What you need to streamline your sales process
The more streamlined your sales process, the quicker you can turn prospects into paying customers, and the more easily your reps can move on to chasing the next leads on their list.
Of course there are some challenges to encompass when looking to overhaul sales efficiency, so let’s go through some of the things you will need to do to get to this point.
Provide the right training
While some people think that sales skills are naturally endowed rather than something you can learn, in reality the opposite is true, and the best salespeople are those that have received effective training over the course of their careers. Nowadays you can now hire commission only sales agents for your business.
Thankfully there are a whole host of tools and solutions available to deliver this, empowering new and experienced reps alike with the abilities they need to succeed. There are so many that it can actually be tricky to pick just one, for example you can read about Seismic vs. Highspot vs Showpad vs. Bigtincan compared to get a feel for what each sales enablement tool brings to the table.
Create a compelling roadmap for stewarding prospects
If sales team members know which steps to take when following up on leads, it will be easier for them to catalyze the entirety of the customer’s journey, rather than missing out key steps and potentially letting a prospect slip through their hands.
Part of this involves also considering how marketing comes into play in a sales context, such as focusing on qualifying which prospects are appropriate for pursuit by salespeople, and at which point this transition can be made most effectively.
Narrow your target audience and demonstrate value
The better you understand the people you are selling to, the easier it will be to win them over. Establishing a specific persona for the kind of customer you hope to attract is part of this, and you can build a picture of your ideal audience member by thinking carefully about what problem it is that the goods or services you are selling are capable of solving.
With this in mind, you can then allow your sales agents to showcase the value that your business can provide to customers, particularly in relation to issues they are facing in their own lives, rather than having to deal with an uphill struggle of hawking irrelevant features.
Let data guide your sales strategies
Modern sales teams can leverage far more impactful metrics than any of their predecessors, so you have to be attuned to the analytical opportunities that exist if you are to benefit from them.
Tapping into the digital platforms you occupy to pinpoint particular customer behaviors will not only give you an insight into the opportunities that you are missing at the moment, but could also identify sales strategies that are not having the desired effect, and are thus in need of a rethink.
Embrace automation where possible
To free up more of your sales teams’ time for customer interactions and lead generation, rather than leaving them bogged down with lots of minor administrative tasks that drag on interminably, automation is your best bet.
A whole host of modern sales and customer relationship management platforms feature differing degrees of automation, and often tap into other areas of your business so that it is easier to coordinate your sales and marketing efforts, for example.
Even things like lead generation can be automated, and these tools are really about enhancing the abilities of existing salespeople, rather than replacing them outright, so you do not need to be cautious about adopting them.
There are lots of other things needed to streamline your sales process further, but hopefully you can get started based on this advice.
Photo by Ilyuza Mingazova
