So you’re looking to buy the perfect web conferencing product for your sales team? You’ve come to the right place! This series of posts was designed with you in mind. This series of blog posts is meant to be a resource for Sales leaders who are looking to purchase the best web conferencing solution for their department. Last time we discussed the importance of looking beyond the features of a product and taking into account your common meeting objectives. This time, we’ll take a look a common sales meeting objectives and review several Conferencing products based on those objectives. – Meetings that coach and train; – Meetings that present to customers and prospects; – Discovery meetings that build sales-prospect relationships; – Internal sales meetings; – Internal meetings with operations and – And Webinars/Webcasts to drive leads. With coaching and training meetings, it’s important to replicate the atmosphere of in-person training virtually. This will increase engagement and learner retention. You’ll want to select a product that does what you need without increasing complexity to a point that it limits adoption rates. Teaming Recommendations and Take-a-ways: For sales meetings that coach and train, TEAMINGS general recommends the following, however these recommendations can vary depending on the company and their individual meeting objectives. Pros: Adobe Connect is a powerful tool with a lot of engaging features. Most sales trainers can achieve their objectives with the basic Adobe Connect for Web Meetings. If you need more engagement, more tracking and the ability to create on-demand courses, Adobe also offers Adobe Connect for Social Learning. Adobe Connect is the only web conferencing solution that offers multiple custom layouts and highly reliable breakout rooms for group work. Cons: With an increase in features comes a decrease in ease of use for the host. On boarding takes more time. Because of the program’s complex nature, adoption rates may be low. Support can be limited. Pros: iMeet is great for small, intimate training and coaching sessions because it easily allows participants (up to 12) to see one another through high quality webcam streaming. It’s very easy for the host to learn and very easy for attendees to access, making on boarding short and adoptability high. Support is very good. Cons: iMeet does not provide popular engagement features used in training sessions such as Q&A and Polls. On Demand sessions are not an option. Pros: GlobalMeet has a clear and easy to use interface that makes meetings and training sessions simple to enter and manage. File and application sharing tools are highly developed and easy to understand. Screen sharing is vibrant, fast and practically pops off the screen. On boarding is fast and adoption rates are high. The whiteboard, Q&A and Poll features can be helpful for coaching and training sessions. Cons: GlobalMeet has limited meeting engagement tracking. The web portion of GlobalMeet doesn’t allow for breakout rooms, but GlobalMeet Audio does. Video conferencing is pretty good, but it only shows the person that is talking. This set up works well in presentation style trainings but not in training sessions that are focused on discussion. On Demand training is not an option. Pros: Newly redesigned, WebEx has a fresh new look that makes it much easier to use. You can record your meetings for later viewing. You can meet face-to-face with via webcams. This platform even offers breakout rooms for group work. Cons: WebEx still requires users to download the application in order to join the meeting. This can lead to accessibility issues. The screen sharing and face-to-face video can be glitchy. Also the integrated audio supplied by WebEx leaves something to be desired. We can integrate more robust audio to combat this problem is WebEx is right for you. A TEAMINGS Productivity officer can help with you with the selection process.
When your goal, as a sales professional, is to close deals through presentations and software demonstrations, the most important features to look for in a web conferencing tool are; Presentations and Screen Sharing – If your main selling tool is a demo or presentation, you’ll want that demo or presentation to stand out. Most web conferencing tools allow for screen sharing, but only a few do it really well. Make your selling tools pop off the screen with the right presentation tools. Ease of Use – To what extent does the product limit administrative work for your sales people? How likely are they to use the tool? A simple user interface, one-click scheduling, on boarding time, etc. all contribute to ease of use for the host. This leaves your sales team with more time to close deals and a higher likelihood that they will adopt the tool so your resources don’t go to waste. Ease of Access – When selling, you want your prospects to easily enter a meeting without having to download anything or run into technical issues. Products with high scores in Ease of Access do not require downloads and call the attendees directly from the meeting, limiting call-in issues. Mobile Friendly- Can your prospects easily meet you wherever they are? Well-developed, mobile apps allow your prospects to experience your web meeting just as if they were sitting at their desk. The ability to call the prospect from the meeting ensures they don’t have to deal with wrong numbers and long conference codes. Audio Quality – If they have a hard time hearing you, you’ll have a heard time getting your message to resonate. Many conferencing solutions will integrate with a variety of Audio Conferencing providers. If you like the web platform, but hate the audio quality, we can find you something better.
An in-depth web conferencing comparison and buying guide.
Part 2: Pros and Cons of Web Conferencing Software for Common Sales Meeting Objectives
Objective 1: Meetings that coach and train
Adobe Connect
iMeet
GlobalMeet
WebEx
Objective 2: Meetings that present to customers and prospects
Objective 3: Discovery Meetings that Build Sales-Prospect Relationships
Does your sales process start with prospect discovery or relationship building? If so, you’ll want a web conferencing solution that helps you connect with the client as if you were meeting face-to-face without a lot of fuss. The most helpful features are:
High Quality Multi-Point Video via Webcams: Communicating face-to-face is the best way to build rapport and increase understanding. Many web conferencing products offer this feature but few do it really well. Ensure your face-to-face meetings go well by selecting a solution like iMeet or Adobe Connect.
Similarly to Objective 2, these features are also helpful for meetings that sell through relationship building.
Ease of Use – To what extent does the product limit administrative work for your sales people? How likely are they to use the tool? Simple user interface, one-click scheduling, on boarding time, etc. all contribute to ease of use for the host. This leaves your sales team with more time to close deals and a higher likelihood that they will adopt the tool.
Ease of Access – When selling, you want your prospects to easily enter a meeting without having to download anything or run into technical issues. Products with high scores in Ease of Access do not require downloads and call the attendees directly from the meeting, limiting call-in issues.
Mobile Friendly– Can your prospects easily meet you wherever they are? Well-developed, mobile apps allow your prospects to experience your web meeting just as if they were sitting at their desk. The ability to call the prospect from the meeting ensures they don’t have to deal with long conference codes.
Audio Quality – If they have a hard time hearing you, you’ll have a heard time getting your message to resonate. Many conferencing solutions will integrate with a variety of Audio Conferencing providers. If you like the web platform, but hate the audio quality, we can find you something better.
Objectives 4 and 5: Sales Teams Meetings and Meetings with Operations
Here is where it gets a little harder to tell you what you need for your meetings without knowing your individual objectives. Every sales team and every organization is different. These differences really matter when it comes to web conferencing selection for team meetings.
Let’s look at one example to get the idea.
One of our customers has a highly mobile sales team. Every Monday at 8am, this sales team meets to go over the numbers, assign quotas, review strategies and praise top performers. But many are on their way to prospect meetings so they join via an audio conference on their cell phones. Almost all of the people joining the audio conference would end up joining late and some wouldn’t show up at all. They were having trouble connecting to the meeting.
Furthermore, our client noticed that those who joined the meeting via audio conference were also those who had a hard time applying new sales strategies to their efforts. They were missing out on the visual component of his presentations. They weren’t retaining the information.
In this example, our client needed, above all else, to get his team all in one place at the same time. Secondly, he needed a way to share his presentation with those who were joining the meeting remotely. So we made Ease of Access and Presentation Ability priority. Now with GlobalMeet, the team joins the meeting by having the meeting do the dialing. If a person doesn’t show up, their manager can easily call their cell phones directly from GlobalMeet. This saves them at least ten minutes at the beginning of each meeting. He’s also noticed a significant increase in understanding and retention for those who join via GlobalMeet.
So you really need to look at your objectives and current meeting issues to pick the right product.
Are your team meetings collaborative or mostly presentation driven?
For collaborative meetings, you’d want whiteboards, notes, chat, maybe breakout rooms and video. For presentation driven meetings, you’ll want something that makes your presentations fly off the screen.
Do you need to record the meetings so those on sales calls can view the meeting later?
In that case, you’ll want to make sure it’s easy to record the meeting and that disseminating the recording won’t take up a lot of your time. You may even want to be notified when someone views the recording.
There are a lot of other questions you should ask yourself.
And, of course, audio quality is always important…
Objective 6: Webinars and Webcasts to drive leads.
Webinars and Webcasts are a great way to connect with many prospects at one time, display your expertise within your field and share your product or service. You could use almost any web conferencing platform to conduct a smaller webinar. For example the most robust Adobe Connect licenses can accommodate up to 1,500 participants, while iMeet allows 125 people.
Once you start to draw larger audiences, you’ll need a webcasting platform. Something like PGI’s new iMeetLive or On24 could work for you. In fact, you could probably save money by moving to a webcasting platform when your audience grows beyond 150 participants. Read more about that here.
I hope this article helped you understand the impact of selecting the right conferencing solution for your meeting objectives. Every web conferencing solution has its limitations but those limitations won’t matter if they don’t stop you from achieving your meeting goals.
After 16 years in the web conferencing business, we know the strengths and limitations of all the best solutions. Let us help you find the right one and maybe even save you a little money along the way.
Start with a free Conferencing Consultation. We’ll help you identify your common objectives and current meeting set backs. Once we find you the perfect product or products, we’ll customize your on boarding process to increase adoption rates and ensure you get Enterprise Level support.
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