The field sales terrain is a fierce battleground where reps vie for customers’ minds and money amid stiff competition. Despite the difficulties, face-to-face sales is an avenue that businesses cannot afford to overlook, with research showing that face-to-face interaction is 34 times more effective than interaction via email.
Field sales is a high-risk, high-reward manoeuvre. In order to succeed in this space, you need to use field sales tools and techniques that empower your salespeople to increase their productivity and reach their potential.
Set actionable goals and metrics
Push beyond your boundaries
When setting goals and metrics for your field sales teams, design them to push employees out of their comfort zones. This means that goals aren’t just something that you create once and then leave for your sales reps to reach – they must be targets that are constantly (but also realistically) moved higher and higher.
If your team has reached their sales targets for a few consecutive months, then that means it is time to raise the bar. Sales goals aren’t meant to be easy – they’re meant to push your team so that they achieve their maximum potential.
By consistently setting goals that require strong action from your field sales reps, they will be encouraged to be proactive, efficient, and capable of reaching ever more lofty heights.
Use technology to achieve goals
Effective goals aren’t just abstract concepts, they are measurable objectives. When something is measurable, it allows for the methodical tracking of your team’s progress as they work towards the goal.
Using a field sales tool such as Skynamo can improve a team’s performance by gathering analytics on the go. This data helps business leaders to create better sales plans and set more effective goals, motivating people in the field.
By having clearly defined goals and tools to track progress, sales field reps are pushed to become competitive, analytical, and goal-oriented. Ultimately, this translates to increased reach and sales.
Use a fully-featured field sales tool
Technology is a helping hand
Using a field sales tool to track and measure objectives is only the tip of the iceberg – there is so much more that technology can do to create more productive salespeople. A dynamic and flexible field sales tool goes beyond simply measuring goals: it also features applications that improve productivity, time management, and performance.
These versatile technology suites directly affect a business’s bottom line. For example, some of them use an all-in-one territory mapping program that optimizes sales routes, saving valuable time and transportation costs.
Boost field sales rep productivity
Increasing field sales rep productivity is where fully-featured sales tools such as Skynamo truly shine. Some of the tools that you should look out for in any productivity suite include:
Admin and management features that automate mundane tasks. These cut out repetitive and time-consuming admin chores such as data entry and report generation. This frees up field sales reps to spend more time doing what they’re best at – selling to customers.
Instant access to pricing, product info, and stock levels. This is an essential feature for field sales reps as it enables them to take orders, give advice, and upsell to customers on the spot.
A digital catalog that allows your field sales reps to instantly pull up colorful images and important product information for customers to browse.
Customer analytics that automatically track customers visited, time per visit, orders submitted, special requests, service history, location, and others. This data is important in order to provide personalized customer service.
Empower field sales reps with data
In industries with tough competition, the best way to stand out is to provide excellent and personalized customer service.
Data-driven customer analytics are important to increase productivity. They allow business owners and sales managers to create efficient sales plans, personalized offers, and optimize operations.
Sales reps can use this data to capture sales by deeply engaging with customers. By being provided with multiple data points such as customer history and behavior, reps can interact with each customer in a personalized manner. This increases customer loyalty, trust, and ultimately, sales.
Other useful data points for field sales teams include:
- Marketing content that the customer has interacted with
- The customer’s historical product usage
- Up-to-date product information and offers
- Buyer personas
- Historical customer interaction
- Average sale cycle length
Use a cutting-edge customer relationship management (CRM) tool
Effectively selling to customers when there’s so much competition is a difficult task. In order to make your company stand out, you need every advantage you can get. This is why it’s important to use a complete Customer Relationship Management Tool such as Skynamo. Created to cater specifically to field sales companies, Skynamo offers features such as:
Always available customer data – Allows your sales reps to be fully prepared when meeting customers. Arming your field teams with knowledge of previous interactions means that each prospect is well taken care of.
A mobile-first interface – Creates a superior experience for mobile users without losing any functionality. It allows your field sales reps to have access to a host of productivity and data tools to better assist customers and close deals, even when offline.
Cloud-based technology – Enables you to adopt Skynamo without making any major hardware, infrastructure, or expertise investment. This means your field sales teams are up and running right away.
GPS integration – Essential to help reps with route planning, opportunity identification, and customer follow-ups. It also automatically tracks sales activity, which cuts down on administrative tasks while increasing transparency.
Powering your entire sales team
Office employees should use tools designed for the office, so field sales teams should likewise use tools that are designed for the field. For businesses that rely on deploying productive sales teams, it’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of a fully-featured sales and CRM tool that’s mobile-first.
Skynamo is such a tool. Its mobile optimization enables reps to instantly access important data no matter where they are, even when offline. It also allows managers and business owners to stay on top of their teams by collecting important field data and route histories.
Most importantly, Skynamo records customer information on the go. This means that no request is overlooked and no customer need goes unnoticed. This feature is key to keep customers happy, loyal, and away from the competition.
Want to gain clarity and control over your sales and sales activity? Schedule a demo today and learn more about how Skynamo can empower you to make smarter sales decisions and how you can drive your sales team to sales success.
