Technology is amazing, but underneath all the microchips we’re all still human. We need to communicate with each other in order to get things done. Figuring out an efficient, affordable way to do that is one of the most vexing challenges small and medium-sized businesses face. Especially if you have a distributed workforce.

Bombarding the field with emails, requiring them to track down the information they need, playing endless games of phone tag– these time sucks erode productivity and distract from the job at hand. Mahalo Digital’s way of approaching the problem recognizes a fundamental truth in all this: at its core, business communication is the never-ending pursuit of alignment.

A tool such as a sales enablement app establishes a single communications channel with a distributed workforce to create alignment. In working with small to medium-sized businesses, Mahalo Digital has surfaced five kinds of alignment to aim for:

1. Align diverse methodologies being employed with known best practices

Regardless of whether it’s sales or service, when top performers can be emulated by others the entire field benefits. Lessons learned, valuable insights, techniques that work, and those that don’t should all be shared so everyone can up their game. Because when that happens, the business thrives.

2. Align your team’s knowledge with a common information source

The Holy Grail of alignment is getting the right information to the right people at the right time in the right format. Especially since everyone has their own way of closing the deal. That’s why a common information source is so important. If one rep sells 100 of the new XJ-79 units because it has steel ball bearings–and another sells just as many based on the “amazing new titanium ball bearings”–someone’s in for a huge ball bearing-based surprise. Unfortunately, it’s probably 100 of your customers.

3. Align the field’s priorities with management’s sales goals

It’s one thing for your SVPs to set sales goals for the quarter or the year. It’s quite another to make sure those goals get communicated to the reps in Des Moines. Or Dallas. Or Dubai. What’s more, any goals set also need to be agreed upon by the people expected to meet them or what’s the use of setting them in the first place?

4. Align company standards/expectations with accessible employee training

Requiring a certain level of knowledge about new products, new service offerings, industry trends, new markets, etc. is nothing new. Neither are employees who’d give their right arm not to have to suffer through interminable PowerPoint decks. To prevent creating an entire field of one-armed reps, deliver training in digestible ways that don’t interfere with their primary job. And it’s always good to make sure the field knows what’s expected of them, and why.

5. Align accountability at all levels through customizable reporting

Who completed the required training? Who’s making their numbers? And who isn’t? Knowing the specifics behind these can indicate where the trouble spots are and help you figure out what to do about it. You could even share the information with the entire field if you think it will light some needed fires under people. Peer pressure can do wonders.

Clearly, communication figures prominently in all of this alignment. By making yours targeted, timely, relevant, dynamic, accessible, and measurable, you’re well on your way to creating the alignment every SMB strives for. But using a mobile app or similar tool to achieve it is only half the battle because alignment takes discipline over time. In my next blog, I’ll share key strategies for making the tool practical, manageable, and sustainable.

 

Rick Barsotti is the principal of Mahalo Digital, a B2B marketing agency that specializes in authenticity. At LinkedIn find Barsotti and his agency.

 

 

 

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