Thursday, June 12, 2014

How to Establish Sales Accountability: Four Ways to Achieve Control



Your sales team needs the tools that allow them to reach the potential they’re capable of reaching. This often takes a sales management team that is armed with all the information they need to coach the salesforce and drive success. However, establishing sales accountability can be difficult when the tools you’re using aren’t allowing your teams to efficiently deliver data in their sales reports.

In order for a sales operation to get a better crack at success, they need the tools that can offer more predictability, consistency and control. Here are some tips to consider when you want a more productive sales department:

1. CRM Should Provide Social Collaboration
Email, calendars and documents are the most often used applications in the field. Your CRM should open up to these applications and offer integration capabilities. For instance, if your CRM and calendars are able to sync, you can have a better handle of follow-up calls/appointments across the enterprise. There is no longer an excuse for missing a follow-up.
Sales accountability is also about being prompt.

2. Use Your CRM for Strategic Planning
You should be using your CRM, or rather, the data that’s entered into it for strategic planning. Your databases should be rife with information that leads to predictors and patterns that will play out in the near and distant future. With this information and proper analysis, you can make fact-based decisions that lead to a more prosperous future and sales accountability.

3. CRM Pricing Tools are a Plus
Empowering sales reps could be as simple as offering them the data and tools that allow them to configure solutions for customers – on the spot. Price lists can be formulated so that accurate projections can be submitted with every sales call.

4. Your Salesforce is Mobile; Is Your CRM?
The most effective sales reps are in the field.  The less time they spend in the cubicle, the more time they’re out, meeting with clients and gathering valuable intelligence that can help your organization make fact-based decisions on next steps. Choosing a
mobile solution that gives your sales reps the ability to send back detailed sales reports is a good start.

When your salesforce can quickly and easily send back valuable information to your sales managers, you are suddenly armed with data that can help you coach them more efficiently. For instance, when you get all the metrics, you can see how a salesperson prefers to communicate, how they set up appointments, with whom they prefer to communicate and how long they take to complete a sales call.

Front Row Solutions offers a solution that any sales team can use to their benefit. We know what you need as a sales department because we are staffed by former sales department professionals who have years of experience, some of it with sub-par applications that are nearly impossible for the average sales rep to use. Our solutions make sales reporting easier than it’s ever been. In fact, when you adopt the Front Row solution, you’ll be sending sales reports in less than a minute – from your mobile device.