One of your primary paths to revenue is the sales meeting, so we want to write a how-to for each vendor that has given us access to their platforms, How-Tos that cover how to do so effectively with each platform. This article will dig into running effective sales meetings using SalesHood.

Note: Consider reading our article on how to have effective sales meetings, generally, over on Trust Enablement.

Note: Always use a product like Calendly to simplify meeting set up with prospects. And always use Grammarly to ensure your emails are rock solid.

How to run effective sales meetings using SalesHood

Sales meetings have three primary stages:  Preparation, Delivery, and Follow-up.  Let’s cover each of these stages using SalesHood.

For this article, we only focus on aspects of meeting preparation related to the application; other vital processes are not discussed here.

Preparing For Effective Sales Meetings Using SalesHood

Effective meeting preparation should include organizing the files and presentations you plan to share during the sales meeting.

It should also include having easy access to the content you need due to unexpected questions.

Let’s look at both.

SalesHood does an excellent job delivering on these needs via its Buyer Sites capabilities. Think of Buyer Sites as a good, easy-to-use Deal Room.

The Buyer Site provides:

• A central location for members of the sales team and members of a prospects buying committee to share the content (PDFs, Videos, Images, and so forth)
• For prospects to easily connect and follow-up with the lead salesperson on the team, with email address, phone number, and calendar links being readily visible in the user interface
• Activities around what content is opened and for how long are tracked, giving sellers a clear picture of which pieces of content are most relevant to this buyer
• When the seller adds content to the Buyer Site, it is automatically visible
• The Buyer Site is public and does not have security precautions (requiring an email address or PIN to access). SalesHood has shared that these types of capabilities are in the works

Deal Room creation is straightforward in SalesHood. You must name the site, but other than an optional welcome message and logo, that’s all that is required to begin.

And, upon providing those insights, you see the newly created site.

Use the +Add button next to the Shared Content label in the UI to Record content, upload new content from your system, add a web URL, or add files from the library.

As you go through this process, content is added to the site; it is visible in the center of the page, looking like the following.

Delivering Effective Sales Meetings Using SalesHood

We can continue working directly within the Buyer Site when delivering sales meetings using SalesHood. The Share button provides us with the link to the web page, which we share with the customer.

The prospect could open the deal room and follow along in person, on the phone, or via a live meeting.

The presentation viewing capabilities are sufficient, albeit a bit lighter than some of the competitors in the space. The experience is the same as it is for the seller:

• You can zoom most content types to full screen.
• The video player comes with standard controls so you can play, pause, and play the content at faster speeds.
• You cannot draw on the slide.
• You cannot leave notes to refer back to after the meeting.

Meeting Following Up With SalesHood

Meeting follow-up from SalesHood continues to occur directly in the Buying Site.

As noted already, you can continue to add new content to the portal as questions arise through the deal cycle.

To keep track of how prospects are interacting with content, use the Analytics section of your Buyer site. For example:

It’s easy to see what content was viewed, for how long, and even get a rough idea of where the user is located, which may provide insights into which member of the buying committee is viewing the content.

• As noted, you cannot yet require authentication or simply an email address, so you do not have clarity about which person is viewing the content or if it has been shared with others in the buying committee.
• We have not yet analyzed the level of reporting capabilities in the Salesforce integration.

I will work with SalesHood to get access to the broader set of reports and the Salesforce insights so that I can share with you the depth of reporting available to managers, rev ops, and others.

Summary

SalesHood has done an excellent job of delivering an easy-to-use, powerful interface. While it does not yet have all the bells and whistles of some recognized market leaders, many are not needed.

If you are running sales meetings using SalesHood, you are working with a solid product that should be considered a leader in the space.