Latest insights

Lost internet connectivity should never mean lost productivity. Field sales reps should be able to continue entering orders and customer information in their app, even while offline. Here are 5 benefits of field sales apps with offline capability Whether loadshedding is a thing in your country or not, as a field sales rep, you’ll often be forced to work offline. And, usually at the time you most need access to important information. The nature of your job means you spend much of your day on the road, or sometimes in the air to cover longer distances, while it’s also not unusual to find yourself visiting outlying,

Here’s a great excuse to celebrate your talented sales team. Or to recognise those trusted sales consultants who help you make the right buying decisions. Every year, on the second Friday in December, we celebrate National Salesperson Day. Long live the salesperson! “Nearly 40% of field salespeople we surveyed in the UK and South Africa would not recommend field sales as a career to a young person.” “There’s an ongoing debate about whether salespeople will become obsolete as technology continues to change the business landscape.” Statements like these can easily paint a very bleak picture to anyone planning to enter

More than a third of surveyed field sales reps feel that work pressure negatively affects their mental health. We look at some causal factors, impact on business and what a culture that supports mental health requires. What do we mean by ‘mental health’? Mental health involves our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It’s influenced by various factors that affect our thinking, mood and behaviour. Mental health problems range from chronic conditions to situational or temporary states of mind that influence how we cope with stress, relate to others and make decisions. We live in an era where experts talk

How helpful are business email sign-offs in generating a response? We’re considering a few examples of email endings that are great conversation starters. Good day. Kind regards. Stay well. Best. Cheers. Keep on rockin’! Is there best practice when it comes to signing off emails? Since I first began writing emails to prospective and current customers, I’ve been paying more attention to emails landing in my inbox. Why did certain ones draw my attention? What do they contain and what does the layout look like? What makes me want to read them or draw me to click on certain links? There are many reasons we open, read,

What keeps sales reps from becoming trusted consultants, despite clear intentions to do so? Research suggests it involves a ‘transactional’ culture, and that sales managers are responsible for changing that within their sales team. Consultative intentions pave the road to transactional selling. Most organisations get it. Putting customer needs and objectives before revenue quotas is more likely to bring in sales and forge lasting relationships with customers. Positioning yourself as an invested consultant, as opposed to someone only interested in doing a transaction, is what truly differentiates you from competitors.

We tend to avoid cleaning our electronic devices because we’re not sure how best to do it. What do we do when something spills on a device or keyboard? Here are a few tips and tools to consider when you decide to clean your mobile devices. Is it necessary to regularly clean mobile and other devices? It’s a fact that most of us prefer to ignore. Our mobile devices accumulate dirt and grime during everyday use, and can do with the occasional (well, OK, regular!) cleaning. We take great care to clean other tools, clothing items, utensils and surfaces we use less frequently, but most of us have not yet adopted the habit

Does Better Technology Really Mean More Sales? Does better technology actually lead to better sales results? According to field sales professionals in the UK and South Africa, the answer is a clear yes. When asked how mobile sales apps support their selling efforts, they identified the top five ways technology helps drive sales success. Why Some Sales Professionals Still Resist Technology Many discussions around sales technology adoption focus on why some sales professionals are hesitant to embrace it. Our surveys reveal that this “tech resistance” often stems from frustration with tools that weren’t designed for

Is there an optimal amount of hours a field sales rep should work per week? Does it depend on the industry they serve? Here’s the amount of hours we found field sales reps work per industry. What is the optimal number of working hours to put in during a week? Companies in some parts of the world and in some industries are increasingly testing the effect of shorter work weeks on employees’ productivity and their overall sense of well-being. While a great emphasis will always be placed on work ethic, the real trick is figuring out how to work smart. One study by time management expert Laura Vanderkam concluded that

Many of your product ranges are very similar but uniquely tailored to specific customer needs. Sales teams can easily confuse unique items under these circumstances. Product Availability prevents order errors by only making relevant products available. One example is that of a butcher delivering biltong to small retailers. All his customers buy the same range of meat (beef, kudu and ostrich) but specify slightly different spice mixes, cuts and packaging. Another example is that of a leading stationery distributor that sells various ranges of black ball point pens. These pens look very similar, are priced about the

Are you losing out on sales due to stock problems at your customers? What products aren’t selling like they should be? Are you struggling to sell your products at the correct price? Do you know what the credit balance of your customers are when visiting them? These problems can be addressed by your field sales team when you integrate Skynamo with your financial software or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Systems. Customer, product and pricing information from these systems will give your team real-time access to the data they need. Sales information can also help to identify products that drop in sales, and