February 22, 2018 By Suzanne Robertson

An ideal sales team is responsible for hitting quotas and meeting the sales targets of a company. However, many business managers complain that their team acts ‘lazy’ and fails to reach the sales goals regularly.

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If truth be told, the productivity of the sales team is not hampered because of the incompetence of the sales personnel. Instead, it’s the overload of tasks and/or improper distribution of work that makes the sales team inefficient.

Luckily, there are many ways to cope with this problem. Here are a few tips that will help you increase the productivity of your sales team which will subsequently result in the growth of your company:

Automate tasks

Salespeople claim that they spend one-third of their day talking to prospects while 21% of their day is spent writing emails, 17% entering data, 12% going to meetings, 17% researching leads, and 12% scheduling calls. Another study showed that productivity and performance is at its peak when employees are given a 90-minute period of uninterrupted work time.

Although it is impossible for the sales team to spend 100% of their time in selling, there is space for improvement. The best way to give some more time to the sales team to work on their core goals is by automating some of their basic tasks. Several CRM pipeline management tools are available that can be used to ensure that the sales team is doing exactly the job that it is employed to do – sell!

Keep meetings to minimum

Having frequent and repetitive meetings are bad for the health of your organization. In fact, employees agree that meetings are the number one time-waster in offices while the same study showed that, on average, employees spend an hour a day in meetings, for a total of 31 hours per month.

Although meetings are essential and staying updated with the operations of your team is vital, it’s important to ensure that they are set during a specific time. Also, they should be brief and to the point.

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Improve your lead management process

In most organizations, the sales team is not only responsible for closing deals but is also in charge of identifying leads. It can be a time-consuming process wherein the seller has to determine prospects by analyzing their demographics, buying hobbies, and interests. As the owner of the company, you can perhaps hire a sales development representative who can take care of the lead management process on the sales team’s behalf.

This unit can be responsible for analyzing what the perfect lead looks like. And once they are passed on to the sales team, it will know exactly how to deal with them and close the sale for the betterment of your company.

Invest in your staff

Only one in four salesperson majors in business while 17% admit that they never went to college. In fact, just 39% of the respondents of a survey intended to go into sales.

There is no college major for sales, and the sales team that works for the industry usually learns the tricks of the trade through experience or training. Luckily, the good news is that three in four companies use classroom training as a means to educate their sales team while high-performing sales companies are more likely to invest in training their employees than low-performing ones.

In simple words, on-going training is essential for the sales team. It not only equips the sales person with the latest trends and tools but also shows them that you value their input.

Motivate your team

Did you know that 39% of the employees feel underappreciated at work whilst 77% report that they would work harder if their efforts were recognized? Additionally, 4 out of 10 employees consider the rewards and recognition program of a company when choosing a workplace. It is also believed that the performance of employees can increase by 44% if they are given a proper incentive for the work they do.

As you can tell by the above statistics, motivation is the key to efficiency. Individuals who are motivated through incentives, rewards, or praises merely from their manager do a relatively better job. Thus, it is essential that you respect your sales team, encourage them, get to know them personally, and give them space to grow and develop. With time, not only will they admire and respect you but will also try not to disappoint you by working extra hard.

Conclusion

Productivity is a trending term. We all strive to be more “productive” and efficient in whatever we do. Unfortunately, for a staggering number of people, the goal remains elusive. However, there are many reasons behind the un-productive nature of the work force. In fact, according to a study by Salary.com, 34% of employees say they are not challenged enough while 30% admit that they are unsatisfied with the work they are doing. Additionally, the same survey revealed that 34% of the employees work long hours whilst 32% say that they have no incentive to work.

As dismal as these reasons may be, they all eventually lead to non-productivity. The good news, however, is that the productivity level of your sales team can be improved by following the above mentioned tips. Let’s face it; you can’t just tell your employees to “be more productive.” But, by following the above-mentioned strategies, you can efficiently guide your team towards their initial goal and enhance their focus on what they are trained to do – sell more for the benefit of your company.

 

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