Want to Increase Your Sales Productivity? Here’s How

One of the top challenges that sales managers face is increasing the productivity of their team. When sales are not doing as well as they should be, it’s not always due to a lack of effort on their part because salespeople spend only about 23% of their time selling. Their time goes into other parts of the sales process, such as meetings, administrative tasks, planning, travel, and other miscellaneous tasks. Around 63% of the time is spent on activities that don’t generate sales. In the end, sales productivity is a measurement of the amount of revenue you can expect from each sales rep.  

To overcome this hurdle of increasing productivity, you can start applying these ideas and strategies to create a successful and productive sales cycle that will also be efficient.

Goal Setting

Lack of goals creates haphazard work. Setting short-term and long-term goals are necessary to get your team motivated and focused. For increased productivity, goal setting should be for the broad scope of the business, but you should also set small goals for each salesperson. Without clear goals, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify the actions that help develop and grow the sales process and turn leads into customers.

Goals give team members a structure to work with and allow them to focus on the issues that matter the most. This in itself creates more motivation and is directly linked to sales results. Also, goals make it easier to measure progress, apply accountability, and identify what works and what doesn’t. 

You can always ask your employees for feedback on the completion of the goals, after all, since they are the ones doing the majority of the work, they can give you better inside info on what happened and how it all went down. It’s as easy as using a survey maker to learn what they think. Digital surveys are the best way to get insights, especially because you can customize the questionnaire to match your specific needs, weeding out unnecessary asks from premade templates and replacing them with specific business-relevant information.

Sales Training

An obvious way to increase sales productivity that is often neglected is training. Not every company can afford to hire the top talents, yet with that being said, part of your business budget should be allocated to the proper training of the sales team to nurture their productivity. Even those who have the experience don’t always deliver. Training gives everyone a strong foundation and recognizes the weaknesses and strengths of each individual on the team, giving them more guidance. 

Moreover, implementing a commission-based compensation structure can serve as an additional incentive for sales representatives to perform at their best. If you’re considering how to hire sales reps who are driven by commission-based incentives, focus on candidates who possess a strong sales track record and demonstrate a self-motivated attitude. Conduct thorough interviews and assessments to gauge their hunger for success and their ability to thrive in a performance-driven environment.

When hiring training instructors, go through the content of what the program has to offer, how training is given, and check the qualifications of those instructing and mentoring your team. 

Lead Generation

Following the right leads mean you are on the right track of finding the best opportunities to increase sales. You may have a lot of leads, but at one point, you have to determine what qualifies as a lead that is worth pursuing.

Some companies use classic methods to bring in leads, like emails or cold calling. Others have more opportunities and a bigger budget to run a marketing campaign related to the sales process. This could be running ads, blog writing, content marketing, etc. 

Whichever process you use, the idea is to create awareness for the buyer that you exist. Assume that the consumer has no idea about you and you are presenting yourself. To know if a lead is good, it should have two elements:

1. The prospect fits into the sales process: What are the characteristics of the potential buyer? If the traits closely match what you are selling, then it’s a good lead because the buyer has a need.

2. The amount of engagement that has happened between sales and the prospect: Has the client contacted you? Are they asking for more information? Did they respond to your CTA (Call to Action)? Or are they just waiting to get a free sample of something you sell? Let your judgment kick in to decide if the lead is worth it or not.

Demonstrate Value

Value doesn’t come by talking about your product or business. Consumers see value in how you can solve their problems. A sales rep doesn’t nag or push a customer into buying but makes them aware of how their problem can be solved.

Providing financial value is another aspect. Certainly, there are a lot of products and services out there that do an amazing job, but absurd pricing won’t get very far in sales. The customer needs to see financial value in where their money is going into.

The solution value is putting the two other values together. Not only are you demonstrating that you are offering a product that solves their problems, but you are also offering it at affordable prices. Your customer begins to see they are making a smart investment when the values are clear insight.

Sales Metrics            

Sales metrics, also called sales analytics, provide you with the data you need to analyze all aspects of your sales process so that you can recognize and reflect on the areas you need to change. The task is to identify the metrics that will enable the team to boost their results and achieve their sales objectives.

Analyzing and determining which measures you calculate helps boost your sales results by giving you feedback into how well the sales process is working. There are several sales metrics to track, such as time spent selling, lead response time, SPC (Sales Pipeline Coverage), monthly new leads, monthly sales, among others.

Specifically, sales metrics can help by:

• Tracking success in achieving the goals of your sales plan.
• Suggesting ways to achieve the objectives that are not being accomplished and make changes accordingly.
• Sharing and comparing progress.

Create Customer Referrals

Building trust between you and customers is when you’ve done a job so well for a customer that they want to tell others about you.

Despite all the means of advertising and creating a reputation, word-of-mouth remains the most powerful. It undoubtedly builds trust, authority, and credibility. 

Delivery

Your future referrals come from how you deliver your solution. How you have made your proposal, negotiated the terms, and how you close the deal are all parts of delivery, What every sales manager or rep has to be clear on is that the sale keeps going on even after you close a deal. 

From the buyer’s perspective, they want an excellent buyer’s experience from the beginning, and there is no end. They want excellent after-sales care. 

Throughout the entire process, keep the user in mind. You want to show them what it is like to do business with you. Productivity is a matter of giving attention to each step of the process. Spending too much time on one aspect and neglecting another will always prove to be counterproductive. It’s normal to see monthly fluctuations, but over time, you can depend on using successful tactics and measures. 

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