Achieving new sales goals doesn’t have to mean hiring new reps. There are likely several improvements you can make internally to optimize your current talent pool before even starting to think about additional reps.
We’ve broken down our top three tips for upgrading your sales processes to see a better return from your reps below. These tips will help you identify weak points and areas where you can see the strongest ROI.
Investing in Technology
Investing in technology can help you see better results from your sales reps, fast. Technology solutions, like Showpad Coach, can give your sales organization new tools, strategies, and processes almost immediately, with easy to implement solutions.
These are just a few examples of how technology could help optimize your sales force:
- Better sales coaching opportunities. Sales coaching is one of the most effective ways to improve sales skills. Mobile sales coaching tools, like the Showpad Coach, helps sales managers provide individualized coaching on the go, from anywhere. Increased coaching time and a streamlined process means your reps will get more valuable feedback, and your managers won’t sacrifice their entire workday doing it.
- Honest feedback. Technology solutions like Showpad Coach use recording technology to give your reps the opportunity to practice verbal communication. They can work on presentations, demos, and role playing scenarios, and then watch back their performance. There isn’t a more honest opportunity for feedback than watching yourself on video, and this opportunity truly allows reps the chance to improve their skills.
- New sales collateral. People generally prefer watching videos than reading traditional content, and that includes your customers. Investing in technology will help your sales team update their content to create more interactive pieces, making it easier for reps to engage clients. Consider turning case study documents into animated videos, or testimonial quotes into personal interviews.
Better Processes
In addition to investing in technology, updating your processes can be another huge opportunity to generate stronger sales results. In fact, there are several sales enablement trends being widely adopted as ways to improve productivity and to create additional revenue opportunities.
Here are just a few ideas to get you started:
- Increase interdepartmental sales collaboration. Having a siloed sales team doesn’t come with many perks. Product marketing and traditional marketing teams are working on sales-related projects that are crucial to the success of your team. Create opportunities for engagement and collaboration to build rapport between the different teams and generate better results.
- Add personalization. The B2B sales experience is trending towards B2C as more clients expect a personalized approach. Adjust your processes to ditch the one-size-fits-all strategy and maximize customization using technology partners to keep costs down.
- Audit your data. CRM applications can help increase sales by up to 29% and productivity by up to 34%, but many organizations are still using them inefficiently. Work with your sales team to re-train reps and ensure everyone is inputting data accurately and consistently.
- Leverage new sales strategies. More and more companies are taking a new approach to their sales goals with ideas like account-based selling. This process can help companies pinpoint, target, and convert more of their ideal clients, instead of using a catch all approach.
Improved Employee Retention
One of the best ways to improve sales results is to keep your reps happy and motivated, and to keep them around. Decreasing sales rep turnover costs means you’ll spend less time hiring and onboarding new reps, and avoid critical downtime where sales aren’t happening.
While investing in technology and improving processes should have a positive effect naturally on employee retention, it doesn’t hurt to invest more time in your team.
Consider different strategies like:
- Providing and following through on promotion opportunities
- Increasing engagement through new opportunities and gamification
- Offering a variety of bonus structures including retention bonuses, company shares, extra vacation time etc.
- Encouraging camaraderie and friendships within your team
- Celebrating small victories often
Learn more about how to decrease your sales rep turnover cost.
Taking the time to invest in your current sales team can be a lot more inexpensive and effective than hiring a new one. Invest in technology, improve your processes, and reduce sales rep churn to generate better sales results while building an existing sales organization culture at the same time.
