Throwing Software at a Remote Sales Team Won’t Increase Sales
Long before Covid hit, businesses were struggling with managing remote sales teams. Often the only way to really understand what was happening in the field was to call them into home base on a monthly or quarterly basis. Typically, this created a surge of activity in updating forecast and pipeline documents – largely in spreadsheets – some shared, some not.
Even so, it meant information was slow and often arrived too late for managers or the sales teams themselves to correct a gap in the pipeline. If you don’t have visibility of progress until months end it is very hard to make corrections, including getting the team really focused on selling down stock.
Oddly it was often when sales teams were busy and selling well that the biggest information gaps appeared and biggest issues arose. It made for very lumpy sales and the opportunity for large sales to be missed at the expense of closing a lot of smaller deals.
More Visibility is Needed
Bringing the team physically together has become increasingly difficult – if not impossible – over the past couple of years. Covid, not surprisingly, has made the situation worse - including the impact on supply chains. Companies are looking for more visibility of not just the sales in the pipeline but intersecting that with stock availability.
Several have come to us looking for a solution, but we are sorry to say just throwing some software at the problem isn’t going to make your sales team any more effective. We have taken some time to study the issue and identified five key things we believe is needed for software to get your remote sales team working.
ONE: Transparency needs to be sold in
If you’ve worked as a lone ranger for years having everyone able to see your pipeline, forecast and sales can be a scary thing. Who can see ‘what’ either needs to be managed in the software or the advantages of this sold across the team. There is a case for greater collaboration being able to benefit everyone. It can also appeal to a sales team’s naturally competitive nature in meeting or beating their targets.
TWO: The software needs to work for sales (not vice versa)
Getting buy-in so your sales team actually uses the tool is your biggest hurdle. Most of the sales people we work with are looking for the simplest, most intuitive, ways possible to enter and manage data. They view tracking and reporting as an unnecessary overhead and unless they are held to account, will duck it where possible. It means a rigid one-size-fits-all approach is seldom going to work. There needs to be a solid framework that delivers the information the company and team need – then flexibility within that for sales people to work in a way that is most effective for them.
THREE: You need a Minimum Viable Product
Part of getting that buy in is to get your sales team hands on with the software as fast as possible. And a big part of that is understanding what is the baseline information they need to function and putting it in front of them in a way that makes sense – to them. This isn’t difficult. Typically, it covers things like:
Who the prospect is
Value of the opportunity
How far down the sales process they are
What is the chance of getting them over the line (or not)
What do I need to focus on next to achieve that
A view of what stock is available
That is pretty much it. There will be variations based on different industries, but it pays not to overcomplicate things. It is much easier to get everyone on board using the MVP first. As they become familiar with the tools and have embedded using them in how they work, then you can start adding more functionality. They grow their usage as the tool grows functionality. That way they will be using 80-90% of the available functionality across the board versus the more typical 20-30% which delivers far greater ROI.
FOUR: Everyone needs training and coaching
It is a big mistake to think your sales team will pick this up by following a set of instructions – online or offline. Most of them will learn more from one hands-on training session than anything they will ever read or watch. Even if it is delivered remotely – training that is tailored to the actual solution they have installed, operates the way the business wants them to work and gives the chance for QnA – is going to deliver better results faster. And if you can add in some individual coaching – it's gold.
FIVE: Why you don’t want ‘best-practice’
The problem with ‘best-practice’ is that because everyone does it, it is generally a fairly rigid approach to how things are done. This can work really well in large enterprises where a continuous steady state is highly desirable. If you think of an enterprise as a large ocean liner they can ride through most storms without tossing their passengers around. The downside being it takes a very long time to turn an ocean liner around – they are built for stability not agility.
Thankfully most of our customers aren’t ocean liners. They are far more interesting. We liken them to super yachts going to equally interesting destinations but with a need to be a lot more agile in dodging storms and being able to turn, pivot and ride waves. It means the software that runs their sales teams needs to have a lot more in-built agility (in other words, be ‘adaptable’) than what is generally considered ‘best-practice’.
It doesn’t mean they have a smaller sales team – just a different mindset and set of needs. They are also the ones who are likely to get really busy and then really quiet – unless they have the visibility, discipline and tracking a really good CRM and related sales solution can offer.
As we said above – it isn’t about the software. You need a good understanding of the sales process, flexibility built into the solution, deliver a great user experience and train/coach sales people into using it effectively. We really enjoy working with sales teams and helping them make more sales, faster. It is one of the most rewarding areas of business software and done right it is a game changer for everyone.