Sales teams have a lot on their plate, and many activities can be drags on time and don’t align with profit generation. In fact, a study found that the average salesperson only spends 10.7 hours a week prospecting. That represents nearly a quarter of their week, and many of these tasks are manual and time-intensive. So, what’s the key to eliminating wasted time? Sales app technology.
With the right tech stack, your sales team can streamline and automate tasks so that they spend more time connecting with and engaging customers, ensuring a much greater ROI on efforts.
In this post, we’ll look at the causes of wasted time and how sales app technology can drive efficiency and productivity.
What are the causes of wasted time for sales?
Sales teams often get bogged down by tasks that don’t provide much value but are necessary. Some tasks are critical but require manual work. If they require manual work, they take much longer.
When your sales reps don’t have the right tools, they can’t optimize their time. That leads to exasperation and possible disengagement. If you aren’t sure how your sales reps spend their day or where they hit roadblocks, in general, your salespeople may be wasting time for these reasons:
- They (or your company as a whole) are managing documents poorly, which results in hours of searching for content and information. A report by The Economist and Citrix found a correlation between access to information and employee engagement and productivity.
- They’re searching for training on products that may live in multiple places.
- They’re spending time performing administrative work due to a lack of technology or integration between platforms.
- There’s misalignment between sales and marketing because the groups operate in silos. They’re spending effort on unqualified leads due to the absence of lead scoring or a process for defining an inquiry versus a lead.
If these sound familiar, then it’s time to leverage sales app technology to transform these barriers into coordinated efforts
Start by assessing your current sales software stack.
The first step in defining the right technology is to evaluate your current stack. What are the pros and cons? You may need to simplify or integrate platforms, but you don’t need to start from scratch. There are likely some parts of your technology solution that can facilitate higher productivity and efficiency.
Evaluate the platforms you use now, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, marketing automation software, and other sales prospecting solutions. The question to answer is: Are there solutions that are missing in your martech stack?
To learn this, you’ll need to dive deep into the workflows they enable and where the disconnections live that are causing drains on time. You’ll want to understand what processes they optimize and where the gaps are, which could mean a shortage of procedures or an inability for the sales applications to work together.
At the end, you should have the answer to your question of what’s lacking, so you can build a better stack.
Apply technology to ensure minimal time is wasted.
After you assess where you are, you’ll need to create a path to resolve the current issues that are a drag on time. If you want to empower your sales team, providing them the best technology is critical.
The missing piece in your technology puzzle is likely a sales enablement platform. Using such a solution delivers a host of benefits, many directly related to improving workflows and minimizing wasted time.
A sales enablement platform is an integrated platform that includes all the tools, processes, content, and information that sales and marketing need to engage buyers. It can be a potent tool that refines processes and reduces burdens on time. When defining what sales enablement software should provide to your organization in reference to these goals, here are the features and functionality you need:
A central hub
The platform should centralize content, information, process documentation, and training in one spot, so there’s no daily hunting to find what you need. This basic functionality is key to helping sales reps manage their time better.
Automation
A solution that adds automation to your sales process will always increase the productivity of your sales team, by saving time. Eliminate the frustrating task of searching for, uploading, and organizing marketing materials for presentations or web calls. This also is true for training materials. Keep your salespeople on point with easily accessible resources that offer confidence and eliminate those roadblocks.
Supportive of rich media
The solution should be able to harness dynamic content, especially animation and video, and other nonlinear interactive media for better presentations. This feature is very specialized, and many platforms don’t have this capacity. Be sure to inquire about it when comparing options. Having this content available means that sales reps don’t need to spend extra time prepping for meetings.
Faster onboarding and training
If you want sales reps to get up to speed faster, a sales enablement platform becomes their go-to. The training they need is on demand, reducing the time it takes for them to start selling.
Accessibility to the right tools
For a sales enablement solution to be truly efficient, its tools need to be accessible from any device, online or offline. Those resources should include calculators, order forms, and other sales-related tools.
Easy integrations
Integrations of software are one of the best ways to improve efficiency. Find a solution that integrates with your CRM or other critical software. As a result, your team will be able to reduce manual work and streamline activities such as email campaigns.
Advanced technology for better decision-making
Leverage advanced technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify content that will align with a buyer versus attempting to analyze the options on your own. A smart feature such as this saves time and can facilitate faster conversions.
Visible analytics
Another time-consuming task for sales teams is feeding analytics back to marketing on content activity. A robust sales enablement platform does this for you, so there’s transparency for all.
Less-complex sales and marketing alignment
You can ensure sales and marketing alignment with sales enablement software. It’s a technology that benefits both groups and keeps everyone on the same page. It fosters communication and collaboration while also tracking and measuring performance.
Sales teams can optimize time with the right sales app technology.
Time is as valuable as profits. You want your sales team to be as productive and efficient as possible. Using technology—specifically a sales enablement platform—is an effective way to do it. vablet offers all these time-saving features and more to drive better results and remove barriers to success.
You can learn more about sales enablement software by downloading our e-book, Secrets Revealed: How Marketing Can Help Increase Sales Using a Sales Enablement Platform.
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