BRIGHT SPOTS: How SalesPreso turned the coronavirus crisis into an opportunity to make presentations slicker

While many businesses have been forced to close as part of social distancing measures to reduce the risk of coronavirus, one entrepreneur’s poison is another’s meat and alongside covering how to get through the next six months, and detailing what’s happening in small business land in our series “From The Frontline“, Startup Daily also wants to recognise and celebrate companies who are succeeding in such difficult times, so today we launch a new series, Bright Spots.

The staggering uptick of people working remotely is heavily loading bandwidth and affecting productivity as many people rely on video streaming and video calls to work across teams and companies while not in the office.

While offices are usually geared up to deal with such loads, residential homes are usually not. As a result, systems are crawling and causing frustration. Add security concerns over some video platforms and it’s sparked an opportunity for new ways of working.

It’s an opportunity that data-driven presentation platform SalesPreso leapt towards with both hands – recently launching RemotePreso to help sales teams avoid pixelated screen-sharing sessions that require customers to install software or plugins in order to be sold to.

SalesPreso RemotePreso users can send links that open presentations in a browser and use traditional mobile calls for the audio. It’s essentially a live pitch controlled by the presenter with no video streaming – taking the pressure off bandwidth. It also means you can have unlimited people on a call following along to a presentation and maintain communication across teams and between businesses.

Salespreso co-founder Aaron Cooper said they’d seen a significant increase – up to 40% above average – in the use of our app over the past month.

“The spike is predominantly being driven by our remote presentation features used to create, present and share content—that can be presentations, proposals and reviews,” he said.

“Last month, when working from home was a newer practice, we saw our live app used inside video-streaming platforms such as Zoom, but more recently, we see the app used stand-alone. Anecdotally, several enterprise customers have told us they’re reducing video streaming because of the bandwidth drain and the nature of home broadband which is slow on the upload”

MYOB is already seamlessly transitioning to using the feature to assist their sales teams so they can keep selling while in self-isolation or while working remotely.

NBN Co. reports an 70% increase in daytime usage of broadband, with uploading doubling since February.

It’s a huge stress on the communications networks. While video streaming is great for many meeting uses, when the bandwidth is poor the experience is terrible. For scenarios where desktop, demos and presentations are being shared it becomes impossible.

Cooper says MYOB, a long-time user of SalesPreso, has seen a significant increase in the remote presentation features of the app recently as more meetings have to happen this way and not face-to-face.

But just having calls isn’t enough – Salespreso is seeing more emphasis on data-driven storytelling with increasing reliance on live data in content and up-to-the-minute insights. Businesses need consistent up-to-date information more than ever to close deals and help clients during these uncertain times.

“We also see a lot of focus on the tracking we provide for content too; the salespeople and the business get granular insights,” Cooper said.

“When you’re working at a distance, this kind of data becomes all the more critical, for the users.”

MYOB Sales Strategy Manager, Nick Soanes said the cloud accounting platform, runs an agile team which leverages technology to drive performance.

“When we moved to work entirely remotely in response to the covid-19 outbreak, we decided to, where possible, use tools that limit excess loading on broadband,” he said.

“Our employees all have varying access to the internet so by using tools like Salespreso remote-preso we can maintain reliable contact with our customers and inside teams during this difficult time.”

Cooper explained that if organisations like MYOB see success from field sales teams selling like this, it’s unlikely they’ll revert to BAUBC (Business as usual before covid-19).

“Post-covid-19 our clients won’t want to return 100% to the way they used to work, social isolation has normalised having the kind of meetings we would have previously assumed had to be in-person,” Cooper said

He observed that interestingly, clients said they’re finding it easier to maintain a remote schedule – seeing far fewer cancellations for virtual meetings compared to face-to-face meetings.

“What we’re hearing from our clients is that they see this ‘temporary’ way of working as a strong indication of a permanent way of working in the future. But it comes with challenges. Some efficiency and obviously visibility are lost with remote workers, so speed and control become even more critical,” Cooper said.

“Unfortunately, it’s anyone’s guess when ‘business’ will return to normal. We believe there will be a new normal based on the experience businesses develop during this time.

“This enforced working at a distance, will mean individuals get far more used to attending virtual meetings and the software used to facilitate it. On the other side of covid-19, we expect to see bigger Inside Sales teams, more virtual meetings covering complex sales, account management and advice.

“We already see increased use in this area of our feature set, what we’re also seeing is pipeline customers here and overseas who are making this a primary business case driver.