Do you guys know what sales productivity is about or are you guys even aware of its existence? Well, sales productivity can be summarized as maximizing sales results while reducing the resources expended. Resources can include anything from cost to effort to time. The rate at which a salesman raises the company's revenue is a measure of sales productivity. In a nutshell, increasing efficiency is figuring out how to make better use of your time.
Now, since we are occupied with the term, let’s dig into how to boost its productivity.
Focus on the right target
Every sales team has its own set of objectives, but guess what? According to TeneoResult, only 43% of sales professionals achieved their sales goals in 2019. In 2020, it is speculated that this number will be reduced closer to 40%. Can you imagine how it will reflect the 2021 achievement? The majority of the time, sales teams fail their targets because they are unrealistic, not because they are too difficult. Resources are scarce in the corporate world. Spreading your energies too thinly over too many tasks can only hurt your sales performance.
Nevertheless, if you can focus on a shortlist of high-quality sales targets, you will be more motivated to achieve them, develop better sales strategies, and hit your target faster.
Take a look at the following criteria that contain high quality goals.
Specific result — Focus on optimizing one or just a few key metrics.
Target date — Set a deadline for achieving the goal.
Realistic — Salespeople perform at a higher level when they work toward realistic goals.
Team-set — Sales teams who set their own goals as a group generally outperform those who have their goals assigned by their manager.
Know Your Product and Your Competitors
Salespeople know what they are selling, not selling their charm and confident to their clients
Reps that have a deep understanding of the product will be able to answer any questions about it, list all of the benefits, and tailor them to the requirements of their prospects. All of this builds trust in their prospects, which is necessary for a transaction to close. As a result, product knowledge training is essential for any sales representative to succeed.
Many sales managers concentrate their training on the product or service's characteristics. However, this is insufficient. Customers are drawn to features, but sales are driven by advantages. A better method to offer the training is to look at it through the eyes of the customers, teaching your salespeople how to recognise consumer requirements and how your solution may help them. Show them customer stories that illustrate how your products solved your prospect’s biggest pain points.
But it's just as vital to know your product inside and out as it is to know your competitor's product and how to set it apart from yours. Reading customer reviews of both your product and your competitor's is a simple method to achieve this. This will assist your salespeople in determining which features are the most popular. It will also allow them to communicate with your consumers in their own language while making a transaction. Not to mention, it will enable them to speak your customers’ language while making a sales pitch.
Monitor and Improve Sales Performance with Key Metrics
If you want to manage, first you need to measure.
The best way for sales managers to visualize their team’s activities and measure performance is through sales KPIs that demonstrate how effective and efficient the sales department is. Having effective ways to measure your sales performance is the key to reaching your goals faster and increasing productivity.
For instance, lead to sales conversion rate method. This popular sales KPI determines the percentage of new clients among all your leads. It assesses the efficiency with which your sales staff converts leads into clients.
If your lead-to-sale conversion rate is low, you may teach your salespeople how to follow up properly. It turns out that 80 percent of sales take five or more follow-ups, while 44 percent of salespeople abandon up after only one.
Instead, Salesteddy is the right tool for you to try on. It provides easy-to-use lead-to-sales management process by empowering the marketing team to drive better leads with sales conversion numbers attributed to any running campaign while providing management with real-time sales performance analytics for better support and intervention to close more sales.
Create a Killer Sales Pitch
About half of a salesperson's day is spent talking to prospects.
By asking the right questions and getting actual numbers out of your prospect, you can show with their own numbers how much they stand to gain if they use your solution. That's how you can move a deal forward.
The majority of that time will be lost if you do not know how to successfully deliver your presentation. Connecting the links between your product's features, advantages, and the business value they may obtain is the greatest approach to convince your prospect to take action.
Quality Prospect The Right Away
Prospecting is the most difficult phase of the sales process for more than 40% of sales professionals. Prospecting may appear difficult due to the fact that sending as many emails as possible is no longer effective. Your team should have a targeted prospecting approach in place to be productive in completing deals:
- Know what your customers have in common.
Before you do anything else, you must first comprehend why your consumers are loyal to you. Knowing what traits your customers have in common might assist your team figure out which prospects to pursue. A chat with your customer support team, who interacts with consumers on a regular basis, is one simple method to find out.
1. Are they from a specific industry or have a similar background?
2. Do they have a common challenge that your product helps overcome?
Or, conduct a simple survey to ask customers what they like about your solution. This way, your team can understand which features generate the most value and highlight them during their pitch.
- Create prospect persona and be personalized
It's time to build personas for each sort of target prospect after you've gathered information about your ideal prospects. Begin with the basics, such as demographics. Then narrow down their industry, job titles, interests, goals, challenges, and other characteristics that influence their purchasing decisions.
Now that you know who to target, you need to develop sales techniques based on their characteristics, such as sending them a certain sort of message. Create personalised emails with a compelling reason to engage your prospects. Also, stay away from these dangerous prospecting email blunders.
A happy and motivated sales team means satisfied customers and a better bottom line. These 5 ways can point you in the right direction and ensure that your sales reps are productive. You may only have a limited number of hours in the day, but what matters most is how your team spends that time. With the help of these tips along with a couple of automated tools, you can maximize your team’s productivity and performance.