The tools for selling is a lot more than you think
Managing a sales team can be very challenging. So how do we know we are providing the best tools for selling?
Sales management is a lot more than just telling the team to go out there and sell. We may be able to get away without a formalized sales management plan when we are a sole trader or a company with a couple of sales reps. Even at these sizes, I would not recommend the laissez-faire way of doing things. If you do not have a plan, you are planning to fail.
As our company scales, a formalized sales management plan becomes more critical. This plan needs to include the sales tools for selling that we provide to our sales team.
We will focus on three tools that I find many businesses fail to implement well; Customer Relationship Management system (CRM), reporting template, and Pivot table. Please note that this is certainly not an exhaustive list.
When it comes to sales tools for selling, most sales managers will think of the laptop or phone and product collaterals.
Yes, these tools are critical for them to do their jobs. However, these will not differentiate them from our competitors. The reason is quite simple. Every competitor provides their sales team the same thing.