The multitude of digital innovations over the past decade have been causing paradigm shifts in the business world. The world is more connected, and many sales processes have been streamlined with new technologies. But despite all these changes, the goal of all businesses is the same: to increase revenue. We still want to make as many sales as possible, optimizing the sales process so you spend fewer resources for each sale. It’s quite a simple principle to follow, yet a lot of sales teams still struggle to apply this in their operations.
Why? Because many businesses fail to realize that convenience and productivity are not a package deal. Just because you can reach more prospects, doesn’t mean that you are connecting with them meaningfully. And in upping your sales productivity, it really all boils down to quality over quantity.
So how do you increase the sales productivity of your team in the new business landscape?
Setting (Realistic) Sales Goals
Without practical, specific, and attainable goals, your sales team will be dead in the water before they can even begin. A lack of structure or purpose can be demotivating: people achieve higher levels of success when there is a concrete standard to strive for.
Goals are also useful tools for assessments, aside from being powerful motivators. This is why in setting your team’s business goals, make sure to arrive at a criterion that is realistically aligned with where your business is currently at and the capabilities of your sales team. This way, you can easily glean insights on how you can continuously improve, regardless of whether you reached the goals you set.
Understanding the Value Your Business Provides
The key to making sales is in how you communicate the value that your business and brand provide.
And not just you: you also need to make sure your team members are experts on your services or products. They will be making sales, convincing customers why they need your offerings, and dealing with possible touchpoints for customer rejection. They cannot communicate your brand’s value if they don’t understand it themselves.
Ensuring this will help you establish a systematic approach to doing sales pitches, and also serve as a confidence booster for your team. And the more confident your team is, the smoother they can communicate with prospective customers.
Embrace Automation
Repetitive tasks that eat up time you can devote to sales have long plagued most teams. Digital marketing and business software can help you offload these tasks and maximize your resources, so it’s about time you embrace them. With the tools available today, you can schedule social media content and ad postings, qualify prospects, send drip email campaigns, and follow up on customers, so your team can focus on the work that still needs a more human touch.
It’s also worth noting that various automated data analytics tools are also readily available to help you keep track of your team’s performance. By embracing these tools, you can efficiently identify specific performance gaps and make substantial improvements to increase your business’s productivity.
Remember that in today’s fast-paced business and sales environment, there are so many moving parts that even a team can be overwhelmed. To prevent them—and you—from succumbing to burnout, you should use all the tools at your disposal.
Acknowledge Your Team’s Progress
Make no mistake about it—sales can be incredibly stressful and taxing. You can implement all sorts of efficient and up-to-date strategies to increase productivity but still fall short in making a sale. That’s okay.
Sales work is all about constantly adapting to the changes in the market and embracing mistakes as stepping stones to overall growth.
This is why, beyond the actual sales work, it’s essential to take care of your most important resource: your team.
Make it a point to praise any progress they make, no matter how small they are. This shows them that you genuinely care about their growth and empathize with their struggles.
After all, a team can’t be productive if they’re not motivated.
Conclusion
Quality over quantity.
Times may change, but the battle cry will always remain the same. The road to making profitable sales is a long one, and you won’t get too far if you constantly put the idea of hard work on a pedestal.
Focus on nurturing a solid growth process for your team and seek out new opportunities to see ideal sales results in no time!
