COVID-19: HOW TO MANAGE A REMOTE SALES TEAM

The Coronavirus pandemic has driven people worldwide to remain at home. This pandemic situation has affected the small business adversely. There came the necessity of working remotely. Few organizations adapted to advanced technology and were prepared for this scale of employee dispersion. Sales productivity has suffered in this pandemic because of the closure of offices and employees staying at home. 98% of Sales leaders report their demand and sales were disrupted by this pandemic. This pandemic has changed the buying behaviour of the people. Most executives believe that this pandemic will transform the way of selling forever.

Sales leaders are now forced to quickly adapt to remote selling,

In recent days of transformation from face-to-face selling to virtual selling has better suited to the demands of buyers.

Building digital infrastructure to support remote selling.

As people are more attached to mobile in this digital era, there is an increased demand for online sales.

In a remote sales team having control over the sales team is a great issue. Unable to track your team members’ work may lead to failure in achieving the target. It is crucial for you to align the work with your expectation,

Make the best use of technology to network for effective transformation to remote selling.

Collaboration with sales reps.

Switch physical interactions with a digital approach.

Secure your information and data properly.

Manage Your Remote Sales Team With Cloud Based CRM Software

SalesBabu CRM is a cloud based CRM software where the data is stored in the cloud. It helps you to access your data from anywhere at any time. After this pandemic people started adapting to technology to be safe at home. It is necessary for the organization to concern for the employee’s health and welfare. Still some organizations are storing customers’ information manually. However, smart entrepreneurs are transforming to cloud based CRM software to enhance their business under this COVID-19 situation.

During this pandemic situation COVID -19, it has become mandatory to continue the functioning of business remotely. Sales Leaders have more responsibility to manage the sales team remotely. Generally, sales management involves three process

Sales operations – Building the remote sales team
Sales strategies – Defining the sales process
Sales Analysis – Reports analyzing the progress of the sales process

Building The Remote Sales Team

An enhanced sales team is the backbone of the business. They have direct contact between the customers and the product. It is important to build an organized and collaborative sales team to operate the business effectively.

When the sales team works together for benefit of the business they should have a common platform to share customer’s information. Collaborative CRM helps you manage and share any information they collect from the interactions with customers.

It is most important to build a successful sales team by

Having a good hiring process.
Provide them extensive training on your products, sales process, tools, prospects.
Equip your team with enhanced technology.
Track the sales team daily activities with key metrics
Weekly once meetings to understand the challenges they face and train them for the same.
Keep them updated with current marketing trends.

Strategies For Managing A Remote Sales Team

It is difficult to manage the remote sales team scattered around the country. It is more important to have clear communication in the business. Remote working may lead to communication difficulties, misunderstandings are common. Trust building another important factor that is taken into consideration while working remotely. Working from home can lead to many distractions, feeling of being isolated and disengagement from the team, lack of updated learning. These instances may reduce their motivation and hence the sales success. It is necessary to set a successful sales strategy for managing a remote sales team.

Implementing The Processes

The sales process differs from one business to the other. It provides the structure and direction for the sale activities to be done. Especially in this pandemic situation, managing the remote sales process is not an easy task. Don’t keep your sales process as a document in the shared folder better implement as a task for your salespeople. You can have templates for your sales processes such as sending a cold email and contents to your prospects. Tools like online CRM application helps you to custom email templates and automates email campaigns

Managing Sales Activities

It is necessary to track the daily activities of sales reps Automating the sales process may reduce the burden of salespeople’s manual tasks. An online CRM application automates the sales process by storing prospects’ details, interactions, and prospects’ interests in the cloud. It also saves the time of salespeople by reducing repetitive tasks. Some of the key features of online CRM solutions are:

Tracks daily activities of the sales reps.
Automatically manages the lead generation and prioritizes the qualified leads.
Tracks the source of qualified lead generation to enhance marketing strategies.
Streamline your sales process
Mobile friendly
Centralized database with easy accessibility
Easy integration with other business application
Customizable with a user-friendly interface

Online CRM solutions integrate with applications like Email, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and enable you to access complete records of your email and social conversations.

Build Trust

Trust is the most important factor to have a healthy team. Trust is developed in a team over time. When a sales rep performs better, his individual accomplishments may get more recognition. This may create conflicts and misunderstandings in the team. Building trust is the most crucial and difficult even when the salespeople are working physically. In Remote sales, it may create serious setbacks.An organization must take active steps and promote effective teamwork.

Communicate with your team regularly, send updates, take feedback regularly, respond to messages promptly. Encourage team member’s interactions. Involve team members in video calls on skype. These simple tasks may reduce the communication block and helps to build trust within the team. Deploy communication tools to enhance internal communication with the sales team.

The online CRM system with its collaborative feature provides efficient communication and since the data is stored in the centralized database provides data transparency within the team.

Fostering Employee Engagement

Assuring optimal engagement among your sales team representatives is imperative for entire business success. Deficiency in engagement can result in employee frustration, unfavorably affecting the company’s bottom line. In remote teams, the potential for a slip in interaction is heightened, requiring proactive measures to counteract aspects that reduce employee engagement.

Tailor engagement planning to the individual talents and preferences of your salespeople. Introducing an online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can simplify consistent tasks such as email and prospecting, resisting potential boredom for your active sales team representatives. Engage them in necessary tasks like lead nurturing and transformations, and acknowledge their achievements with compensation for accomplishing a higher conversion rate. Consistent scheduled meetings caters as a catalyst for team stimulation and efficient brainstorming to acknowledge sales objectives. While physical team members may come across in water cooler moments, remote sales team members should be promoted to increase the communications on platforms like Slack. Periodic quarterly or annual meetups contribute to developing strong relationships among remote workers.

Establishing Transparent Expectations

In remote sales team members, the risk of misinterpreted roles and responsibilities is increased. Therefore, it is necessary to demonstrate clear expectations with each remote team member. Constant follow up to ensure such expectations are clearly demonstrated as tasks for sales employees, and monitor their performance against such expectations to sustain clarity and responsibility.

Sales Analysis

Sales Analysis is the most important process that has to be carried out every week, month, quarterly, and annually. It reports the progress of your business. It enables you to forecast your sales process. An online CRM application helps you track the reports even on daily basis and make follow-ups on key metrics. Since these online CRM solutions are mobile-friendly enable you to track the reports of your sales remotely. This helps you to make a clear discussion on the progress of the sales with the team and motivate them towards the achievement of the sales target.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 situation has affected the sales productivity adversely especially, small business sales. Manage your remote sales team with an effective tool like an online CRM system. This online CRM system enables sales leaders to track the daily activities of sales and helps them understand how their salespeople spend their time on sales. This online CRM application allows you to provide effective communication and collaboration within the team. It allows you to seamlessly manage the sales activities remotely. The CRM system streamlines your sales process and enables you to set clear expectations for your sales employees. It helps your sales team to save your time on manual tasks and engage in important tasks to enhance your sales. Still not switch to CRM, SalesBabu CRM provides you a cloud based CRM at an affordable price. Switch to cloud based CRM now and manage your remote sales team in an organized way. Feel free to request a demo