Do you know how much time your salespeople spend actually selling? In many cases, sales reps spend too much time doing reporting, administrative tasks, and other non-sales responsibilities assigned to them. If you can streamline your sales staff’s workflow to keep them better focused on selling, your profitability may benefit.
Emphasize strengths
To get started, take a hard look at precisely what your salespeople are doing during their workdays. When appropriate, reassign nonessential tasks to others. For instance, delivery problems can be handled by someone in shipping. Account disputes can be solved by the credit manager. Also, reports may be typed and circulated by administrative support or become more standardized.
Typically, these activities are not the strengths of a salesperson, who may become frustrated and ineffective when expected to perform in these areas. Do you ask your collection manager to sell your product or service? Then do not expect your salesperson to be a credit manager.
Leverage technology
Many salespeople’s non-sales activities consist of shifting their attention from accounts to gathering the right information. This time expenditure, however unavoidable, may be made more productive with the right technology.
How up to date and user-friendly is your customer relationship management (CRM) system? If it has not grown with your company and is not offering the latest functionality, your sales staffers may be wasting precious time getting to the data they need. Three of the most important functions of a CRM system are being able to:
- Rapidly identify & follow up on leads
- Relay information quickly & efficiently to the appropriate support staff
- Readily respond to existing customer needs
Your team needs to be swift and agile in executing tasks directly related to sales.
Make it happen
When it comes to strategic planning, you cannot ignore sales efficiency. After all, strong sales make profitability possible. Please contact us for help assessing your sales team’s effectiveness.