Have you ever imagined that you would grow up to be in sales? Most sales professionals accidentally land up in the job, learn the field sales tips and tricks through experience and build up their network and reputation to grow in the profession.
Since most of the field sales representatives join the profession with little experience, sales leaders have to be always on their toes to fuel the sales team performance, from providing the essential training to regularly tracking and monitoring their routine tasks. Usually, sales leaders are in a constant struggle to keep a balance between enhancing the individual field sales rep performance and business performance. In order to maintain the balance, they often rely on field sales software that enables them to track and monitor sales activities.
Although such software solutions are helpful in increasing the efficiency of the sales team, a lot more can be done to improve the overall performance and boost sales. Here are the top 5 field sales strategies that sales leaders can adopt along with using the software to drive growth and generate more revenue.
1. Develop Training Schedule for New Hires
According to SMA report, it takes approximately 11 months to make new sales representatives productive. The time frame is quite long and difficult for small and medium scale companies considering the cost vs. benefit analysis. In order to maximize the output, sales leaders can prepare a calendar that within a certain time frame the sales representative has to gain expertise in key activities.
For instance, in a 30-day training period, the new field sales representative must understand the offerings, territory, and become familiar with the CRM. In the next 30 days, the rep must learn to identify the right prospect and throw the pitch at the prospects.
Well-planned training could be extremely beneficial in preparing the new field sales hires to gain expertise in all the areas of field sales meanwhile also deliver the results in that specific area.
2. Set Clearly Defined, Time-bound Field Sales KPIs
When the field sales representatives know what, when, and how much is expected from them, they can work with a more focused approach. In an ideal scenario, field sales representatives are expected to perform their task with efficiency. But that does not usually happen. It is therefore essential to set well-defined, time-bound KPIs in order to adopt a targetted approach.
Besides, setting the right KPIs is also important as it ultimately impacts the sales team performance. As a sales leader, you must ensure that every team member is meeting their set goals and targets. This requires you to have visibility in the processes so that you can make informed decisions related to rep performance. Use of field sales app with advanced features and interface can provide you with the required visibility. However, one must choose the right application that effectively caters to the requirements.
3. Focus on Sales Cadence
Planning and following perfect sales cadence is essential. Along with that, sales leaders must ensure that everyone in the team follows the sales cadence without fail. Evaluate your sales pipeline and the lead flow to plan out the sales cadence. Based on that, design a follow-up process considering how long is the sales cycle in your industry. See, if the sales cycle is long, your follow-up should have longer gaps, but if the sales cycle is short, then your follow-ups should not have long gaps. You can track the follow-ups using CRM that is connected with a field sales mobile app.
Wrapping Up
Sales is an ongoing process. Every activity that happens in an organization ultimately leads to sales and therefore sales leaders must prepare the right strategies to improve their sales practices. Since most of the sales-related administrative tasks are delegated to software, it has become easier for the sales leaders to gain more control over the process.
