Are you aware that only 35 percent of a sales rep’s time is
actually spent in selling?
Well, we know these stats can be absolutely frustrating for
sale reps and managers alike. Therefore, to stay successful, sales teams have
to not only become an expert at organizing their time but also needs to
maximize it.
Hence, here are some of the most simple tried and common
hacking tips that you and your sales reps can utilize in your small business to
maximize their selling time.
Simplify Your Easy To Use CRM Data
As a manager looking after your sales teams, look for ways
to streamline the quantum of information that you need your sales reps to
collect and enter in the CRM database .
Well, we know it must seem tempting to track and evaluate an
ever single piece of information about your salesperson’s deals. Nevertheless,
in reality, doing this will not only steal invaluable time from your sales
reps, but excessive data even in your best small business CRM software can bog down your team, and seldom provide any
extra info that may revolutionize your sales process.
Automate As Many
Activities As You Can
Irrespective of whether you are using enterprise-level CRM
like Salesforce or any other Salesforce Alternative CRM for startups and small businesses in either case sales
automation is becoming more and more sophisticated every day.
However when we talk about data fidelity it can still feel
like a gamble, and so your sales teams must identify activities in sales that
are not heavily tied to AI (Artificial Intelligence) and so can be automated
easily.
For example, if you are using a separate software tool like
accounting software to create proposals for your prospective customers, make
sure that you are leveraging integration like QuickBooks CRM (software that integrates CRM with QuickBooks) to
automatically pull data from your accounting software into your CRM database.
This is because automating tasks using Sales Force Automation
(SFA) in a CRM means reducing errors that at the end save your sales teams
countless hours of overtime.
Make Contents Easier
To Find
It is hard to believe, but it is true that 60-70 percent of
the contents created by B2B marketing teams, especially in small businesses are
never used by sales.
Here is a solution:
Instead of your sales reps wasting their precious time
searching for contents, use a smart folder in your easy to use CRM that
provides discoverability or use dedicated content distribution applications
like DropBox™ or OneDrive™ that helps in sharing assets by integrating it with
your CRM database.
Avoid the back-and-forth scheduling
There are several business application tools available in
the marketplace these days that permit your sales reps to schedule meetings by sharing
a link to your calendar instead of firing several messages and emails to verify
each other’s availability and thereafter suggesting a time for the meeting.
Integrating online appointment schedules with your easy to use CRM aids in easily avoiding
this time suck and therefore provides more time for doing sales for your sales
teams.
Use data to your
advantage
Leverage applications like PandaDoc™ and others for document
management and automation provide extremely useful information like document
viewing report, document forwarding report and eSignature notifications that
leverages the sales rep’s power to understand when to follow up.
Moreover, integrating document management software with best small business CRM software
provides instant access to this type of data that helps in completely
eliminating the questions of whether or not contact or a proposal has been
reviewed or received by the customers that boost the likelihood of winning the
deals quickly.
Conclusion
Therefore irrespective of whether you are a team of 10 or
50, it is always beneficial and smart to dedicate some energy and time to
leverage your sales operations and use sales enablement tools that helps in
dramatically reducing the time spend by your sales teams on mundane admin
works, so that your sales reps may find more time to sell, which directly
translates to rapid business growth.
