Are your sales reps spending their time selling? Seems like an odd question to ask, but research shows why it’s relevant.
Accelerate deals, minimize manual data entry, and maximize every customer touchpoint with AI-powered automation from Sales Cloud Genie.
Here are three ways sales ops and technology can help eliminate time-consuming tasks.
Papa has successfully cut down on administrative clutter by asking folks across her firm about what clogs their day, and then suggesting the right sales automation tools.
Sales reps are human, and they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to be inundated.
Goldman adds that sales motions that hinge on reps manually entering in metrics can be a recipe for headaches down the road. “Sales reps are human, and they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to be inundated. They’re going to have other priorities. They’re not incentivized to enter data into a CRM every day. They’re incentivized to close revenue.”
Perhaps even more important, manual data entry is inefficient and delays updates to deal records, which means reps and sales leaders eyeing deal progress don’t have access to the real-time information they need to make smart selling moves. That’s why companies that protect their sales reps from extraneous data entry with automation achieve results. A study from research firm McKinsey shows that automating data entry and lead management can help reps spend 15% to 20% more time selling, leading to more closed deals. Win-win.
5 min read
5 min read
Choosing the wrong opportunity to chase can result in lost time, and more promising leads can slip through the cracks. Sales reps need to give the most effort and attention to deals with the highest chance of closing to hit their quota. How? By leveraging the most impactful, relevant, and current lead information. Recent Salesforce research reports that nine out of 10 salespeople say intelligent insights, like up-to-date information on leads, help cut closing times significantly.
With a power dialer, sales reps didn’t have to think about who to call first, the dialer did it for them.
“With a power dialer, sales reps didn’t have to think about who to call first, the dialer did it for them thanks to the automation my team put in place,” Papa said.
Borrmann adds, “There is no better way to increase productivity than by using these tools because the automation is all there. The sales rep should never be sitting down and wondering, ‘What should I focus on today?’”
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Generating quotes and proposals is a critical step in the sales cycle, but it can eat up serious time and mental energy. Especially for reps who deal with a large number of prospective clients with varying needs, manually customizing each quote from scratch can hamper efficiency. In addition, the sheer number of departments that tend to be involved in producing a quote can also slow down the process.
“You have executives who are very particular on how things are communicated through a quote. You have finance reps who want to only provide certain offers. You have sales leaders who want to hit certain targets, so they’re very concerned about discounts and how you price things out,” said Goldman. “Finally, you have the salesperson who’s responsible for acting as that liaison between the company’s desires and the prospect’s desires. They’re stuck in the middle.”
Your sales ops team can help. They can set up sales automation tools that allow sales and finance teams to generate the right quote for each customer with up-to-date deal information.
Our entire system hinges on Revenue Cloud. We do everything out of Salesforce.
“Our entire system hinges on Revenue Cloud,” she said. “We do everything out of Salesforce.”
“I’ve seen many cases where a sales rep accidentally entered one extra, or one less, zero on a quote to a prospect. With enterprise-level contracts, it’s actually a huge concern,” Goldman said.
There are only so many hours in a day, but a sales ops team – with the right tools – can help your reps make the most of them. By automating some of the more tedious tasks, your reps will be able to spend more time doing what they do best: focus on quickly closing more deals.
Keep your reps focused on selling with task automation and real-time customer insights from Sales Cloud Unlimited.
