Sales Desk Jockey

So bogged down with admin tasks you can no longer sell?

Should a salesperson be at their desk or out of the office? Which is more effective? Which scenario brings in more money for your business? DEPENDS. Both being out of the office visiting clients and being at their desks typing up proposals/quotes generates money for your business. What’s crucial is they spend time on BOTH.

The next question to ask yourself: Do your salespeople have time for both? If not, what is preventing them from either going out to visit clients/potential clients or typing up proposals/quotes?

Most often, the issue is some process or standard operating procedure that gets in the way of efficiency. “A process or SOP getting in the way of efficiency!?!” you gasp. Yes…it may be hard to believe, but some processes or SOPs are inefficient.

In all actuality, there are many inefficient processes and SOPs in businesses. Weisbeck Consulting is often hired to assist a business in taking a deeper look at their SOPs to figure out any shortcomings and then collaborate with the team to develop a better, more efficient way of doing things. These modifications help identify things such as “your sales staff doesn’t have time to sell,” and then works with the sales and operations teams to make sure both teams are understood, their concerns are met, and an SOP is put in place to most effectively empower salespeople to sell and provide operations staff with the necessary information they need to execute the product/service.

So back to sales team inefficiencies…what would be some examples of SOPs preventing the sales team from having enough time to effectively complete the entire sales process and continue to grow overall sales?

1. Sales goals/expectations that the salesperson meet with “x number of people” a week, a month, etc.

   1. Although setting sales goals/expectations is a great practice to keep everyone on the same page and working towards the same end, depending on the particular role of the salesperson, having a goal focused on number of meetings vs size of quotes can create a lot of unnecessary administrative activity.

   2. Work with your financial and sales team to set larger, annual, or semi-annual goals, and then allow your sales team to figure out how to achieve them. If you have to constantly micro-manage…you may need to search for a new sales team. Weisbeck Consulting recommends regular (weekly if needed) check-in/accountability meetings focused on your sales team’s frustration points, questions/concerns about certain clients/quotes, reviewing the overall sales goals, and encouraging them in their progress.

2. An overly complex quote process or overly demanding CRM.

   1. The operational and administrative team should be doing everything in their power to simplify and streamline the administrative aspects of sales. If you find the sales team regularly complaining about all the fields required within your CRM, perhaps you are requiring too much demographic or supporting data? Ask yourselves, is this data necessary for this sale of for future prospecting efforts? If not, Weisbeck Consulting recommends removing it as a required field and keeping the fields needed to complete a quote or new client profile in your system as simple as possible.

   2. Is there a simpler and quicker way for your quotes to be built and finalized? Are there shortcuts, templates, importing functions, or other tricks your sales team can use to spend less time behind the computer and more time talking with prospective clients?

   3. Is your sales team big enough to justify an “inside salesperson” to compile and finalize quotes for the outside sales team? Consider the ROI that could be achieved by “peeling” this heavily administrative task off your outside sales team. How many more quotes and sales could be closed by adding this important position? How will that affect your company’s overall sales numbers? Will the growth justify the hiring of this position? Equally as important…will this position remove much of the frustration of your (outside) sales team regarding spending so much time behind their desk doing admin tasks?

Sales is a crucial aspect of every business. It is the gateway to the revenue that funds your entire business. Perhaps things in the sales department are going well, perhaps they are not. Either way, Weisbeck Consulting recommends that you take a deeper look at how much time your sales staff is spending behind their desk. Ask them about it and seek to understand their frustrations. They are not simple desk jockeys, but the face of your company to your clients. Make sure they are getting enough face time to build trust and develop relationships!