Ideas to increase sales team productivity? What you have been doing?
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In the short term, or to spike sales, contests are a great bet It’s not uncommon for a group of salespeople to be objectively competitive. While I was on a team of several multi-state territory managers, we held a Marketing Blitz Competition. The 1st 2nd and 3rd placed individuals in each of the following categories earned a prize: we competed in most sales calls (considered sit down meeting with customer/product demo, that was documented in CRM), and the largest sale made in the following three weeks post sales call blitz. My theory on the timeframe is you must allow a rep time for the sale to close. We all know things don’t happen overnight - and giving the rep time to close a deal as opposed to cramming it all in the short term yielded the highest closure rates. Which was the overall goal.
Give your reps plenty of time to prepare. It’d be instinct to surprise your reps…but if you give them time you’ll see some stars really shine. The guys I worked with took it upon their own initiative to invite factory specialists in-territory (I was working as a rep for industrial automation parts, so having factory specialists meeting with customers usually promoted wins or project expansions), when my colleagues were in a sales call they were more likely to ask the question “whom else could I show this too?”, it got the team back into a groove of entering CRM nots, and a comment I received from a salesperson in a more mature market: it got them back out making cold calls for the first time in awhile.
Make the progress and results known. Make the prizes something cool. Share these tips with your team, the more help you give them - the more they’ll get into it and feel like they have a shot to win.
Increased sales calls, increased manufacturer involvement with our company, more sales and projects, increased CRM discipline, and shook things up.
Win, win, win, win, win.
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Hi Sam, as a sales manager, I have bi-weekly one-on-ones with my reps. It's an opportunity for them to ask me for help and support. I also give them feedback - what's going great, and what they can improve on. I make sure these are cordial meetings. I think having a good relationship with your team is key to keep them motivated.
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Hello Sam, I agree with LordByron. I think another important aspect to consider is team relationships. Does your team have opportunities to learn about each other outside the workplace? Do they have in/out of office events where they can hang out ? People work best in places they love being. When they feel welcome and supported, producitivity increases. If they don't feel like a part of the team, they might just work to get out as soon as possible. You lose quality of work from that. This is what I learned in my expereinces in different workplaces.
Also take a look at what the company brings to the table versus your competition. For instance I have a friend who works for one of my competitors. They have a poor online rating compared to my company and some of the other companies in this market they pair this with high prices…not a winning combo. So my friend and the other two sales reps at this company struggle to maintain a decent close ration which in turn means they can’t earn a decent paycheck. They cannot change the negative reviews due to poor after sale service and office related issues and they can’t change the company dictated price…in other words there is no value to the customer. There are 5 companies local that are better rated and can offer a better price with the same or better product and warranty.
My point is that it isn’t always the sales team that is under performing it can be the company that is setting them up for failure un knowingly.
Sam, based on a system we use, our sales have gone up almost 200% over a priod of time by being able to predict our customers’ buying preferences ahead of the prospect meeting. It not only helps connect better, build trust faster and deeper customer relationships, it also allows us to align best with what our potential clients value, reduce the time to get to a Yes and also get more Yes’s!
If you’d like to know more, please get in touch.
Hello Sam,
If you think your sales team is not productive, there is a chance that what’s stopping them from doing their best is something that no one can figure out at once but it can be remedied once the problem has been identified. The problem that I am talking about here is bad lead procurement. It happens a lot that companies buy shelf lead lists as sales intelligence for their firm. This is not a successful strategy because it can never be determined whether the leads procured are relevant to the business at all or if the contact information is verified or not. I once faced the problem of not closing sales when my company purchased lead lists from a third-party source when I was new to sales.
I would advise you to make modifications to your lead generation system and see if it increases your sales team’s productivity or not. all you have to do is get a tool called Aeroelads, it is what I use for generating leads for my business. It is just a chrome extension that helps you search for your target clients on sites like LinkedIn and filter out the ones that have a lower chance of conversion into clients, the tool automatically builds a list containing the contact information of those prospects that are selected for reaching out. This strategy could be pivotal in case you have not been getting enough sales conversions in your business.
All the very best!