What makes for fast company growth?
It’s actually a complex combination of different factors but, undoubtedly, the sales department plays a very critical role. Your sales team is the bridge between the customers and your company. So, they must be productive to maximize the best outcome. If they fail, so does your business.
With that out of the way, here are five tips and tools to improve the sales team’s productivity and competency.
Practical Tips for the sales team to Increase Productivity
Implement goals and accountability.
If your sales team does not know their job, chances are high that they’ll fail to meet the target. An effective employee must clearly understand the company goal and target to align their personal goals with that of the company.
Such goals should be realistic, measurable, achievable, and acceptable to your team. Hence, you can easily forecast and track your team’s performance status if your team progresses toward their objective.
On the contrary, accountability drives a high-performing goal achiever. When you know you have to answer for something, you are motivated to focus more on what you do and deliver. When accountability measures are properly implemented, it may also improve company culture and employee retention.
Stay up-to-date with recent trends and processes.
You may be aware of the massive failure of the mighty brand Nokia. Although it has played what’s practically a monopoly in the phone manufacturing industry, Nokia went downhill because of its inability to keep pace with trends and customer needs.
If its sales team can incorporate and analyze the trend and consumer interest, you may see Nokia beating the market. As such, your sales team should be a mirror of your target leads, so they can communicate and interact with your potential customers.
Moreover, when you’re well-educated with public demand and preferences, you can boost customer’s credibility and trust in your company. This, in turn, will help you improve the quality of your offers, your sales performance, and product pricing. You can start by observing your business competitors and understand the areas where they are lacking.
Run job shadowing programs among the newbies.
Practice is more powerful than theory while working in any industry or field. You can build a competent team with regular training; continuous training can bring up 50% higher net sales per sales rep.
One of the most effective processes is job shadowing, where newcomers can work with experts or more experienced colleagues. During this process, they can achieve effective learning and grow faster in their industry.
Improving employee satisfaction and morale can benefit you with a deep understanding of your company and products, strong bond with your team, larger network, and accelerated professional development. In this regard, you can let your newcomers make reports and attend calls under the auspices of your best veteran employees.
Map your team according to the member’s personality.
As a team lead, the most challenging part of your job is to set the right people in the right places. A sales team has diverse functions from prospecting to follow-up, which are all equally important.
The team members must be well aware of the sales funnel and how they can work with your team so that you can easily equip them with the proper tools and guidance to perform their tasks properly.
For example, if one in your team is shy but has tremendous technical and brainstorming expertise, you can set them up in customer research. If you set them in customer acquisition and collaboration, they may not deliver the expected results.
Automate and ease your work
Do you believe in working harder to improve productivity? You might want to work smarter as well. Thanks to the advanced technology, we can now automate a large number of repetitive tasks, such as project and lead management, communication, file handling, payroll, and invoicing.
Sales reps must perform several repetitive tasks, including keeping records, making reports, and checking emails. Therefore, they can only invest about 23% of their time in active selling.
With automation tools like CRM and payroll software, you can free your sales team from some time and energy, allowing each sales reps to focus on their job and be better at what they do best.
The Tools for the sales team to Increase Productivity
Lead Management Software: Contactout
Contactout is a tool that every sales team can use to get the correct prospects for your business. It can quickly retrieve the emails and phone numbers of your target customers while helping you find the right leads.
Here are its key features:
- Email and phone number search by LinkedIn sourcing
- List building
- Data enrichments
- Integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, etc.
Time and Productivity Tracking Tool: Apploye
Apploye Time Tracker will work best for you if you have a remote or hybrid sales team. It helps you track the project and work hours, monitor employees activity, and automate reports and timesheets. In this way, you can measure the performance and productivity of your employees.
Its features include:
- Project and work hour tracking
- Automatic and manual time entry
- Employee monitoring
- GPS time clock for field employees
- Integration with Asana, ClickUp, and Trello
Project Management Tool: Monday.com
Monday.com helps you align all of the tasks in an advanced dashboard so that you can monitor all of your work progress. As a sales team has multiple tasks, Monday.com would give you an organized interface to complete your daily tasks and meet the deadline.
Here are its key features:
- Project and task management
- Workflow management,
- File sharing
- Email notifications
- Due date alerts
- Integration with Slack, Zoom, LinkedIn, etc.
If you’re exploring other options, considering this Monday alternative that might also offer unique features to enhance your team’s productivity and collaboration.
CRM Software: Salesforce
Salesforce helps you keep old customers and build profitable relationships with new ones. It allows you to track and analyze prospects’ accounts and contact information, as well as sales opportunities and campaigns. Whether you have a small team or a large enterprise, Salesforce will fit your business and help you build a strong relationship with your consumers.
See its key features below:
- Source tracking
- Contact management
- Lead capture,
- Report generation
- Lead segmentation
- Pipeline management
- Integration with Tableau, Zapier, Slack, etc.
Additionally, take advantage of Integrating Google Analytics with Salesforce to get valuable insights into your website’s performance and user behavior, allowing you to make data-driven decisions.
With this integration, you can track website interactions, measure conversion rates, and gain a deeper understanding of how your marketing efforts contribute to your sales pipeline. By combining the power of Salesforce and Google Analytics, you can optimize your marketing strategies, generate geo-targeted website traffic (visitors), and drive better results for your business.
Email Marketing Tool: Mailshake
Email outreach is one of the most potent sales processes that connects you with your target audience. Therefore, using an email marketing tool like Mailshake can help your sales team generate more revenue.
Its features are:
- Email outreach automation
- Lead activity analysis
- Lead status tracking
- LinkedIn automation,
- Integration with Pipedrive, Calendly, etc.
Phone System For Teams: Ringblaze
Ringblaze is an advanced communication platform specifically designed for small businesses. Its features enable teams to unify various communication channels, including customer inquiries and internal conversations. By facilitating collaboration between teams, Ringblaze ensures that all outstanding issues are addressed efficiently. This solution also allows for remote work and travel.
One of its best features is a shared inbox that tracks all customer-business communications, allowing businesses to easily manage customer inquiries and delegate tasks to the appropriate team members.
The key features are:
- Collaborative dashboard
- Call owner assignment
- Call widget for your website
- Access to an easy-to-use platform
- International calls
Final thoughts
Your business growth depends on how fast you scale up your sales. For that matter, you should note that the consumers develop the brand, and not necessarily just the company itself. The better your sales team is in this regard, the more you can establish your company in the market.
Undoubtedly, sales team productivity matters for the business. Improve your sales team by starting with the tips and tools presented in this article but, as always, feel free to explore and look out for solutions that suit your organization better.
So, let’s gear up your sales team, shall we?