8 Remote Working Tools to Master the Virtual Sales World

Dominic Yates
A tool is, "a piece of equipment that you use to help you do a job." (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Remote working is, "a type of flexible working arrangement that allows you to work from a remote location outside of corporate offices. (Gartner, 2021)
So, remote working tools are pieces of equipment that help you to do your job from a remote location.
For teams that are working remotely, there are tools for remote work that are essential to getting anything done. These tools can be put into many different categories and will help you or your team in a number of ways. 

Table of Contents

  • The Digital Revolution
  • What are Remote Working tools?
  • Brainstorming Tools
  • Technology Tools
  • Communication Tools

The Digital Revolution

The Digital Revolution is a series of sociocultural and economic changes brought about by the widespread dissemination of digital technologies. It has produced new forms of thinking, acting and interacting both at the individual and at the collective levels. (Quora, 2021)

From the graph above, you can see that between 1989 and 2010, technology started to be adopted at both homes and workplaces.

Now, as the end of the pandemic is reaching its 1-year anniversary, the once clear line that separated homes and workplaces is becoming blurred and using technology in the home is becoming the norm. We wake up, have a coffee, walk 10 metres and begin our working day from our laptop. The rapid adoption of new technologies has been forced on us by 2020's pandemic. We have to embrace these new technologies in order to keep up with the times.

It can be challenging to manage a sales team remotely, to brainstorm virtually with a prospect or client, and promote yourself through the 4 walls of your laptop or computer.

For sales professionals, the most important thing they need to close deals is not how they dress, or the presence they give off in a room, it's the tools they can utilise to give the buyer the smoothest journey possible.  

The Remote Selling team has been busy compiling a list of 8 remote working tools that we believe are crucial for sales professionals to master the virtual sales world.

What are Remote Working tools and why do we need them?

A tool is, "a piece of equipment that you use to help you do a job." (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Remote working is, "a type of flexible working arrangement that allows you to work from a remote location outside of corporate offices. (Gartner, 2021)
So, remote working tools are pieces of equipment that help you to do your job from a remote location.
For teams that are working remotely, there are tools for remote work that are essential to getting anything done. These tools can be put into many different categories and will help you or your team in a number of ways. 
For instance, if you're not using the right communications tools then you could end up with miscommunications and struggle to get the essential information to the people who need it. In these difficult times, your remote working tools are the only things that you have. You can't just get up and go to your colleague to talk about the problems that you've been having. 
One of the problems you may be having is that you don't have the time to trial and error hundreds of different apps and see which ones are helpful, which ones are user-friendly, and which ones are just too complex or unnecessary. 

We know finding the right tools for remote work can be both time consuming and stressful, that's why we created a list of 8 remote working tools that will help you, as a sales professional, master the virtual sales world. Each of these will help you with different parts of your sales game (we'll explain why) and allow you and/or your sales team to be efficient and effective.
Armed with the right remote working tools, you will be able to sell your product or service worldwide effectively, regardless of travel capability.
Face-to-face meetings and firm in-person handshakes are things of the past, and are no longer required to close important deals. 

Remote Working Tools that will help you Master the Virtual Sales World

Brainstorming Tools

What tools are you using to brainstorm effectively online with your remote team and potential prospects or clients? Maybe you're still using plain old pen and paper or just exchange thoughts verbally. Times have changed and you need to change with them.

There are brainstorming tools specifically designed to help spark, gather, and organise ideas. If you're exchanging ideas verbally, it may open up the ability to collaborately brainstorm, but does it allow your team to vote and comment on the collected ideas, thus making it easier to prioritise the best ones and next steps? Is it also allowing you to simultaneously record these ideas? What if your brainstorming session is on a Friday afternoon and everyone's creative juices are flowing, but no one is recording the magic?! You may assume that you will remember such good ideas come Monday morning, but this assumption is optimistic at best. 

Scientists divide our memories into categories based on the amount of time the memory lasts:

  • Immediate memories: The shortest memories that only last milliseconds
  • Working memories: Memories lasting about a minute
  • Long-term memories: Memories lasting anywhere from an hour to many years
(Brain Connection, 2021)

"God, I hope it's a long-term memory!" you may be thinking. You start thinking back through the topics that led to the idea, you try and recreate the stimulus for the idea, or you even repeat the call with your prospect or client so that you return to the environment you had the idea in!

Unfortunately, information absorbed automatically resides in your short-term memory. Transitioning information from short-term to long-term takes time, effort and constant practice.

Sounds like a lot of hard, unnecessary work. And that's the point, it is in fact unnecessary with the remote working tools you have at your disposal. 

Below, we've outlined a few different brainstorming tools to get you started.

Google Docs

Price: Free

A simple but, nonetheless, effective (and free) brainstorming tool. The main advantage of using Google Docs is that it is well-known and simple to use for everyone. The only requirement is that you need a Gmail account. And with 1 in every 5 people (1.8 billion) (Finances Online, 2021) around the globe having one, you won't run into many clients or prospects that are without one.

Simply, create a new document, share it with your client, prospect, or team members, and give them permission to edit. It is a live document so everyone can capture ideas in real-time, or capture ideas separately and then add them to the document. Google Docs allows you to 'add comments' and 'suggest edits' on each other's ideas, as well.

Although, Google Docs is not the most visually-appealing brainstorming tool, it is simple and effective.

Tip: When capturing ideas in real time, allocate time slots for people so they are not writing over each other.

Microsoft Teams Whiteboard function 

Price: Free

You may have heard of "death by Powerpoint." It describes the dull experience of sitting through a longer-than-necessary presentation with boring stock images (if you're lucky). Therefore, you should engage with your potential prospect or client by 'whiteboarding'.
"Whiteboarding is a modern selling methodology that incorporates elements of visual storytelling to effectively engage your audience during your sales presentation." (Tim Riesterer, 2020)
A powerful differentiator in competitive and complex selling environments is being able to tell a compelling visual story.
According to a research study, interactive visual stories boosts engagement in virtual sales calls, meaning that your prospect is more likely to have a favourable attitude towards your story, and it will improve their recall. A research-backed concept called the Picture Superiority Effect related to the fact that pictures are superior over words when it comes to recalling and recognising information. We all know that memory is the catalyst for decision-making, so making your message more memorable is key.

Microsoft Teams offers a whiteboard function that you can use when you're running virtual workshops or meetings in Teams to tell your story. Virtual whiteboards trump traditional ones because you can do a lot more things! However, there are some functionalities that you can't use with the Microsoft Teams web app that are available on the desktop app. You can draw on the web app but you can't add text. The desktop app also allows you to use post-it notes, upload images, and bring documents to work on as well. For instance, you could add a Powerpoint presentation and work on certain slides that you want to bring in. So, it is definitely worth downloading the desktop app to give your buyer a smoother virtual buying experience.

Tip: Whiteboarding requires a purposeful, repeatable, structured approach so practice delivering the whiteboard first, until you can deliver it naturally and demonstrate complete command of the content.
Here's a demo showing how to use the Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams.

Jamboard

Price: App is free. 
Jamboards cost $4,999, Jamboard rolling stands cost $1,349, and a $600-per-year management and support fee (Google Workspace, 2021)

An eye-watering price for the physical product, but Jamboard is also a collaborative whiteboard software that you can use without the Jamboard device. It was added as a core G Suite service in 2018 (Google Workspace, 2018). Therefore, Google enables the Jamboard service by default for everyone who uses G Suite. 

You can use the Jamboard app on a tablet, smartphone, and from a browser with the Jamboard web app. You don't have access to all the tools that you can use with the hardware, such as handwriting and shape recognition, but you can use the other collaborative items it offers, such as sticky notes and various markup tools. You can create digital whiteboards from your device and share them with others, providing a rich collaborative experience with your client, prospect, or team.

Technology Tools

There are so many tech tools online at your disposal to enhance your customers' virtual buying journey. Below, we've outlined a handful that will boost your visual appeal when live streaming, sending personalised introductions, or presenting to a team. 

OBS

Price: Free

Open Broadcaster Software also referred to as OBS is a free open source software suite that is used for recording and live streaming. It enables you to control and monitor your stream in the browser from a remote computer. It allows you to compose scenes with cameras, desktop sharing, video snippets, images, web pages and more and then stream that video. You can use on-screen elements such as your logo, name, and more to spice up your virtual sales meetings. 

We've already used it on the Remote Selling Training! This snippet is taken from 'Background Story' where Yuri shows you OBS' capabilities.

This link will show you how to set up OBS with Zoom, Hangouts, or Teams.
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Check out this video and 2 others for Free

Mentimeter

Price: Free

Mentimeter is a free presentation software where you can create fun and interactive online presentations. They offer paid plans. The basic plan is $9.99 and allows you to import presentations from Powerpoint or Google Slides. And the pro plan at $24.99 gives you the ability to add your own branding, custom themes and colours, as well as moderating the Q&A (pre-approving questions before they are shown to the audience). This may come in handy when you are giving a sales webinar that you are recording. You may have invited cold audiences so monitoring questions would be ideal!

In the example below, Yuri used Mentimeter at the start of one of our free Remote Selling Webinars. This encouraged engagement right from the off! In virtual sales meetings, sales executives can collect feedback and gather insights from the clients throughout the sales process on Mentimeter. This data can be collected, analysed, and then used in the future to improve remote sales meetings and understand clients better.
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Check out the Free 1-Hour Remote Selling Webinar

Vidyard

Price: Free

Vidyard is used by companies for video creation. You can transform your prospecting communications, customer presentations, and team updates into videos that help your message get heard. You can add video calls-to-action, 3-second GIF previews to embed in your emails, and more.

It's a whole new virtual sales world! Record and send sales videos to connect, convert, and close—all while remote. It’s easy, and it’s proven to make prospects pay attention.

For BDRs and SDRs: Record and send video prospecting emails that stand out and improve response rates, whether you're cold prospecting or responding to inbound leads.
For Account Executives: Share demos, proposals walkthroughs, and customer stories that guide buyers through the purchase and get opportunities over the finish line.

Vidyard has a Chrome extension that you can use to record your screen, as well as yourself, allowing for quick, painless video creation for remote selling and puts a name to a face in your prospecting videos. Below I've given you a quick example of how it looks. After you've finished recording the video, it redirects you to Vidyards dashboard and here you can send an email with your video through their platform. What a time-saver!

Tip: On the pro plan ($15 a month) you can add Calls to Action on your videos, driving next steps, by adding links so that your client or prospect can book follow-up meetings right from your video.
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On the Remote Selling Training, our video expert, Alex, shows you how to have great audio, a great visual, and the best online tools required for a successful virtual session.

Communication Tools

Communication tools are essential for talking to your sales team or your potential prospects or clients. They can help you speed up approvals, improve time management, deepen customer relationships, and make deal cycles go a lot faster, therefore allowing you to close deals faster.

Slack

Price: Free

Slack is a channel-based messaging platform. It allows communication, collaboration, and notifications. You can chat with your sales team, share files, and use different integrations. The great thing about Slack's integrations is that you integrate your other work apps such as Salesforce and receive notifications about leads in Slack in real-time, with the ability to edit these records from within Slack. Because the whole sales teams can see this activity in real-time, it can speed up approvals to get deals done faster. As well as this, the time you spend in other apps is reduced and it takes communication away from your full email inbox.

In addition, on paid plans, there is Slack Connect which allows you to directly connect with prospects and customers in Slack channels. You can grow existing accounts by deepening customer relationships and deliver on feedback faster by looping in other teams. According to Slack, it shortens sales cycles fourfold, and facilitates a 60% shorter turnaround time. 

Trello

Price: Free

Trello is a a visual collaboration tool that enables you to organize and prioritize projects in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way. Slack is a great workplace instant messaging application that includes some task management features, but Trello is a true workflow management system that lets you organize tasks.

Trello is a perfect remote working tool for organising tasks with your team. You can create a Trello board for yourself or one with your team. You can create lists on the board for different categories, e.g. 'to do', 'doing', and 'done'. You can assign people to each task, set deadlines, and use colours depending on the type of task. You can power-up your sales by connecting sales tools such as Salesforce to make for a more organized and seamless lead-closing experience.

Trello offers 10 pre-built sales templates boards such as a simple sales pipeline, customer onboarding, and more.

To Wrap Up

As you can see, there are many tools you can utilise to maximise the value you provide to your prospects or clients. These are just a few that the Remote Selling Team has compiled to help you master the virtual sales world. Now get online and blow your prospects minds!

Feel free to share the article on your social network!

Dominic Yates

Marketing Manager at Crisis Selling
About me
Driven by my motivation to promote and position companies, I takes pride in executing the most dynamic marketing strategies to help businesses excel. I develop and implement strategies for organic and paid marketing, as well as social media management for Crisis Selling. I am responsible for researching and analyzing market trends and supports the development of Crisis Selling's brand recognition internationally.

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