Do you know exactly how your sales reps are performing at any given time?
In order to rate and assess your sales team’s performance it is important to keep abreast of all their activities. Have you ever taken the time to really look in detail at your sales process? Do you keep up to date on what your sales teams are doing?
We come across many business owners who don’t know what their sales teams are up to. For them, the reality is that they just don’t have the accurate information, collated and easily accessible to them in one place in order to get the full picture.
These days, there is no excuse for not keeping on top of your sales teams’ activities. Modern, flexible ERP/business management software can provide the relevant information to you in one place and even without you having to go in search of it.
There are useful dashboards, workflows, scheduled reporting, alerts, fully integrated CRM systems etc all available to improve the visibility of your sales process. Mobile apps can also provide you with real time updates, ensuring you have continuous visibility of your business operations, relevant KPIs and even allow you to manage tasks remotely.
So when was the last time you took a good look at your sales cycle? If your sales team are actively generating new sales leads and acquiring new customers, are you being kept informed?
Imagine if a sales lead becomes an ‘opportunity’ and you are automatically informed by email, text or notification? Or, if the ‘opportunity’ progresses to a fully-fledged customer the same thing happens? At least you will always be kept in the loop and in real-time too!
Your sales teams are also responsible for ensuring existing customers are kept active and regularly placing repeat orders. To ensure these orders, and those of your new clients, receive their items, you can be automatically notified if the order doesn’t materialise for some reason. With instant notification of the issue, you can assess the situation and take immediate action.
And what happens when your sales team make a sale? Pressing ‘Save’ on an order should activate a whole host of activities from alerting the warehouse to sending out an invoice. These are things your ERP/business management software should enable you to do.
In today’s fast-paced world, accessing accurate information about your business at the click of a button is essential. Or better still, have critical information scheduled to be delivered directly to you (even when you’re not in the office).
The aim of ERP/business management software is to make your life easier, allowing you the time to focus on more critical business operations. If the time has come for you to assess and attack your sales cycle, and integrate it with every element of your company then it may be time you examined your sales tools and systems.
Look for ways to shorten the process, boost profit and grow your revenue. But more importantly, be kept informed at all times.