the marketing team works really hard to get the sales team a first call with an account they’ve been chasing. One of the SDRs on the team is a big fan of Formula One, and so is the decision maker they’re trying to woo. Why not have that SDR use a Formula One themed background? You instantly build rapport and increase the chance that sale moves forward.

This works even with cold conversations. For example, maybe someone on your engineering team was asked to speak at a conference. They hosted a round table of generic leaders. In the calendar invite, it says “When I’m not working for Asana, the leading task management system, I love to play volleyball” because they know that one of the people attending from the other company loves volleyball and they’re trying to sell Asana to them. That leads them to build a relationship, and maybe the other engineering leader says, ‘Hey, I should connect you with our implementation team because I think you’re great.’

AB marketers are great at segmenting the value props that appeal most to each vertical and creating dynamic content around them. Optimizing the delivery of those messages is the next logical move. If your team can maximize their digital footprint while eliminating scattered delivery, they can maximize response rates and close more sales.

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Interested in how Warmly can help you achieve your quarterly and annual revenue goals? Check out our Pricing page to get started.

Whether you are a salesperson, superstar CSM, or just trying to land a job over Zoom, you know how important it is to look professional. Chances are that if your cat’s running around behind you, the lighting is bad, your internet is shaky, and you have to keep toggling on and off mute, you’re just not going to seal the deal.

Here are the 8 things you should do before every virtual meeting to always look professional on Zoom.

1. Check the lighting.

You’ll be surprised how much more polished you look when your image isn’t grey and fuzzy. Zoom has a few built-in functions to help you look better, like adjusting for low light and Touch Up My Appearance. They can help in a pinch, but the best lighting is still the real-world kind.

You don’t need to invest in a professional photography set-up, but at least throw open the shades. Position yourself facing a window for the most natural light. If your office is on the shady side, take a page from professional streamers by getting an inexpensive LED ring light.

2. Spice up your physical or virtual background.

This may seem obvious, but with Zoom fatigue + pandemic fatigue + fatigue fatigue, lots of things can fall through the cracks. Make sure that the view behind you is free of clutter, or anything embarrassing that you don’t want clients or coworkers to see. You can keep things simple by setting up in front of a clean wall. Better yet, use a virtual background and turn that blank wall into a canvas to express yourself.

3. Coordinate your virtual background.

If you’re working as a team on Zoom, there’s no faster way to look professional than by matching virtual backgrounds. Even if you can’t physically show up together, you can do it psychologically by showing up in the same virtual space.

When picking an image to use, think about the message you’re trying to convey. Depending on what you want to accomplish, you may want to show off your company’s logo, a picture from your last company on-site, or even the prospect’s company logo.

Once you’ve decided on an image, upload it into Warmly’s Nametag Builder, so one person can upload the picture and it will automatically populate for all your teammates in the meeting. It saves you time, and the hassle of trying to coordinate.

4. Get an actual camera.

Studies show that your positioning on Zoom matters. If you’re using the built-in camera on your laptop, you don’t have much room to maneuver. A dedicated web camera will give you more flexibility—and, most likely, better video quality. Try to keep the camera at eye level, or slightly above, for a more natural and flattering look.

People who looked directly into the camera were also rated as “more socially present” and generally likable, so try not to check your phone off-screen. You may think you’re being slick, but it might be hurting your image.

5. Add your credentials.

Credentials are an important part of signaling your expertise, especially with people you don’t know well. You may have it on your LinkedIn page, but having it on-screen is key. You never know if the person you’re meeting up has had time to look you up. Make sure your Zoom name tag includes any suffix you go by (think “Esq.” or “CFA”). With the Warmly add-on for Zoom, you can go even further by including your credentials in your Bio line, such as “Salesforce Veteran” or “Level 7 Email Marketer.”

6. Check your internet connection.

Check your connection at least five minutes before your scheduled Zoom call. Run an internet speed test to make sure you have enough bandwidth. Keep the router somewhere safe from cats or kids running into it. A reliable VPN is crucial if you're conducting your Zoom call from somewhere without properly password-protected WiFi, such as a cafe or library.

You should also try to have a contingency plan. If your internet starts flickering during an important call, can you use your smartphone as a mobile hotspot to stay online?

7. Share social proof.

Social proof is a powerful mechanism for building trust and getting customers to take a chance on you. Prospects want to know that you are a legitimate company. Think about comparing products while online shopping. All else being equal, the one with lots of reviews, and especially those vetted by reputable sources, will always feel like the better choice.

It's one thing for you to tell a prospect about all the companies you work with. Imagine having six or seven impressive logos over your shoulder during your meeting. With Warmly, you can.

8. Reiterate your proof points.

Another powerful way to look professional on Zoom is by highlighting your accolades. Don’t assume the stakeholder has seen your website or even heard about you. Use your background to showcase that your company was a Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For or #1 Best Software Product on G2 Crowd, then reiterate that for them during the meeting.

How embarrassing is it when you’re closing a deal with a prospect over Zoom, and your coworker pops in late and disheveled, with their dog running around the background? Suddenly, everybody is distracted and your whole company comes across looking unprofessional.

If you’re looking forward to in-person meetings again, you’re in the minority. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2021 State of Sales Report showed that 50% of buyers actually prefer a virtual process, and 70% would like to keep working remotely at least half or more of the time going forward.

That means if you are a sales manager or VP of sales in 2022, you need to care about virtual team selling. Here are three ways that Warmly can help your team stay sharp on screen.‍

1. Look Professional

Experienced sales leaders know the importance of unified team selling. With digital sales, it is not just about your individual Zoom box. It’s how the entire team comes across to the prospect. The last thing you want is three people showing up with random backgrounds. You may think you look like “The A-Team,” but the client doesn’t see you as Mr. T.

With Warmly’s matching background feature, one person can upload a background and everyone else on the team will automatically match. It can be your company’s logo, a meeting agenda, presentation slides, or even a generic background—as long as they’re the same. What the client will see is a team of people working together to make this project mutually successful.

2. Level-Up Your Sales Tools

How badly do you want to impress the client? Here are three levels to mastering virtual team selling:

Level 1

Match your team’s backgrounds, which Warmly can do for you automatically. The client will be able to quickly see all the people who are on your team in Gallery Mode.

Level 2

Use a matching background that the prospect will appreciate, such as the physical location of the prospect’s company headquarters, or something else that is relevant to them.

Level 3

Have matching backgrounds of their company office, but put a slightly different, catchy value proposition in the corner of each person’s screen. Then see what draws the prospect in.

For example, one teammate can have the logos of your other customers, which invites questions from the prospect and doubles as social proof.

Another may have “Ask me about feature X.”

One teammate can have “How’s the weather in Kentucky?” or wherever you know the client to be Zooming in from.

3. Look Omniscient

Most account executives are in back-to-back meetings trying to sell to clients. The onus usually falls on Sales Development Representatives to give them a quick jolt of information before they’re in front of the customer.

Instead of a 60-message-deep Slack or email thread that your salespeople have no time to read, why not have that information centralized through Warmly People Insights? This ensures that everyone is up to date on who the client is, what their pain points are, and all the information your team can use to make a connection—and therefore a sale.

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Will Taylor is an experienced sales strategist and leader in the field of technology partnerships. Based in Ontario, Canada, he has a vast understanding of the tech space, drawn from his unique professional journey that spans roles in sales, partnerships, and currently as the leader of a media company creating content for the technology industry. Here’s his take on lessons in the sales and partnerships world and how a Nearbound strategy is the future of generating revenue:

Realizing the Limitations of Cold Outreach

Cold outreach, though a mainstay of traditional sales strategies, has begun to show its limitations. As a sales strategist, I've observed that even the most personalized emails might only see slight increases in response rates. The problem can be traced back to a couple of things: growing trust issues with potential customers and the overwhelming influx of communications across various platforms.

Leveraging the Power of Referrals and Influencer Marketing

What's working effectively in today's scenario, is leveraging the influence of experts within the field. Here are the steps I would follow:

Identify key influencers and experts: Spend time researching who are the thought leaders in your field and start following their work.
Engage with them: Share their work, provide valuable comments, and start discussions. Show genuine interest and demonstrate your knowledge.
Reach out: Once you've established some level of interaction, reach out to them. The goal here is to build a relationship, not to sell right off the bat.

These are the first steps to starting a Nearbound strategy. If you’d like to read more on a summary of Nearbound and how you can dive further, check out this blog post by Will. 

Redefining the SDR Role

The role of an SDR is evolving. Today, it's not just about one-to-one sales but about engaging with the wider community or ecosystem. Here are some steps to consider:

Identify where your prospects congregate: Find the forums, Slack communities, or online spaces where your potential customers spend their time.
Immerse yourself in these communities: Don’t just be a bystander. Participate in discussions, ask questions, and offer help where you can.
Build trust: Be honest and authentic in your interactions. The goal isn't to sell but to build relationships.

Breaking Into Selective Communities

For SDRs new to a job, gaining access to selective communities or influencers can be a challenge. Here's my approach:

Start with open groups: Groups like RevGenius are great starting points for networking and learning, especially for those selling sales tech or martech software.
Adopt a learning mindset: Enter these spaces with the intention to learn and network, rather than sell. Over time, this approach builds trust and establishes you as a peer rather than a salesperson.
Engage with respect: Remember that you're a guest in these spaces. Be respectful, listen more than you talk, and always strive to add value.

Sales Roles Constantly Change

As we navigate the evolving sales landscape, it’s crucial to adapt our strategies and move beyond traditional cold outreach methods. Leveraging the power of influencers and experts in our fields will open new pathways for effective sales. Building genuine relationships, immersing ourselves in the communities where our prospects congregate, and shifting our focus from direct selling to providing value can establish the trust that is so crucial in the sales process. By engaging with prospects and thought leaders alike, we can position ourselves as trusted peers rather than just another salesperson.

Moreover, it's essential to acknowledge that sales development roles are evolving. They are no longer just about one-to-one engagement but rather about becoming a part of the larger ecosystem. SDRs are becoming networkers and learners, focusing on building relationships rather than just making immediate sales. This change requires us to immerse ourselves in the environments where our prospects operate, from Slack communities to online forums and influencers' circles. By aligning with trusted voices in the community and understanding the ecosystem where our competitors operate, we can successfully navigate the new sales landscape and attain success in our endeavors.

P.S. For a more comprehensive guide about how Nearbound drives sales and revenue, read this summary.