Sales is a dog's job
Sales teams have never had the resources, data, knowledge, and support they do today: lead generation software , CRM , ABM software, LinkedIn , marketing automation , Showpad. The list keeps growing. And yet, the entire sales team is still struggling to function better and be more productive. At this point, it’s not about new ways of buying or stronger competition, but about the internal organization of the company, which often proves to be the biggest obstacle in the sales process.
Sales Reps Spend 36.6% of Their Time Selling – insidesales.com
If you realize that sales reps spend an average of one-third of their time doing what they do best and get paid for it, then it would be a good idea to look at the seller experience , right?
Have you ever wondered how sales reps feel about their workplaces? How do they feel about their jobs? How connected do they feel about their jobs? What are the consequences of a negative workplace evaluation dominica business email list and low engagement? Honestly, there are only a handful of B2B companies that put as much effort into improving this area as they do improving customer service. How sales reps feel about their company is often the least of their worries. The question is, rightly so.
In fact, it’s surprising that this isn’t widely recognized as a problem: after all, sales is the face of the company, and sales reps deal with target audiences and customers on a daily basis. There’s also evidence to suggest that an engaged and enthusiastic salesperson offers better customer service than someone who isn’t. It’s time to do something about it—but how?
How do we want to increase sales?
If you want to improve the seller experience, the best place to start is by removing internal obstacles. I can recommend four tips:
1. Limit distractions
Fewer distractions means trying to keep non-sales questions and tasks to an absolute minimum. These include tasks such as internal surveys, internal projects, financial reporting, HR administration, general requests, etc. Of course, many of these issues cannot be completely ignored, especially if they also concern the sales team, but they can be significantly reduced. Others can be marked as “non-negotiables” and are mandatory for all sales representatives. This way, you can eliminate a number of tasks that have nothing to do with their most important area of responsibility as a sales representative. It seems simple. And it is: for every non-sales issue, ask yourself if it is worth the sales team spending hours of their time on it.
2. Streamline your internal workflow
Streamlining workflows means that the salesperson has to spend less time and effort gathering information about people and systems and getting approvals from different departments. This makes using sales tools as easy as possible. This is important because support teams (HR, IT, finance, etc.), often with the best of intentions, buy their own tools that address their specific needs, but these tools often overlap with those of other departments and are not always well integrated. The resulting loss of time, frustration, and effort (not to mention the cost) of moving from one system to another is often overlooked.
Choose CRM contact banner
3. Ease of data retrieval
This means supporting sales in their role by providing them with the easiest access to information possible. Who do I need to talk to? What does the prospect already know? What is the prospect’s profile? What presentation should I do? Where can I find the prospect’s address? Do I have an interesting case study for the prospect’s industry? In many cases, this is a time-consuming task because the information is often scattered across different systems and sources. This is a very frustrating and time-consuming task for most salespeople because they don’t feel supported by the rest of the organization.
4. Sales-focused support
Sales-focused support means that you help your salespeople make better decisions by guiding them to which tools and activities are best used in their sales processes. You also provide a system that provides additional support during “peak hours” (e.g. trade shows, spec responses, presentations, etc.). In effect, you free up salespeople from specific tasks during busy periods so they can focus on what they are good at: selling. To do this, you first need to know exactly what the situation is and what the salespeople need, and you need to establish a clear process so that the support you provide is realistic, predictable, and actionable.
Using these four tips, you can try to remove as many of the distractions from a salesperson’s work as possible. Today, they likely consume about two-thirds of a salesperson’s time. Of course, this task will have an impact across the organization and will require time, resources, and technology support. Effective and integrated use of HubSpot CRM, HubSpot marketing automation, Showpad, and the right guidance will take you a long way.
