If you’re looking for a fast way to sink your sales team, let your processes go stale.
Although a certain amount of administration is required in the role, sales teams really need to be focused as much as possible on one thing: sealing the next deal. Anything that stands in the way of closing the deal fast is a surefire way to stifle and frustrate your team and ultimately limit them from doing what they do best — sell. Here are two sales process improvements you should make today to unleash your sales team.
Go digital with proposals and contracts. Sales is all about the speed at which a transaction moves forward. The longer it takes, the less likely it is to close and the higher the likelihood that your competition moves in. So what can improve your sales momentum and help close the deal? E-proposals and e-contracts.
E-contract technology is the updated version of e-signature systems and works throughout the entire sales process, from proposal to contract. Your sales team’s time will no longer be spent looking for contracts or manually entering or updating their proposals. Instead, they will have a single platform that makes it easier than ever for a prospect to say yes with the tap of a button on their smartphone. Plus, the use of e-contracts will increase productivity and decrease friction in the sales process allowing your sales team to spend more time actually selling.
Improve marketing and sales alignment. Generating email clicks, industry-leading open rates, web visits and form submissions are great, but if your marketing efforts aren’t driving qualified leads, it’s a sign you aren’t meeting regularly with the marketing team to work in lock-step on your shared vision and strategy.
According to MarketingSherpa, 61 percent of B2B marketers send all of their leads to sales even though only 27 percent are actually qualified. So why is your marketing team driving so many unqualified leads? Most often it is due to the lack of defining a sales-qualified lead. Sharing knowledge between marketing and sales teams including target markets, customer profiles and ideal prospect buying behavior will provide clarity as to what defines a sales-qualified lead versus a lead that may need more time in the funnel. According to Marketo when sales and marketing teams are aligned, companies become 67 percent better at closing deals.
If your team is in a slump, look to these two improvements to freshen your sales process and shorten your sales cycle.
Ashley Sullivan, Lead Generation Specialist at RedRover Sales & Marketing Strategy, can be reached at redrovercompany.com.
