3 ways to Empower Reps for Sales success

May 11, 2023 By Salesforce India

in Digital Transformation, Trailblazer Story

Empower Your Reps for Sales Excellence: Industry Leaders Share 3 Actionable Tips

Sales reps are feeling the pressure to perform like never before, with headwinds from all directions. Staying ahead of the game can be a daunting task, but the directive is clear: sell smarter, not harder. To achieve this, organisations must prioritise efficiency and maximise sales rep productivity with minimal resources.

How can you enable your sales reps to achieve their full potential? Here are some tips given by industry leaders in the recent Salesforce webinar- “How Top Sellers Are Maximising Productivity & Efficiency — Even With Economic Shifts”

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1. Equip sales reps with the soft skills to meet evolving buyer expectations

85% of buyers research before they enter a sales cycle, as per Salesforce State of Sales report. This indicates that by the time your prospective buyer engages with your sales rep, they already have a certain level of knowledge about the product or service they are interested in. So, buyers expect sales reps to act as trusted advisors and add value to what they already know. To convince buyers of best-fit, and present information compellingly, sales reps need strong soft skills like persuasion, negotiation, and empathy.

Empower sales reps by training them to:

Adopt a consultative approach to understand the customer’s needs and co-create solutions.
Offer a value proposition that aligns with the customer’s profile and provides unique insights the customer may not have considered.
Stay in touch with customers, even after the sale is over, to get the first right of access to a new customer need.
Be open to change and move quickly to take advantage of new digital solutions.

2. Simplify sales processes using AI and automation

Only 28% of reps’ time is spent on selling; the rest is spent on tedious non-selling tasks throughout the sales cycle.
Source: Fifth edition of Salesforce State of Sales report

Clearly, companies need to simplify and streamline processes for sales reps, to allow them to focus on higher-value activities. This is where automation and AI play a role.

High-performing sales teams are 2x more likely to use AI

A unified solution for sales automation and streamlining the sales process is the key to eliminating multiple, siloed tools. Using a CRM that automates workflows, and enables system integration and voice-to-text, it is possible to create a single interface for managing customer interactions and tracking sales activities.

The use of AI tools in automating sales processes helps tackle routine tasks such as lead scoring, data entry, and email follow-ups with more speed, personalisation, and accuracy. This helps boost work efficiency and unlock higher productivity.

3. Improve the employee experience

48% of leaders admit that retaining sales representatives is a big challenge.
The average turnover rate for sales organisations is as high as 27%.
Source: The Salesforce State of Sales Report

One way to retain your sales reps is to ensure a fulfilling employee experience by giving sales reps what they need to thrive at their job. This helps maximise each rep’s potential. Also, it reflects in the customer experience that they deliver.

To transform the employee experience, companies can:

Offer reps the flexibility to work from a location of their choice or let them define their own schedules.
Invest in sales upskilling and career development training.
Implement sales automation tools to streamline processes. Regularly review and optimise these processes to identify and eliminate inefficiencies.
Offer team-building opportunities to create a sense of belonging among reps.

Enable your reps to become high performers

In conclusion, enabling your sales reps to become high performers is the key to achieving success. By removing bottlenecks from the sales processes and equipping reps with the right skills and tools, you can empower your reps to sell smarter and maximise their productivity.