What factor is prime for company growth?
The answer is not so straight, but undoubtedly the sales department plays one of the critical parts in a company’s growth. If your sales fail, your company will no more.
The sales team has many more important roles besides selling your product, such as lead conversion, outreach, retaining customers, analyzing customer demand and product gaps, etc.
In other words, your sales team is the bridge between the customers and your company. So, the sales team must be productive to maximize the best outcome.
This article has brought the 5 most effective 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 for the individual.
If your sales team is obscure about the job, chances are high that it will fail to meet the target. An efficient employee must clearly understand the company goal and target to align his personal goal with the company.
The goal 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 the goal.
On the contrary, accountability works the backstage of a high-performing goal achiever. When you are conscious of your answerability, you get alert of your actions and focus more. At a time, it improves company culture and employee retention.
Stay up to date with recent trends and processes.
You may know the massive failure of the mighty brand Nokia. Though it has played a monopoly in the telecom industry, Nokia has fallen apart 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. Your sales team is the mirror of your target leads. They can communicate and interact with your sales team.
Moreover, it helps you boost credibility and trust in your customer that you will improve quality, performance, and pricing in the future. You are well-educated with public demand and preference. You can compare with your business competitors and understand the lackings.
Run job shadowing programs among the newbies.
A practical hand is more powerful than a theory while working in an industry or field. You can build a competent team with regular training, as it is stated that 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. During this process, one can achieve effective learning and grow faster.
Improving employee satisfaction and morale can benefit you with a deep understanding of your company and products, team bonding, networking, and professional development. Let your newcomers make reports and attend calls under the observation of your team expert.
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 functionalities, 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 engage in your team so that you can easily equip them with the proper tools and guidance to perform their tasks properly.
For example, one in your team is shy but has tremendous technical and brainstorming expertise. If you set him in customer acquisition and collaboration, he may blunder to make the expected results, but you can hope for him in research and improvement.
Automate and ease your work
Do you believe in working harder to improve productivity? If yes, append your faith in working harder and smarter to be at the top of your productivity. Thanks to the advanced technology that brings large-scale automation tools in time, project and lead management, communication, file handling, payroll, invoicing, etc.
Sales reps must perform several repetitive tasks, including paperwork, making reports, email checking, attending meetings, traveling, etc. Therefore, they can only invest about 23% of their time in active selling.
With automation tools, you can free up so many burdens from the sales reps so that they can focus on their job.
The Tools for the sales team to Increase Productivity
Lead Management Software: Contactout
Contactout is a tool that every sales team can embrace for getting the correct prospects for your business. It can filter out the emails and phone numbers of your target customers. This search engine for contact information gives you faster output. At the same time, you invest in finding the right leads.
The features are-
- Email and phone number collection by LinkedIn sourcing,
- Savings profile, unlimited searches, data enrichments,
- Integrated with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, etc.
Time and Productivity Tracking Tool: Apploye
Apploye Time Tracker will best fit you if you have a remote sales or hybrid team. It helps you track the project and task hours, monitor employees’ movement, and automate reports and timesheets. You can also measure the performance and productivity of your employees.
The features are-
- Project and task hours tracking, automatic and manual time entry,
- Employee monitoring, timesheet, clock-in and out, Pomodoro timer
- GPS time clock for Field Employees
- Integrated with Asana, ClickUp, 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.
Key features are-
- Project and task management, workflow management,
- File sharing, email notifications, due date alerts,
- Integrated with Slack, Zoom, LinkedIn, etc.
CRM Software: Salesforce
Salesforce helps you to preserve the old customer and create new ones. It allows you to track and analyze prospects’ account and contact information, sales opportunities, and campaigns. Whether you have a small team or a large enterprise, Salesforce will fit your business and build a strong relationship with your consumers.
You may get the features below:
- Source tracking, contact management, lead capture,
- Reports, lead segmentation, pipeline management,
- Integrated with Tableau, Zapier, Slack, etc.
Email Marketing Tool: Mailshake
Email outreach is one of the most potent sales processes to connect with your target audience. Therefore, using any email marketing tool like Mailshake is more intuitive and productive for generating more revenue.
The features are:
- Email outreach automation, lead activity analysis,
- Lead status tracking, LinkedIn automation,
- Integrated 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. The solution also allows for remote work and travel.
A shared inbox is available to track all customer-business communications, allowing businesses to easily manage customer inquiries and delegate tasks to the appropriate team members.
The key features are:
- Use a collaborative dashboard
- Assign call owners
- Include a call widget on your website
- Access an easy-to-use platform
- Connect with your international audience
Final thoughts
Your business growth depends on how much faster you scale up your sales. The consumers develop the brand, not the company itself. The more your sales teams speed up their performances, the more you can establish your company in the market.
Undoubtedly, sales team productivity matters for the business. The tips and tools presented in this article are practical and reasonable to get a productive sales team.
So, let’s gear up your sales, won’t you?
Author:
Hasan Abir is working as a Growth Marketer at Apploye. He would love to work out of his comfort zone, and his passion is for digital marketing.