Mobile technology for managing distributed sales force

In this article we would look into how to use mobile technology to manage distributed sales force for your organization.

What drives success to a distributed team of an organization?

This question may be very critical to answer and may end up turning into a manual if answered in detail. Though a general and an over simplified reply would be complying processes.

A small team of distributed field force can be managed over phone with manual reporting. Having a mandatory process that needs complying may seem an over kill. But that’s not true if you look from a business point of view. And we will explain now why we feel so.

Being the business owner or the sales head, the primary responsibility is to scale up. This approach keeps an organization in a constant growth path. One needs to be aware of the day to day processes. But being completely involved in it may keep you stranded in operations and hence losing the focus on growth.

This is where a process falls perfectly well. Today’s mobile technology is completely capable to implement a compliance process. Your on-field team needs to follow the process to complete a job in hand.

One of the challenges that a business with a small team may face is training. Thankfully the penetration of smart phones have been such that one is completely aware of the basic functionality of such devices. Such is the scenario that one is more comfortable operating a smart phone than a laptop. So the training is now restricted to only understanding the process and the way to use the mobile phone application to put that process into action.

Automation sales with mobile technology for a small team is necessary. The reason behind this is simple –

1. When your team is small it becomes a perfect place to start implementing a process. This helps organisations to fine tune the process when the team grows big. Automating a big team directly has its own set of risks. If gone wrong may break the operations and involve financial loses.
2. Automations can help you release a lot of your work load that can be taken care through the process. For example if it were required by you to check for the daily collection of your 10 sales men, by implementing an mobile sales-force automation you can directly see the report on your mobile. Just think if you have to spend time following up your sales men to get the report. And then structuring the report in a manner you want all by yourself. It is certainly take up more time than you plan to give it. An automation will do that for you and let you focus in what you really want to.
3. If you are planning to scale up, it is important that you star with your current team. Automation will break certain ways that you use to follow without it. Not just your team but you as the head or business owner has to adapt it. It is also important for you to understand what kind of training is most affective for your sales team.

For a large team, a field force automation is very important and very logical to understand. We have seen almost all organizations with big sales team works with a CRM. And that’s all what they have in the name of automation of sales.

We need to understand the process at one level is meant to add efficiency to the work being done. Process must be such that it accomplishes the work in hand and generates data for insight. The process is not fine-tuned if it slows the overall work in the name of data collection. The contemporary CRM adds a lot of clerical job for sales people. The sales people have to do a lot of data entry. This in-turn impacts their over-all sales time.

With our experience to install sales automation for large sales team, the best approach is to

1. Start with the sales team of one department and then scale up to other departments. This helps to refine the installation process and speed up the installation in other departments.
2. If there is addition of a new feature/functionality again start with one or two departments. Once streamlined then activate the feature for other department.
3. If there are some very significant process addition it is better to simulate it over development instance with few mobile devices.

Mobile technology is quite an enabler when it comes to managing a distributed field force network of an organization. Big or small the impact of technology is significant.

We will be explaining how a simple thing like automating “attendance” into a compliance process for field force can impact your growth in business.

We would like to know your sales challenges. In case you want to know how our mobile solution can help you in managing your field force just drop your contact below and we will call you back.

The Game of Email Subject Line

You might have not given it a thought but your emails add up to a hefty amount of communications that you do with your prospects or clients. But hardly had we put in time to sculpture the email to look convincing enough to be opened. And as rightly said the bridge between a prospect and a lead is the email subject line that can convince a prospect to open it.

So here are few pointers for sale-reps to make sure that your email subject line provides you edge to be noticed.

Just to the point –

Boomerang studied 40 million emails to conclude that subject with three to four words got the highest open rates.
Let’s get the point clear- five to seven words are enough to give a hint of the content. If seven words can’t lead to open the email, chances are 70 words can’t get it either.

Example – If you were to write and email to a prospect – “Appointment for Product demo” is a good subject line rather than “Request an appointment for a product demo tomorrow at 3 PM”

The second subject line is very informative and hence will not invite a prospect to open the email. The first one is long enough to hint and short enough to tempt for more information (regarding time, venue etc)
Also shorter subject lines are much more readable on mobile devices compared to the longer ones

Being over-smart does not pay –

Do not be fooled to be a winner if you mislead someone to open your email. Misleading can end up permanently blocking your email and hence losing a prospect for ever.

Example – “Follow-up against the meeting on 5th May” is a good subject line and sounds important. But if it is faked just to fool a prospect to open the email, one may end up with losing the prospect altogether.

Being Bought Vs Being Sold –

It almost needs a miracle to convince a prospect to buy something over an email subject line. We recommend not trying this at all. Your email subject is quite a scarce resource so put it to a good use.

Here is a good read on – Why a good sales rep make their client feel as if they are buying a product rather than making then feel that they are being sold one.

Example – Head of Service from <Company Name> – Requesting demo for <Product Name>
It will be rare that your prospects know your company or your product name. And more over prospects need a solution of their issues in hand irrespective of who is providing it. What matters is a credible and durable solution.

“Boost your sales process with technology – Request Demo” is better than the former subject line.

Check your facts –

Usage of automated emails are common place. If you are one of such candidate make sure that you have your facts right. Emailing services that uses tokens to personalise an email can only be successful with correct data. In case you have not organized or not sure of the data it is better to handcraft your emails. You would not like to experiment with wrong or unrelated information right on the subject line of your email while sending it to your prospects.

If you have your tips and tricks for sales challenges then do share with us.