When a company is seeking ways to boost revenue, one of the first places they often look is the sales team. They might think they should begin hiring and spend more on marketing, but there are other things you can do. It can be more important to look at ways to increase the effectiveness of your current sales team and put them to their best possible use.
Focusing on sales effectiveness is about productivity and leveraging tools such as new technology to help teams accomplish more. The following are some ways you can help your sales team be more effective.
Analyze T&E Spending
A lot of sales teams are out and about, and there’s not a lot of oversight on the review and analytics of what they’re doing. A good place to start when it comes to analyzing data and seeing where changes can be made is to link T&E spend with sales results.
Do this by putting in place a robust, modern expense management software solution that will integrate with your CRM system. You’ll be able to see what the real results are versus your T&E spending and likely gain some valuable insight.
This is important because T&E spending is often one of the biggest expenses of a company beyond salaries, so to find spots where effectiveness and productivity can be increased, look here first.
Take Another Look at Your CRM System
Mentioned above was the importance of choosing expense management tools that integrate with your CRM system, but while you’re doing that, are you sure you’re using the best possible CRM system?
It may be time to look again and ensure that your current system is providing your sales team with what they need to be effective.
This can also ensure that you have plenty oversight into where time is being spent and exactly where your sales team is spending time.
Introduce Mobile and Collaboration Tools
Sales teams require excellent mobile and collaboration tools. If you’re sending your sales professionals into the field and workflows aren’t modern and efficient, how can their performance be? You want your sales teams to have real-time data at their fingertips from anywhere, and you want communication to be streamlined as well.
You don’t want any member of your sales team feeling like there’s any part of their process or workflow that can only be done at the office.
Simplify Processes
A good sales professional should have the ability to think creatively and be innovative, but when they’re overburdened with best practices and complexity in how they work, these concepts go out the window.
By following the steps above, you can actually then achieve this final tip. The more useful technology, automation and mobile access you can give your sales team, the more they’re going to be focused more on the art of selling and less on the process.
Yes, metrics to measure performance are important, but micromanaging the process isn’t, and it’s not the best way to ensure your sales team is operating at their maximum level of effectiveness.