Video Helps Build Relationships in Virtual World

Video is a great way, among other things, to help build relationships in a virtual business world. Since your companies are typically cutting back on business travel due to the economy, the greening of the environment or just for plain efficiencies sake, you need to get creative to drive the same type of connections that you would have made in person. There is a great post on using video on Chad Levitt's blog The New Sales Economy called "Next Generation Sales Reps Use Video To Win". I saw it on The Customer Collective page.

I have found video to be a very effective tool to show people what you look like and to draw them into the typically little screen they are watching as opposed to being distracted by what is going on around the screen. You can video yourself as part of the presentation or better yet include video of your customers talking about your product or service.

Beyond video, however, another very important way to keep your virtual customers engaged is to prepare for the presentation so that you can customize it for each audience. Customization and specifically targeting content at your customers' needs will keep them interested and engaged.

Finally, use social media to surround your customers with relevant content that they can go find or subscribe to so that they can keep up with what is going on around your market segment. Tools like blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and etc work great for building a stronger community than you could ever build over the phone. My company Exari just launched a "Community" page on our website to aggregate the things we are doing to build relationships with our customers.

How to give a killer online demo

I found some great tips (below) about doing online demos in the GoToMeeting newsletter called "How to Give a Killer Online Demo". Since you don't have the ability to be in the room and see your audience's responses, you have to go out of your way to make things engaging and exiting.

"Here are some tips we learned from a recent Webinar with Peter Cohan, author of the book, Great Demo! – an online demo pro if we ever saw one: 

• Encourage participation from the start. Ask participants for information, like their names, their job functions, what they are hoping to learn. If it’s a small group, have them respond verbally; for large groups, use the Chat or Q & A box.
• Make sure their equipment syncs with yours.   Ask participants if they can see your mouse in different places on the screen, if they can hear you clearly and if they are seeing the same slide you are.
  
  
• Move your mouse slowly and deliberately. "Zippy Mouse Syndrome" is a surefire way to make participants want to look away from the screen, the opposite of what you want them to do. If you can’t resist, change your mouse setting to force yourself to slow down.
  
  
• Use the highlighter and drawing tools. Adding a new moving element to the screen draws attention and helps you emphasize important features or ideas. You can invite participants to draw and highlight, too.
  
  
• Put audience members in the driver’s seat. Sure, passing keyboard and mouse control can be a little scary, but there’s no better way to hook people than to give them a hands-on experience. Ask them to perform specific tasks and talk them through the steps they need to do to help them feel confident."

More Companies Encouraging People to Work from Home

There is a great article in Business Week on working from home.  It talks about how major companies such as Capital One are not only encouraging people to work from home but in some cases they are incenting them to as well with home office expenses, laptops and blackberries.

This recesion along with longer term trends of the environment and technology are driving companies to reorganize how they are physically structured, how they manage their workforce and even how their employees do their jobs.

Additionally, tools from Web 2.0 and Social Media will be at the forefront of how companies adapt to these new realities.  Twitter for example is a great way to keep in touch with a mobile team.  And, LinkedIn can help you create a customer community.  There are also old standbys such as Instant Messaging and Team Rooms that have enabled people to manage virtual teams.  My company Exari is on the forefront of using technologies such as XML to facilitate the negotiation of complex documents and contracts in a virtual world as well.