Back to UpdatesOn Selling and Using Ovrture
I am a fundraiser. Before joining the Ovrture team, I worked with donors of all levels at a small liberal arts college, a private university, an arts organization, and a grassroots nonprofit organization. Regardless of organization or role, all of my work centered around building relationships with key stakeholders and encouraging them to make investments in not only the organization I represented but, more importantly, its ability to advance humankind.
This point of view never leaves me, nor is it lost at our firm. While I’m not raising money anymore, I’m similarly focused on facilitating deep, thoughtful conversations with high-value prospects who are interested in exploring our platform, our experience, and how we might work together. So about two years ago, we asked ourselves, how can we better illustrate the power of the platform?
We’ve been talking the talk but shouldn’t we also be walking the walk? You guessed it…we built our very own Ovrture system! We have affectionately come to call it “[O] on [O],” and it’s become an essential tool in our business development process. Given that we are on the verge of launching a second generation of our own system, we wanted to document our hard-won lessons learned that have, in part, shaped how we have made the platform ever better for our clients:
1. Think Fast
Opportunity: In our case, our first meeting is quite often a high-level overview of the platform via Zoom. We may meet with one person or a small group, and they often want to share what we discussed with other team members.
Use Case: Immediately following our conversation, I send a follow-up site that includes a personalized video from me highlighting the things we discussed, some content about what the platform is, and some videos that highlight the core of the platform.
Lessons Learned: Following up from a meeting isn’t anything new in high-value sales, but what I’ve learned is that the wow factor that comes along with super prompt follow-up from a meeting—I’m talking less than 30 minutes—makes a big difference.
2. (Boldly) Embrace Personalization Over Production Values
Opportunity: We all walk around with video cameras at the ready—thank you iPhone!— so, why not put them to good use? The days of only sharing highly produced videos (ala Nike commercials) with high-value prospects are done. What people are looking for are things that are tailored to their specific area of interest.
Use Case: When we first built our system, I started filming short videos to include in every Ovrture follow-up site.
Lessons Learned: Were the early videos I made amazing? Not exactly. But I kept practicing, learning how to appropriately set up my space and execute a personalized video focused on providing meaningful connection. It might make you a bit nervous to have your face on the screen, but stick with it, as I can attest that it gets easier. While the quality might not be on par with Hollywood, the power of going all-in with personalization is confirmed time and time again when a prospect thanks me for taking the time to be hyper-personalized.
3. Make It Easy For The Prospect
Opportunity: Over the course of our sales process, our team needs to share a smorgasbord of information with a prospect, their team, and some far-flung IT colleagues.
Use Case: As a team, we use Ovrture to drop in a pricing proposal, our best practices guide, or other documentation that a prospective client may need as they are evaluating whether they should invest in our platform. Best of all, the information is shared in a logical, branded, and integrated manner.
Lessons Learned: It would be easy to answer an email request with a PDF here or hyperlink there to our documentation. That said, we value the customer experience way over our own convenience and use our system to make it super simple for the prospect to have access to everything they need all in one organized site.
4. Lean Into Data-driven Outreach
Opportunity: Using conventional tools (email or Google analytics, for instance), there is no elegant way to track whether a prospect has read or viewed what we have shared.
Use Case: Ovrture’s embedded analytics provide highly granular insights on how our prospects are reviewing their sites.
Lessons Learned: We have come to rely on this tool to shape our follow-ups and to further refine the content to better shape the prospect experience. Creepy? No way. When you think about what other high-value sales organizations are doing, why shouldn’t you have this superpower as well?
After both selling Ovrture and being a “client” of Ovrture, I am left asking myself some simple questions:
Looking back to my decade as a fundraiser, would I have wanted a tool like Ovrture? Definitely.
After years of using Ovrture, has it become a critical tool for me to do my thing? Definitely.
Is this a tool that is becoming increasingly more and more relevant in our world? Definitely.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Ovrture could help your high-value conversations, let me know. I’d be happy to walk you through it—and, of course, share a follow-up site afterward!
CORY ANDERSEN
Account Executive, Business Development
CORY ANDERSEN
Account Executive, Business Development
Cory helps inspire clients to challenge the status quo in how they communicate with key donors and prospects. As a former fundraiser, she believes in the power of donor-centric philanthropy to bring big change to organizations. When she’s not connecting with teams about Ovrture, you can find her on outdoor adventures with her family.
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