ZOOM OUT.

It sounds simple but it isn’t. If you’re in sales on Zoom all day:

1. Do your pre-meeting prep
2. Take in-meeting notes
3. Be memorable with custom backgrounds

And (duh) make your life easier by doing these with Warmly’s Zoom app. Here’s my workflow.

Three virtual meeting hacks to drive efficiency + one more thing.

We meet  like never before–online. All day. All the time. That reality is here to stay. After a year and half of Zoom or Google Meet, feeling connected, engaged, and productive can be challenging. It’s a challenge that resonates with us all, but working remotely presents an unique opportunity to uplevel our meeting productivity. There are three best practices (with a secret hack at the end) to master that drive efficient meetings, and they’re all simple and easy.

1) Do your pre-meeting prep. A 10AM scheduled Zoom call with the VP of Sales actually starts at 9:50AM. So space your meetings out a bit to give yourself time to prep. We’ve all been there: the rushed, 10-minute LinkedIn lookup before a meeting. It happens, but this is a cardinal sin in sales. To kick-off an efficient meeting, it’s imperative to know as much about (a) who you’re talking to and (b) any ancillary information that’s going to keep the conversation focused. Doing so will help you create genuine connections to build rapport as well as keep your meetings defined and pointed. People’s time is valuable, so honor it by coming prepared. Please, remember to do your homework.

2) Take in-meeting notes. The best sellers in the world listen 3X more than they speak. What should you be doing while listening? Taking notes! You should be optimizing the time spent meeting with clients by actively jotting down their personal challenges, current process pain points, and anything else you can sniff out to offer value around. A deep understanding of your customers’ needs is critical in landing that next call. Remember to archive these notes – they’ll catch you up to speed on what was covered last meeting, and inform you on what to expect next time.

3) Be memorable with a unique virtual background. Always be searching for an opportunity to further delight a prospect. One of the great qualities of virtual meetings is the ability to tell a story about yourself before you say a word with custom backgrounds. With so many people utilizing Zoom on a weekly basis, you need to be memorable and nail your first impression. A powerful way to stand out is to cater calls to your meeting participants with custom virtual backgrounds. One of my favorite tactics is to add the logo of my company side by side to their company’s logo, and add a fun fact about myself. It’s a unique way to show respect and is an instant rapport builder. This is so underuterizlied and allows you to make meetings purposeful and connective.

These tips are a great way to rock your virtual meetings, but the sad reality is that this workflow takes time, and that’s why some of you haven’t done it … yet. An important callout is that these motions can be augmented with virtual tools that would not otherwise be available in-person. Pre-meeting prep, taking in-meeting notes, and having custom backgrounds can all be streamlined to make meeting life easier. There’s an arsenal of tools out there to help us do this, but for me, one in particular stands out among the rest.

Secret stuff. You’re sacrificing great meetings when you limit yourself to the basic functionalities of Zoom or Google Meet. Doing my pre-meeting homework can take up essential time and taking in-meeting notes forces me to swipe to and from windows.

It’s an efficiency killer. My hack: use #Warmly. #Warmly is a free Zoom App that does all of this for me. It instantly pulls insights on the people I meet to drive deeper connections (no prep-work). It’s a virtual meeting assistant that provides context such as mutual connections, past email history, company news, and more – all in one place:

I use #Warmly in Zoom because it’s the most efficient way to build rapport with prospects, make memorable impressions, and cultivate lasting relationships. Meeting with #Warmly is a no-brainer for productivity. If you want to join me in this movement of supercharging how we connect with teammates, prospects, and others we meet in Zoom, get access to #Warmly here.

Making the switch from in-person to virtual meetings can feel like getting on a surfboard for the first time – it feels weird. But by pairing a few best practices with tools that maximize efficiency, meeting virtually can improve process and people outcomes. Try out these tips, use #Warmly, and let me know how it fares.

The excuse factory is now closed.