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Sales productivity directly impacts the quality of the results obtained. But to keep employees working with quality—that is, doing more in less time with available resources—some worthwhile steps are needed.
Of course, don’t believe in magic formulas: each team is very different from each other and, therefore, the advice that we will give you below must be adapted to the reality of your business.
After all, each company has its organizational culture, and therefore not all people can adjust to corporate rules and values. And this is the main pillar of employee productivity and engagement.
Keep reading and discover how you can develop your team and make it a reference in the company! We point out five infallible practices to increase productivity in sales.
How do you know if you need to increase sales productivity?
The best way to know if your sales team needs more productivity is by analyzing the indicators of performance (collective and individual). They will show which seller is performing better and which is not.
In addition, the metrics used can go further and relate the productivity of the week or month with the number of leads obtained, meetings held and conversions made.
Therefore, if the actions taken are not paying off, it is time to understand the bottlenecks and reorganize the operational processes!
Especially since one of the causes of low productivity is the lack of clarity of the processes and operations to be carried out.
How to increase sales productivity?
Stimulating better productivity is something that happens gradually and continuously. In other words, it is not enough to carry out measures that help the team to be more productive just once.
This must be part of the culture of the company and, especially, of your managers. Especially since productivity fluctuates and you have to understand what the reasons are for drops and even significant increases.
For example, productivity can be affected by a lack of corporate training, a lack of understanding of internal processes, the climate in the work environment, poor management, incorrect goal setting, among other reasons.
And how to overcome these obstacles? Check out five tips we gathered below!
1. Train the team regularly
A well-trained team is usually much more committed, motivated and productive. This is because employees feel recognized and valued. But the impact of training on productivity goes much further.
There are several types of sales training that focus on technical and behavioral skills. They increase team performance and, consequently, improve sales and billing results.
However, it is essential that the company include in its agenda training that talks about the strategies and operational processes of the team. This way, all team members can stay on the same level and understand the importance of following corporate procedures.
2. Build a good business plan
A good planning is the basis for sellers to organize and achieve their goals.
From it, it is possible for everyone to study the people of the business, the behavior of the company's customers, the operational processes and the determined goals.
A valuable tip is to include the team in the planning process. After all, they can point out bottlenecks and errors that need to be eliminated, improving the fluency and assertiveness of everyone's work.
3. Offer a quality infrastructure
There's no way to be productive if you have to fill out a lot of paperwork and still waste time looking for the client's file, right?
We even risk saying that it is humanly impossible to increase productivity in an environment that does not use technology in its internal procedures.
Technological tools automate routine tasks and facilitate the search for strategic information and data, especially before and during a negotiation. That is, they are the best friends of productivity and efficiency.
Therefore, offer useful resources to the sales team, such as sales apps, high quality computers, efficient internet and modern systems such as CRM, ERP, among others.
4. Track team metrics
It is only possible to understand where sales productivity is low when there is constant analysis of collective and individual performance indicators.
In addition, the metrics help guide strategic decisions, choose topics for future training, refine planning, identify failures, and change objectives, if necessary.
5. Carry out management based on the 4 pillars of sales productivity
The first pillar is people, who really are the soul and fuel of any business. Therefore, know the abilities and difficulties of each of the team to understand at what point they need to evolve.
The second pillar of sales productivity is the processes, which need to be well structured so that they serve as a solid foundation when carrying out commercial tasks and actions.
Management is the third pillar of productivity, since strategies and processes are planned and executed through it.
Finally, there is the technology, which simplifies and speeds up the execution of tasks, the storage of data and the generation of reports with performance metrics.
Related article: Integrations between chatbots and CRMs: why should you combine both tools?
How to use technology in favor of productivity in sales?
Technology like marketing automation platforms and CRM software are essential for any business. In addition to positively impacting productivity, it makes decision-making much more precise and agile.
The Customer Relationship Management system, for example, offers competitive advantages such as task automation, sales funnel creation and management, appointment scheduling, comprehensive reporting, storage of all customer history and interactions and much more.
Did you like learning how to increase productivity in sales? Just follow these tips and embrace a data-driven organizational culture, and your team will gradually become high performers!
This article was written by Júlio Paulillo, Co-founder and CRO of Agendor, a CRM platform that acts as a personal assistant for sales teams, giving management visibility and control from the first day of use.
