To be more productive as a sales team isn’t rocket science. It requires a deliberate approach to building and managing your network, time, and leads. Time waits for no one. You have to make the most of your limited productive time every day.
You can increase your productivity either by working smarter or putting in more hours of work. Here are some steps to increase your sales team productivity with minimal stress.
Take regular breaks
When you take short breaks during long tasks, this will help you to maintain a constant level of performance. Whereas, working without breaks often lead to a steady decline in performance.
Reduce interruptions to the best of your ability
When you have a colleague that’s constantly barging into your office during work hours for a chit-chat will affect your productivity — and cause a change in work pattern.
To reduce interruptions as much as possible, you can work from home for time-sensitive projects or tasks. Resist the temptation of packing more into your schedule as this will reduce your productivity. Instead, look for other ways you can work smarter, not harder.
Keep It simple
Most people over-complicate the simplest of tasks. There is no need to include a 2-page bibliography to your quarterly report sales projections. It’s not necessary to spend your time creating large-format color graphs when all you need is write a simple report.
Don’t waste your time on unnecessary details as these will affect your business in the long run. This is important especially if it takes most of your productive time. So in all you do, keep it simple!
Keep the mind fresh
Most sale persons lack focus. Eliminating distractions can be trickier than it sounds. Distractions take many forms such as taking personal phone calls, checking emails, going on social media etc. This disrupts work for an average of 23 minutes.
Whatever distractions could affect your productivity, the key to fighting it will be discipline. Ensure you take a 10-minute break. This will make you return to your work refreshed.
Capitalize on referrals
Use the power of referral marketing to increase your sales and revenue. Look for referrals among your contacts. Get the right contacts to refer you or your products. Referral marketing works better than putting a cold call or email to a potential client.
Most people do get the idea of referral wrong. Most referrals are to people who are trying out other products or are satisfied with what they are using. This gives you a slimmer chance of being productive. The main goal is to get a referral to the decision makers who will promote your products. This is an effective way to be productive without much stress.
Make use of technology
Your sales team productivity lies in the ability to adopt new technology. Through use of apps to improve inbound sales productivity. There are software programs that turn cold leads into qualified opportunities. There are other apps and software programs that could improve effectiveness. Using new and improved technology will help to reduce your stress levels and improve your productivity.
Proper training
Train your sales teams, reinforce the training and observe them in the field putting it to use. When sales reps are well trained, it would improve their productivity. Great training is useless without reinforcement.
Motivation
Motivation is very important in increasing your sales team productivity. Trying to be more productive at sales would not work if your team is not well motivated. And one of the best ways to motivate your team is friendly competition.
Competition allows the entire team to be involved in the sales process. This will lead to increase in productivity. It also reduces stress because the bulk of the sales job is not placed on an individual. Having proper motivation will likely keep one productive and less stressed.
Apply the basic principles of time management and emotional intelligence
Most sales people do not calendar block. They show up to work with no plan. They often get distracted with low priority activities. They confuse productive activity with no-pay activities.
This is one of the causes of lack of productivity among sales people. Many salespeople need to develop the skill of delayed gratification. Put in the work to get the reward.
Originally published at medium.com