23 Effective Tips On How to Improve Sales Productivity
Boost your sales team's productivity with these 23 actionable tips. Learn proven strategies to increase sales, close more deals, and drive revenue growth.
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Picture this: your sales team has reached peak performance, but their productivity could still use a boost. Yes, even top performers can benefit from sales productivity improvement. For example, if your team can cut down on the time spent on administrative tasks, they’ll be able to close deals faster and reduce their overall workload. Sales acceleration software can help reduce this administrative burden by streamlining time-consuming tasks, like data entry. This article will cover how to improve sales productivity and boost your team’s performance.
Aomni's sales intelligence software can help you achieve your goals, like getting tips on improving sales productivity for your sales team and organization. By automating data capture, Aomni lets your reps spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on what matters: selling.
What is Sales Productivity
Understanding Sales Productivity: What It Is and Why It Matters
Sales productivity measures how efficiently and effectively a sales team operates to generate revenue. In the boardroom, it’s about the percentage of your reps attaining quota. From an efficiency perspective, without putting in endless hours to meet targets and sales quotas, it’s all about how sellers apply their:
- Talent
- Tools
- Resources
- Processes
Imagine if not just a few, but most of your sellers exceeded quota and contributed to a higher number of closed-won deals in the same amount of time. That’s when you know they are working productively. Most importantly, when reps are it takes to close deals and drive revenue decreases:
- More productive
- The time
- Budget
You get more out of what you already have.
Sales Productivity vs. Sales Efficiency: What’s the Difference?
Sales productivity is all about the end results of your sales efforts. Think of it as the total number of deals you close or the revenue you rake in. Sales efficiency is a bit different; it’s more about how smartly you use your resources, like time and effort, to get those results. So, if you’re highly productive, you’re nailing lots of sales. And if you’re efficient, you’re not just closing deals; you’re doing it in a way that makes the best use of what you’ve got.
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23 Effective Tips On How to Improve Sales Productivity
1. Customer Segmentation And Targeting
Segment your customers into different groups based on shared characteristics, such as:
- Industry
- Size
- Location
This can help you tailor your sales approach to each segment and improve your chances of success. For an effective sales organization, defining a clear sales strategy and goals and understanding the market is essential. Many sales teams often need more rigor or use complete or updated information while approaching these aspects. The key is to prioritize needle-moving sales activities. You need to identify the highest-value opportunities, enabling sales representatives to prioritize their efforts accordingly.
2. Building a High-Performing Sales Team
A high-performing sales team is your business’s engine for repeatable growth and predictable success. It all starts with recruiting—building a profile that aligns with your sales tasks and focusing on candidate behavior to ensure you assemble a team with the right skills and perspective. Talent assessments and a focus on coachability are critical for long-term success. Your employer brand also plays a crucial role in attracting quality candidates and potentially reducing turnover.
Once you’ve brought the right people on board, prioritizing their productivity from the get-go can shorten ramp-up time, turning them into productive contributors faster. Effective onboarding is your next step, a structured introduction that can markedly accelerate time-to-productivity and instill confidence and high performance in new sales reps. And let’s not forget the importance of continuous training, which equips your team with the latest skills and reduces staff turnover by providing career development opportunities. With your high-performing team in place, let’s explore how the right sales tools can further amplify their efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Leveraging Sales Tools for Maximum Efficiency
Did you know that high-performing sales teams use nearly three times the amount of sales technology as underperforming teams? In the current selling climate, having the appropriate instruments is essential for achieving optimal effectiveness.
Every successful sales manager and their sales team can benefit from:
- Sales intelligence tools for data-based decisions and optimized sales processes;
- CRM tools that facilitate better tracking of sales activity;
- Prospecting tools that quickly identify promising leads;
- Communication tools to interact with customers and teammates;
- Route optimization apps to keep track of field activity and optimize sales territories.
Equipping representatives with these assets in their toolkit not only saves their time but also raises the likelihood of closing more deals successfully. Considering this context, it makes it apt now to explore how effective management techniques related specifically to timing could act synergistically with these devices, enhancing sales productivity.
4. Resource Deployment A.K.A. Coverage Models
As businesses grow, optimizing resource allocation becomes increasingly complex due to multiple factors and overlapping needs. Decision-making involves tradeoffs and understanding customer needs to identify inefficiencies in direct selling. A structured review can uncover gaps and opportunities, leading to potential revenue increases. Determine how you will assign sales reps to accounts.
There are three main coverage models:
- Enterprise: Each sales rep is responsible for several large accounts.
- SMB: Each sales rep is responsible for a larger number of small and medium-sized businesses.
- Team: Accounts are assigned to teams of sales reps who work together to close deals.
In most organizations, there are many more sales roles to consider, such as customer engineering and product specialist teams. You need to consider additional factors to deploy these resources for maximum impact. For example:
- Organizational design (how many roles are there?)
- Product maturity (how much specialization do you need?)
- Breadth and depth of product portfolio, etc.
5. Compensation Alignment
Design your sales compensation plan to motivate reps to achieve your desired business outcomes. To design an effective sales compensation plan that motivates representatives and achieves desired results, consider the following elements:
- Commission Structure: Implement a commission structure that offers significant rewards for exceeding sales goals. Use tiered commission rates based on performance levels to incentivize reps to strive for higher achievements.
- Billings Targets: Set monthly, quarterly, and annual billings targets to encourage reps to focus on bookings. Link commission payouts to billing targets to create a direct correlation between performance and earnings.
- Revenue And Consumption Targets: Align revenue targets with the company's overall objectives to ensure reps work toward common goals. Set quarterly and annual revenue targets to provide a long-term perspective while allowing for regular evaluation and adjustment. There may also be other proxies for consumption.
- New Customer Acquisition Incentives: Offer incentives for reps who bring in new customers to reward their efforts in expanding the company's customer base.
- Balance And Flexibility: Adopt a holistic approach to compensation that accommodates changes in market conditions, product offerings and customer needs. Regularly evaluate the compensation plan to ensure it remains effective and aligned with business objectives.
- Performance Tracking And Recognition: Implement a robust performance tracking system to monitor reps' progress and identify areas for improvement. Celebrate achievements with non-monetary rewards such as recognition programs, awards and opportunities for professional development.
6. Execution And Operating Model
Hold sales reps accountable for their performance and provide them with ongoing coaching and feedback. Build the right operating model for teams to align and drive execution. To amplify the productivity of sales representatives, organizations should focus on three pivotal things:
- Strategic Account Planning: Implement comprehensive account planning to optimize time allocation. This ensures sales reps prioritize high-potential opportunities and maximize their efforts where they can make the most significant impact.
- Efficient Sales Process And Tools: Streamline the sales process, simplify tools and facilitate seamless handoffs to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This eliminates unnecessary complexities, allowing reps to focus on building relationships and closing deals.
- Minimize Non-Customer-Facing Tasks: Identify and minimize non-customer-facing tasks and activities that divert reps' attention from revenue-generating activities. This can involve tasks like excessive reporting or administrative duties that can be automated or delegated.
7. Align Sales and Marketing Goals
Sales and marketing teams are often misaligned in their goals and overall communication due to a lack of understanding of:
- Each other’s roles and responsibilities
- Different priorities
- Separate performance metrics
This misalignment can lead to wasted resources, missed opportunities, and reduced overall efficiency in both departments. According to SugarCRM research, 45% of sales and marketing leaders face issues related to inadequate communication between their teams. And 72% encounter this issue when incentivizing teams with different goals.
Key Steps to Align Sales and Marketing Goals
To bridge the gap and increase sales productivity, organizations should consider the following steps to align sales and marketing goals:
- Establish a shared vision between sales and marketing teams.
- Create a unified revenue pipeline by tracking leads with the same processes for both.
- Develop shared performance metrics to reflect collective goals.
- Schedule regular cross-functional meetings to encourage open communication.
- Implement lead scoring and qualification to prioritize high-value leads.
- Encourage sharing of insights and feedback between departments.
- Collaborate on content creation to support the sales process.
8. Streamline the Sales Process
The sales process has numerous elements that can be automated, including:
- Lead qualification and segmentation
- Meeting scheduling
- Follow-up emails
- Customer onboarding
- Document generation
A huge part of sales productivity (or lack thereof) is the time reps spend on manual, repetitive tasks. By streamlining these processes with automation, companies can free up their reps’ time and allow them to focus on more meaningful and higher-impact activities that bring in revenue. Sales professionals should spend their time focusing on the human element of sales:
- Building relationships with customers
- Understanding their needs
- Crafting tailored solutions
9. Automate Sales Workflows
Automation technology isn’t enough—companies need to implement the right workflows to get the most out of it. This starts with creating sales workflows.
For example:
- Lead qualification workflow: When a lead enters the system, it should be quickly evaluated based on a set of criteria to determine whether it’s a good fit for your product or service.
- Lead nurturing workflow: This involves sending automated emails and messages to leads over time in order to keep them engaged with your product and build trust.
- Sales process workflow: This defines the steps reps take to close deals. These include customer research, creating proposals and contracts, and following up with leads post-sales.
Before automating, businesses should clearly understand their sales process and how different tasks need to be executed.
10. Implement Sales Training and Coaching
Sales onboarding can make or break a company’s:
- Employee retention rate
- Comfortability on sales calls
- Overall productivity in sales activities
Proper training and coaching give reps the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to succeed. To ensure a successful onboarding process, organizations should:
- Develop clear goals and objectives for each step of the sales process.
- Provide comprehensive sales training resources that are easily accessible by reps.
- Books
- Videos
- Webinars
- Teach new hires how to use CRM and other sales software.
- Set up one-on-one coaching sessions with experienced company reps and AEs.
- Provide ongoing feedback and guidance to reps on performance.
11. Effective Time Management Techniques for Sales Reps
Efficient time management is the cornerstone of high-performing sales professionals. By employing methods such as time blocking, they establish a structured daily routine that prioritizes critical activities, ensuring tasks of utmost importance receive due focus. The Eisenhower Productivity Matrix acts as an essential tool for sorting tasks by their urgency and significance. Integrating timers with these scheduled blocks promotes concentration among sales representatives and helps maintain adherence to predetermined timelines without excessively dwelling on any given activity.
Regular rest intervals are crucial in averting fatigue and sustaining elevated productivity levels throughout the day. Adopting a disciplined weekly plan can refine time stewardship, allocating distinct responsibilities to designated days, thereby fostering a consistent pattern conducive to optimal efficacy. These strategies empower sales agents to effectively manage their hours and channel endeavors toward amplifying sales figures. Having recognized how integral adept time governance is in elevating sales productivity, let’s consider augmentations within the structure of selling procedures, which could streamline collective undertakings within a commercial squad even more efficiently.
12. Reduce Time Spent on Administrative Tasks and Meetings
Tasks unrelated to selling are among the biggest time-sucks your reps face in their day-to-day work. The right sales productivity software can help you get that time back. A study of over 70 companies by McKinsey and Co. found that sales leaders who utilized artificial intelligence (AI) and marketing automation software opened up 20% more sales team capacity. A sales CRM system helps automate multiple tasks, from email drip campaigns to follow-up reminders. They come with templates and integrations you can use as is or customize to suit your goals. Try using pre-written sales scripts to save your reps time on calls.
Having some talking points or prepared answers to frequently asked questions can give your team more confidence and guide the conversation. Good CRMs also offer analytics tools and reporting that turn the data you get from customers into actionable insights. Instead of tracking every lead your team contacts manually, you could run a conversion report using sales analytics tools to see which deals closed, how they closed and where those leads originated.
Strategies to Reduce Inefficient Meetings and Boost Productivity
To get an idea of exactly what it is that’s taking up the most time during a rep’s day, look at factors like:
- The time they spend traveling between sales visits
- How long internal team meetings take
- Time spent on sales calls
- Amount of face-to-face time with customers
- Time spent on administrative tasks like data entry and emails
- Time spent tracking their sales pipeline
- Time spent prospecting for new leads
Have your staff track their time and report back, using that data to decide what you automate. Let your team know you aren’t trying to call anyone out; you only want to get a picture of how they spend their time. A recent study by Microsoft listed inefficient meetings as the number one detriment to workplace productivity. Look at:
- How many meetings you’re having
- How regularly you’re meeting
- How long those meetings last
You could reduce or eliminate them and share the information in a company-wide email. You can still meet in person for the essential things, but you might be surprised by how much time your team gets back solely by making this change. Get tips to plan your next sales meeting here.
13. Understand and Optimize Revenue Generation
Successful companies know how their business works at a granular level. They know what it takes to increase revenue generation and make organizational changes to improve sales performance. This is referred to as Revenue Intelligence.
Intelligent Revenue looks at:
- Your data
- Identifies trends
- Provides insights to guide your planning and decision-making
It helps you make changes to your sales performance improvement plan that put reps in front of the right customers and reward them for bringing in the best sources of revenue. That means your sellers are focusing their time on targeting and closing the best deals. They are better equipped to do their job and earn more while helping the company drive profitability—a win-win for everyone!
14. Maximize Your Sales Forecasting Accuracy
Accurate sales forecasting is essential for managing your resources efficiently and maximizing your team's performance. Manual sales forecasting isn't just time-consuming; it can also be error-prone. Small clerical errors can easily be amplified, leading to inaccurate forecasts and making revenue performance management more difficult than it needs to be.
Intelligent forecasting technology closes the data gap by quickly and accurately analyzing your CRM data. It uses that data to identify where deals in your pipeline often stall and highlights deals at risk due to lack of activity. Forecasting tools can also offer guided selling suggestions to:
- Coach sellers
- Increase sales productivity
- Improve sales performance
15. Make Customer Experience Your Top Priority
Put simply, successful companies have satisfied customers. Your current customers can play a huge role in improving sales performance. According to a recent report by Bain and Company, a 5% increase in customer retention produces an increase in profit of over 25%. It's cheaper to retain existing customers than to recruit new ones, so any efforts you can make to improve customer service or make your loyalty programs more appealing will likely pay off.
Today’s saturated markets bombard buyers with thousands of sales messages every day. One-third of customers surveyed by American Express say they'll consider switching brands after just one incident of poor customer service. To retain consumer loyalty, you must position yourself as a customer partner. Understanding each individual's needs builds stronger relationships and improves your sales performance.
16. Improve Transparency
A recent report on the Great Resignation by Mckinsey showed that 51% of people who left did so because they didn't feel a sense of belonging. Crediting work done and transparency in processes and plans go hand in hand with improved performance. Employees must feel that their time, work, and wellness are appreciated and respected.
This can differ for every company, but some of the most successful initiatives include offering:
- Work flexibility by allowing employees to work from almost anywhere
- Stipends to create productive, comfortable remote workspaces
- Mental health days to promote employee wellness
- Direct, clear communication with leadership and executives
- Educational opportunities and training
- Tools that make plans more transparent, increasing a sense of belonging and involvement in the growth and successes of an organization
17. Utilizing Sales Data for Informed Decisions
In the modern era where data is paramount, making decisions based on solid information is critical for achieving sales success. Sales teams can boost their efficiency and effectiveness by syncing their key performance indicators with broader organizational objectives through rigorous analysis of vital sales metrics. The cornerstone of this strategy lies in high-quality data, which delivers the essential insights needed for precise and actionable evaluation.
Tools such as data visualization, testing methodologies, and predictive analytics are instrumental in transforming raw numbers into valuable knowledge that facilitates comprehension of patterns and foretelling future developments. These derived insights should not be seen as an endpoint. Rather they serve as particle elements within a cyclical process aimed at perpetually honing and enhancing sales strategies. By weaving data throughout every aspect of decision-making processes, those within the realm of sales are equipped to adjust swiftly to:
- Fluctuations in market conditions
- Predict customer demands more accurately
- Customize their methods accordingly to optimize results
Data transcends its role from simply documenting historical events to serving as a compass pointing towards forthcoming possibilities.
18. Don’t Just Spend Money
A typical organization spends $24,000 per person on improving productivity, yet 49% of organizations need more means to measure productivity. The average-performing sales reps spend only about 35% of their time in direct selling and 65% on non-selling activities.
These non-selling activities (aka time sinks) include:
- Non-sales calls
- Internal conversations/meetings
- Networking
- Administrative, manual tasks
These activities seem harmless, but like all things, they add up. Focusing on employee engagement is more than just buying tools, it’s knowing how to use them effectively that’s essential. Once you know the cause of the low productivity, you can take steps to remove the roadblocks and get your sales teams back to selling.
19. Prospect Smarter
Researching and identifying prospects that would be a good fit for your product or service takes a lot of time. This you know. Fortunately, there’s a way to automate this painstaking task, and within a couple clicks of the mouse, you can pull a targeted list of prospects that match your criteria.
Prospecting tools such as Lead Machine give you the power to filter through more than 200 unique data points to identify the right leads and not waste time pitching to those that are a bad fit:
- Income
- Owner vs. renter
- Company size
- Revenue
- Business type
20. Continuous Training and Development
The landscape of sales is in a constant state of flux, and to avoid obsolescence, it’s essential that the sales training and development of your sales team be ongoing. This commitment fosters industry-leading expertise and product fluency. Investing in this area increases productivity, higher job satisfaction among team members, and an overall surge in sales success. A direct correlation exists between effective training programs and enhanced productivity – potential boosts upping net sales per representative by as much as 50%. Training transcends mere skill sharpening. It nurtures:
- Growth
- Ignites aspiration for greatness
- Uncovers latent abilities within the sales force
For reps, especially, comprehensive knowledge about products through dedicated training empowers them to build trust with prospects effectively while articulating product benefits compellingly. Sales managers or leaders take on an indispensable role by orchestrating impactful training sessions tailored for each rep’s unique way of assimilating information.
Adapting to Change: A Key to Sustained Success
When they initiate strong support systems through enablement initiatives specific to their teams’ needs, they can lead those teams toward exceptional performance standards. As we pivot towards persistent refinement within our strategies lies the vital necessity for celebration and motivation, of victories both big and small:
- Key components integral to maintaining a performing dynamic whose aim always outpaces its quest for excellence;
- These values are embedded in culture dedication to continuous evolution not choice but instead mandate.
- Enduring success in contemporary arena dynamics that are perpetually shifting requires an adaptive, responsive mindset.
- Bolstered acknowledgment recognition of good work done ensuring morale, steadfast adherence to goal-setting advancement
- Pursuits never cease evolve, advance unlock new vistas and opportunities ahead
21. Celebrating Wins and Motivating Your Sales Team
Acknowledging and exalting achievements goes beyond mere pleasantries. They’re critical to fostering a robust sales environment. Public recognition of sales successes propels motivation and engagement, creating an atmosphere of accomplishment and fellowship among the team members. This approach emphasizes particular triumphs, reinforcing behaviors that pave the way for continued success.
By cultivating celebration in the workplace, not only does job satisfaction surge but also sales productivity escalates. Embracing wins through various methods such as contests, leaderboards or rewards programs embeds a collective culture where mutual pursuit of excellence is paramount. The ethos of commendation coupled with encouragement transcends just immediate benefits. It’s about constructing a sustainable setting where sales representatives are respected and galvanized to elevate their performance levels consistently. In such an invigorated environment, enhanced productivity in sales naturally emerges.
22. Measure Your Progress
After each successful tweak to your strategy, measure sales productivity to see how much progress you’ve made.
You can get valuable insight into where your team is improving by tracking factors like:
- Individual rep performance
- Team performance
- Coaching progress
- What content your teams choose to share
- See where they still have room to grow and any roadblocks standing in the way of improved productivity
Sales enablement too includes sales productivity tools like:
- Customizable dashboards
- Pipeline management and lead scoring to help you review and track all the information you need to analyze your sales productivity
Checking progress regularly will help your business stay adaptable. You can’t know what to improve if you don’t measure. Check progress, identify bottlenecks, and adapt as needed.
23. Build a resource library
There may be moments when your sales team must quickly send an informative sales sheet or piece of marketing material to a prospect to help them learn more about the product. Rather than searching for certain resources, you can compile them into an easily accessible digital library. Employees can easily retrieve, download, and send any necessary resources by locating them in a digital spreadsheet.
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Why is Improving Sales Productivity in an Organization Important?
Sales Productivity: What It Is and Why It Matters
Sales productivity is a widely used term that’s become something of a catch-all for describing the efficacy of sales, but it has a very specific definition. It even has a specific formula:
Sales Productivity = Efficiency x Effectiveness
Even more confusing, the terms ‘sales efficiency’ and ‘sales effectiveness’ are often used interchangeably.
The people who use these terms may not know the difference, so let’s quickly sort it out:
- Sales efficiency refers to how well resources are allocated. Resources can refer to anything from budgets and technologies to man-hours. The latter is by far the most valuable resource at a company’s disposal. So it’s important to maximize the productive time a sales team has.
- Sales effectiveness refers to how well the sales team uses the resources allocated to them. So if a rep fits in some extra sales calls during their allocated time, they’re improving efficiency. If they convert those calls into customers, they’re improving effectiveness.
Simply put, efficiency creates as many opportunities as possible, while effectiveness is how well a team capitalizes on those opportunities. Sales productivity, then, is the factor of both.
Why Sales Productivity Matters
Sales productivity is crucial for improving performance and increasing revenue. The higher a team's sales productivity, the better they will perform and the more revenue they will generate. Prioritizing sales productivity leads to more sales and shorter sales cycles, which results in higher profitability and better business health.
Improving sales productivity also leads to enhanced team morale and better retention rates. As sales productivity increases, fewer resources are wasted and the team reaches its targets more effectively. This means less stressful sales processes and a happier, more motivated team.
How to Improve Sales Productivity
The first step to improving sales productivity is to assess the current productivity levels of your sales team. This will help you establish a baseline and identify areas for improvement. From there, you can implement targeted strategies to boost sales productivity over time. As you make these changes, monitor sales productivity metrics to measure progress and make adjustments as needed.
How To Measure Sales Productivity
Average Revenue Per Seller — An Indicator of Sales Performance
The Average Revenue Per Seller metric illuminates how effectively individual contributions are boosting revenue. It’s a critical indicator of your sales strategies’ potency. Tracking this metric uncovers how much revenue each rep generates within a specific time frame, allowing you to pinpoint which sellers are excelling and which ones may need additional support or coaching.
Sales Reps Spend Too Much Time On Administrative Tasks
Sales reps spend a significant amount of time on administrative tasks and non-selling activities like:
- Entering contacts and activities into the CRM
- Writing emails
- Nurturing leads through email automation
- Route optimization
Tracking this time is essential to identify areas for automation and improve overall productivity.
Sales Quota Attainment — A Gauge of Team Performance
The measure known as Sales Quota Attainment is another guiding light, reflecting the proportion of your sales representatives who are achieving or surpassing their set goals. This gauge gives an overview of your entire selling operations’ vitality and pinpoints just how robustly your sales team is performing.
Deal Velocity and Sales Cycle Length — Metrics for Sales Forecasting
Metrics like Deal Velocity and Sales Cycle Length are also fundamental in providing clarity for:
- Precise forecasting
- Smart resource distribution
- Strategic planning
Keeping tabs on these metrics paves the way for enhancing existing sales methodologies — sharpening tactics so you can reach objectives with more speed and efficiency.
Try Our Sales Intelligence Software for Free Today
Sales productivity starts with preparation. The more sales teams prepare for a deal, the better they perform. Artificial sales intelligence software tools — like Aomni’s AI agent platform — can significantly boost sales productivity by enhancing the research and preparation processes. Instead of spending valuable time manually researching prospects and deals, Aomni’s artificial intelligence solutions automate these processes to accelerate sales productivity and performance.
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