James MeinckeSalespeople are constantly adapting to changes in the business world. As more people conduct business exclusively online, e-mails and social media outreach are becoming the best sales channels to tap. Phone calls are sometimes seen as a relic of the past, even though everyone carries one in their pocket! The new trend of multitasking and fast adaptation means salespeople can easily get caught up in their work. Fortunately, that same technology that eats up our time can be used to save it. In fact, many sales activities can be optimized or automated through technology, allowing the team to focus on making real connections instead of managing the day-to-day.
Below we will discuss several key areas where technology can help optimize sales activities for teams of all sizes.
1. Predictive Analytics
Analytics is an important aspect of understanding prospects, clients, and consumers. The generated data should be properly put together and analyzed. If you don’t measure it, the efforts can become misguided and, consequently, useless. Many apps and websites have been made to measure such data and actually predict behaviors and trends.
Apps/companies recommended:
Good Data – The Good Data comprehensive analytics platform combines three analytics in one — marketing, social, and predictive, providing better insights for sales and beyond.
SAS Business Intelligence – This analytics tool from SAS Enterprise Solutions assembles real-time visual analytics, statistics, and office analytics for smart predictions.
2. Sales Enablement
The process of optimizing sales activities can save time for everyone. It can ensure doing training and activity tracking correctly. By gathering and interpreting information, reps can come up with better solutions for their customers across the board.
Apps/companies recommended:
Accent Technologies – This SaaS company focuses on helping streamline sales execution and increase productivity by delivering the right content while providing sales performance management and prescriptive recommendations to sales reps.
Venntive – A platform that brings digital marketing sales enablement tools together, from e-commerce and email marketing tools to sales forecasting and insights.
3. Sales Acceleration
People demand more immediate responses, especially in the workforce. Sales teams need to keep up with the speed of business. That is why multiple SaaS companies and apps exist to help salespeople reply faster. This simple automation accelerates lead responses. This makes it easier to reach out to the right customer at the right time.
Apps/companies recommended:
Allbound – This SaaS toolset brings together everything a sales team needs to accelerate sales. It’s a low-cost platform that enables partner training, collaboration, content marketing, and customer success.
Five9 – A cloud contact center software that allows reps to contact their prospects and customers through almost every possible online channel.
4. Sales Force Automation
As it is with most companies, there are mundane daily activities that, while important, can take up a lot of the sales team’s time. Scheduling appointments, sending out follow-up emails, and answering questions online are necessary. However, they are not exactly the best use for a human’s mental energy.
Apps/companies recommended:
Zoho CRM – Much like Venntive, but for SFA, this software allows for multi-channel communication, analytics about teams’ performance or clients’ life cycles, automated workflows, advanced reporting, and more.
Hubspot Sales Hub – This sales software helps automate outreach in a personalized way, providing tools for email marketing, sales automation, sales integration, and predictive lead scoring.
5. Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a bridge between the customer and the company. It helps teams better analyze their customer relationships while also implementing marketing, sales, and customer support. These tools form a foundation for your entire team’s performance.
Apps/companies recommended:
Copper – Great for integrating CRM and Google applications, bringing everything together with a minimum amount of overhead and fuss.
Insightly CRM – A CRM solution that helps companies build relationships with one contact at a time.
6. Social Selling
Salespeople need to adapt, and what better way to do so than by engaging with prospects and customers through social platforms? This allows for new types of interaction in a familiar environment, generating trust and more accurate lead generation.
Apps/companies recommended:
LinkedIn – The service’s sales navigator allows sales reps to obtain updated information on leads and prospects in an instant.
Hearsay Social – The platform helps financial reps attract and retain customers, as well as help their relationships build and grow with time.
Wrapping Up
While selling is still a need to help a business grow, salespeople might be spending too much time and effort on activities they don’t need to. As more companies become aware of this, it becomes imperative to deploy new technologies to help manage time and effort. Your sales team should focus on sales, not scheduling.
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