Mastering Remote B2B Sales: The Essential Guide to Success

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If you're in B2B sales, remote selling is more than likely what every day looks like to you. And it isn't a surprise: The McKinsey Institute found that 95% of B2B salespeople have started building remote business relationships, and 80% now rely almost entirely on online or phone meetings.

What's even more interesting is that 70-80% of decision-makers in the B2B sector actually prefer remote selling. Why?

Of course, it saves time, reduces travel costs, and allows for more flexibility in scheduling. But it is also because they have incredible sales enablement platforms at their disposal.

In today’s article, we'll explore the art and science of remote selling and give a shout-out to Journey.io, our digital sales room tool, for making the process even smoother for remote salespeople worldwide.

The Art and Science of Remote Selling: What Is It, and How Effective Is It?

Remote selling is exactly what it says on the tin: leading or partaking in sales processes –  by yourself or with a team – remotely, over a computer, phone, or any digital device.

But as far as B2B sales go, something doesn't change: they still involve a complex (and often tangled) buying cycle where most sales conversations happen with buyers and sellers in different locations, with different priorities, needs, and areas of expertise.

We’ve seen that a great percentage of B2B salespeople conduct (and enjoy conducting) sales remotely. But what about customers? Do they see it as a great experience?

Not as much.

According to a study by RAIN Group, only 26% of buyers feel that sellers are good at conducting “thorough needs discovery” remotely, while 84% think sellers struggle to explain ROI virtually.

The key issue is that you should show ROI using visually compelling methods, not just explain it. Ultimately, your level of success in remote sales will depend on how easy you make the sales process for them!

If you can simplify the process and make it as seamless as B2C sales, your customers will appreciate it. But if you can't meet customers where they are and make easy decisions, they'll be frustrated with the experience. And rightly so.

According to HubSpot, "Some sales professionals are naturally cut out for remote sales while others thrive more in-person. It's ultimately on you to learn where you fall on that spectrum and be the best salesperson you can be."

This is true – personal preference plays a role. However, any salesperson can either excel or struggle in digital meetings, depending on the tools they have within reach.

So, How Can You Make B2B Selling Easier for Yourself, Your Team, and Your Future Customers?

Selling remotely (especially in B2B) adds another layer of difficulty to relationship-building due to large contracts, multiple decision-makers, and extended timelines. Here’s why.

Ricard Chramer, CEO of Meetric, highlights, "It is not only meetings that are important. It is also the process for interacting and sharing information between the buyer and the seller’s stakeholders during this relatively long and complex process that matters."

While having great lighting, a good connection, and being skilled are all crucial (we'll cover non-negotiable skills shortly), the real priority should be making your team's lives easier. This way, they can spend more time connecting with customers, making the buying process smoother and more enjoyable.

Your Sales Efforts Will Be Diminished Without the Right Tools

Think about the tools you currently have in your stack.

Now, imagine they were suddenly taken away from you, never to return. Would you break a sweat? Probably.

Would you be a worse salesperson without them? No! Your knowledge and skills are still there. But your life would get a lot harder, for sure.

That’s especially true because you’re selling during and after the call. Timely (and thoughtful) follow-up is key to keeping the momentum and ensuring client engagement. That said, there’s a fine line between overwhelming prospects with too many emails and following up in a way that’s easy and helpful for them.

Chris Campbell, Founder of Grit & Gains Society LLC, shares, "Salespeople need to provide informative and engaging materials, such as white papers, case studies, and product demos, that resonate with the customer's specific challenges. Demonstrating expertise and offering valuable insights early in the sales cycle helps build trust and establish the salesperson as a credible advisor."

Echoing this, Remote Sales Careers Insider notes in their weekly newsletter, "These (sales and marketing) tools have been instrumental in streamlining tasks, allowing for efficient monitoring of performance and optimization of campaigns. The outcome of this streamlined process has resulted in an increase in qualified leads and a rise in the number of customers unbound by geographical limitations."

I’ve written a post on the best sales enablement tools to add to your reading list. But today, we’ll focus on Journey as a prime example of what Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs) should do for your sales process and sanity.

Why DSRs Are the Best Tools to Facilitate Remote B2B Sales

Because they’re made for it, plain and simple.

A DSR is a dedicated space where you can showcase your products or services to potential clients without the hassle of juggling endless emails or calls. They’re built to meet the needs of every stakeholder – regardless if they’re 4 or 14 – by showing every sales collateral they need in one place. Such as…

• Product brochures
• Case studies
• Demos or product videos
• FAQs
• White papers or reports
• Testimonials
• Pricing sheets
• ROI calculators
• Contracts or agreements
• Implementation guides

This makes the sales process smoother and faster and keeps customers happy. When stakeholders easily find what they need, decisions are quicker, and everyone’s bellies are full.

Here’s what it looks like under the hood.

One Link, All Sales Collateral

Have you ever considered that a huge deal-breaker can be analysis paralysis?

When stakeholders receive an email filled with links to support docs, case studies, demos, and more, it just makes their job harder—way harder.

They may not be able to sift through all the material with limited time and patience. This can result in critical materials getting lost in the shuffle, potentially missing opportunities to address their concerns or interests effectively. As a result, sales go down.

Journey Will Help You Send the Shortest Emails Ever

Shock prospects by sharing a single link instead of a million. Instead, share a beautiful deck on a single, private, personalized landing page without distractions.

"Journey allows me to organize all sales-related materials with multiple stakeholders on a single page rather than multiple email threads. This also makes it easier for prospect stakeholders to share information and get visibility into the project." Michael Evert – Journey User

Powerful Analytics

Think you know your key decision-makers enough just by the research you’ve done? Think again.

Round up the priceless data you’ve gathered with solid insights taken directly from your DSR. Know where stakeholders hang around the longest. You can then adjust your follow-up to hit their interests and concerns dead-on. And if someone scrolls right past a crucial section, you can circle back with more information or clarifications next time.

And there’s more…

In Journey’s Pro plan, analytics become even more granular with Clearbit-enriched insights. This data will give you deeper insights into companies (and their key people) by adding valuable information like company size, industry, and key decision-makers.

1. Number of unique visitors on your journey
2. Total number of journey page views
3. Average Session Duration
4. Referrer source from where they clicked on Journey
5. Browser type of the viewer (e.g. Chrome)
6. Device type of the viewer (e.g., Desktop/Mobile)

You can filter the analytics to view specific data from a particular month, week, or day.

AI-Powered Customization

Your time as a salesperson is precious. That's why we've loaded Journey with AI-powered customizable features that save your team time and ensure stakeholders get everything they need.

If you constantly struggle with creativity, our AI-powered text generator crafts ready-to-use content quickly so you can focus on fine-tuning rather than starting from scratch. What’s more, our AI lets you create fresh, unique images that are a breath of fresh air in a stock-image world.

Live Chatting/Commenting (and a Chatbot!)

A deal could be moving forward well, but obstacles can occur at any time.

That’s where live chatting comes in – to help you discuss strategies and solutions in real time, turning a potential disaster into a success story.

If a stakeholder has a burning question about how to navigate your Journey…The chatbots got their back. Need help accessing specific features or finding important documents? They can just ask away; the AI chatbot will lead the way with quick and accurate responses. It’s self-servicing in all its glory.

Quick Integrations with the Tools You Use Every Day

All Journey plans integrate with your favorite tools, including:

• Slack
• Salesforce
• Segment
• Google Drive
• Hubspot
• Zapier
• Gong (Enterprise plan)

If you use other tools I haven’t mentioned above, you’re in for a treat…

Embeds with Pretty Much Any Tool You Can Imagine

I won't list every single embed here because I can't list hundreds of tools in one go.

But everything you already use and need to make your sales arguments more persuasive – such as documents, spreadsheets, graphs, videos, case studies, testimonials...is available (and seamlessly embeddable!) in Journey.

Mutual Action Plans