A Sales Manager’s Guide to Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year again – you know, the one where it’s time to clean out those closets and garages, trim the hedges spruce up your lawn. A little spring cleaning can go a long way, and, in the same way for sales managers, it can reap some significant benefits for your sales team.

Managing a sales team is no easy task, and if you find yourself off-track, you aren’t alone. The sales world is increasingly trending towards teams of dispersed and mobile reps. As a result, sales teams need to meet these changes with different behaviors and management styles. Managers still need the visibility they had in the days of call centers while now managing their teams digitally. Cleaning up loose ends, getting your team in order, and re-establishing best practices are simple ways to boost the effectiveness of your team this quarter.

So, out with the old and in with the new this Spring season. Here are some bad habits to clean up and get rid of, and some Spring cleaning steps to take to improve the overall performance of your sales team.

A Sales Manager’s Guide

OUT: Manually input CRM reports.

IN: 100% accurate, automated data in the form of a sales effectiveness tool.

Bad data sources can result in up to 30% of all leads failing. Not to mention, 40% of sales organizations are still using manual spreadsheets to store customer data (HubSpot) – so it is no wonder that lousy data continues to be an issue plaguing sales teams.

Inaccurate data can result in poor forecasting and wasted rep effort. This Spring, clean up your data by implementing a sales effectiveness tool. With the use of this type of tool, data input into your CRM is 100% accurate and automated in real-time. Tracking and reporting are quick and simplified. Closing a deal is hard enough, so why make your job more difficult than it needs to be with human-prone error and inaccurate leads? With sales effectiveness, you won’t be shocked when you meet your goals this quarter.

OUT: Spending excessive time on administrative activities.

IN: A return to selling.

Last year, 34% of salespeople said closing deals was getting harder – which is no surprise as salespeople are spending more and more time on administrative activities (like manually inputing data) than they are making calls. If sales reps aren’t making as many calls or connecting with as many prospects, it is common sense that they will not generate as many leads or close as many deals. So, get your sales team back on the phone this Spring.

“The phone isn’t a fun thing to be on,” says Gryphon Account Executive Matt Tise, “but it’s essential. It’s the best way to reach someone.” Ninety percent of all customer interactions are still happening on the phone, meaning it is vital for your sales teams to get back on the phone if they want to hit quota. The best way to allocate more time to revenue-generating activities like making calls? Automate these time tasking administrative tasks and data entry with a sales effectiveness tool.

OUT: Limited visibility into the day-to-day activities of reps.

IN: Real-time call activity & performance stats.

Visibility into the call activity of reps allows managers to identify successful reps and behaviors, and from there replicate this success across their entire organization through coaching. If you as a manager can see who is successful and why, you can then train underperformers and fully utilize the abilities of your entire team, not just your top 10%.

Sales effectiveness tools simplify the process of keeping track of your rep’s behavior and eliminate the need for spreadsheets and manually input data. Sales activity is predictive of success, and activity data allows managers to apply the right metrics to coaching by looking at the numbers, eliminating any guesswork. Once managers can see how their reps are performing, they can better understand why certain reps are struggling and why others are successful, and better enable them to reach their quota next quarter.

Spring Clean Your Sales Team

Technology is continuously changing the state of sales, so make sure your team is up-to-date and keeping up with best practices. Clean out the clutter of administrative tasks and manual data and instead motivate your team with a focus on a return to selling and achieving peak performance standards. The most effective way to do so? To implement performance management with a sales effectiveness tool. Doing so will make your job as a manager easier and allow you and your team to find greater success in sales.

Learn more about how a sales enablement tool can help improve the performance of your sales team here.