Sales have the greatest impact on the ever-important cash flow of a business. Companies therefore need to invest time and money in providing sales teams with the right tools to enable them to work towards achieving the company’s growth. The main objectives of a company’s salespeople should always be to generate new business and reduce the risk of losing existing revenue, says Gary Epstein, MD of EasyBiz Technologies.
Salespeople are constantly expected to keep setting their sights higher because sales goals are always changing. This means that no matter how high a salesperson’s productivity is, there is always an expectation that the next quarter or the next year should be better.
Products, services, systems, processes, people, and compensation are just some of the areas that are often changing. Salespeople can’t control these variables, but they need to be able to adapt to them as quickly as possible.
The main goal of the salesperson is to continually push themselves to achieve more – in terms of their close rate, obtaining more leads, and aiming to help prospects see them as an authority in their product or service space. The close is the key when it comes to sales. A salesperson might be great at making cold calls, giving presentations, and performing other sales support activities, but if they cannot close, they cannot succeed in sales and grow the company’s business.
Just as important is building strong relationships. People generally trust a brand more when they get to know it personally. Therefore, positive feedback plays a major role in every business. It allows the company to build loyalty and relationships with customers, and this directly improves the brand’s reach and its growth.
Truly effective sales teams will not only communicate and sell the firm’s products to target customers, however. They will also continuously collect, integrate and disseminate the critical market intelligence that will help the firm innovate and define the business strategy. Understanding the market and decisions about product-market fit must therefore begin with the salespeople.
Considering the vital role that sales teams play in a business, it stands to reason that they should be given all the support they need and the tools that will make their job easier. Following a manual sales cycle is becoming more and more cumbersome and time-consuming, and the argument for automating the process is gaining traction.
According to global management consultancy, McKinsey, 40% of the tasks within the traditional sales function can now be automated. Adobe states that four in 10 companies say they require more than two days to generate a sales quote. G2, a company that collects user reviews on business software, says that 75% of salespeople don’t think they have access to the latest efficiency-boosting technology.
When it comes to sales performance, reducing the amount of time it takes to negotiate, review and close contracts is critical. These slow, manual processes create bottlenecks – especially at the end of the month or quarter – that can lead to lost deals. This is where technology can help.
Automated sales tools help salespeople understand which prospects are most likely to be successful with their product or service, when to reach out to those prospects, and what they should be talking about with them. They save time on tedious and time-consuming administrative tasks and can focus on what matters the most: providing value for people and businesses.
Another reason for investing in sales technology is that employees have started to demand access to a greater variety of modern tools. This means that companies using conservative or old-fashioned sales methods not only risk losing sales, but also their best sales talent. According to LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2021, 94% of sales professionals say sales tools help them close more deals.
However, even when businesses have access to all of the data and tools that they could possibly require, they face the challenge that data is scattered across numerous platforms and solutions. This can be avoided by utilising MiClient software, which allows the sales cycle to be managed on one platform. MiClient can help businesses to:
- Offer better customer service and interaction.
- Achieve higher productivity and efficiency in sales teams.
- Centralise information on one platform.
- Manage communications with prospective leads.
- Automate sales reports.
- Create more accurate sales forecasting and pipelines.
- Streamline internal communications.
In a role as important as generating new business and growth for the company, salespeople need to be given the best tools to do their best work. Outdated manual systems that produce limited results can be replaced by automated systems that deliver optimal results. While the sales function is a challenging one, it’s encouraging to know that the technology available to support it has been proven to yield impressive results for business-owners.
