From booking rep appointments to even boosting your ecommerce conversion rate, sales calls can massively impact the success of your business, which is why it’s so important to know how to measure sales productivity by the success of your calls. When the discussion of sales calls comes up, many people instantly think of cold calling (phoning prospective customers before they express any kind of interest in your product or service).
Not all sales are created equal. Depending on the products, region, and size of a company, a business may require sales experts with different specialties. In 2021, Americans spent nearly $487 billion on technological products and services (a 7.5 percent increase from the previous year)—they’re expected to spend even more in 2022.
The fact is, better customer experiences are better for business. Great CX means your customers are happier, feel taken care of, and are more loyal, all of which leads to more profits. It takes the right tools and data to fuel those experiences, and a lot of it is already at your fingertips. Your customer service team knows a lot about your customers - how they actually use your products, what’s working and what’s not, and what they want to do.
Whether it’s Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, most businesses use spreadsheet tools. In fact, if you're a small to medium sized business (SME), it’s likely that spreadsheets are your main way of tracking sales performance. However, there is one huge downside to both Excel and Google Sheets – data visualization. When it comes to visualizing your KPIs, spreadsheets are not a great tool for helping people quickly and easily understand what’s going on.
If you’re reading this, you probably have a solid idea of what’s required for a strong sales team: The question is: which members of your team are handling all of this? If you expect your sales representatives to handle this avalanche of logistics while also closing deals, you’re setting yourself up for some seriously burned-out teams and major issues with efficiency. The secret to a successful modern sales team isn’t the closers—it’s the people behind the scenes.
When someone mentions direct sales, your first thought might be of a well-intentioned friend hawking health powders and supplements for some multi-level marketing company. While technically direct selling, that image doesn’t come close to describing the impact of the direct sales model. If you’ve waited in line for the new iPhone in front of the Apple Store, you’ve participated in direct sales.
You’re looking for a sales position and scouring the job postings. But it seems like every role requires at least one year of experience, which you might not have. Before disqualifying yourself from a sales career, you should know that your experience doesn’t have to come from an actual sales job—you just need to understand how to transfer your current skill set to the position you’re applying for.
