Virtual Selling: The Best Practices For Remote Selling
Remote working is a trend for the next 30 years. Companies are shifting many departments to remote mode, allowing them to be more flexible for their employees, cut the office maintenance cost, and stay efficient. Converting the sales department online can be a challenge for those businesses that have always used traditional offline methods. Remote employees do not feel they are a full part of the team and do not fully understand their role in the projects. In this article, we’ve compiled remote selling best practices to help you transform your sales team.
How to Create a Base For Transferring The Sales Department To A Remote Mode
Take an analysis of the company’s internal and external processes. Study the work and interaction of departments and analyze the sales funnel.
The sales funnel is the customer’s path from the customer’s interest to the purchase. You should review each step and analyze it for further adaptation for remote work. You should evaluate your KPI and see if you manage to meet your goals.
If the problem is not with the funnel, it is worth checking the internal communication with employees. Find out which tasks they have issues with most often and assess them in more detail. Find out what technical resources the team requires and estimate the budget for their purchase.
How to Build Internal Communication Within Your Remote Sales Team
- Focus on the essential. You should set priorities and reject products and services that bring losses. Owners often do not improve their solid positions and continue to hold on to the pool of goods/services unprofitable in the hope of change.
- Establish clear rules of work. You should introduce the sales department’s work rules and appoint responsible executives. Employees must understand what they are responsible for, to whom they are accountable, and what results they are striving for. You should identify work conditions: working hours, communication after working hours, and performance of standard tasks. Clearly defined boundaries help to avoid misunderstandings.
- Private communication. It is important to set objectives and communicate the company’s goals not to the whole department but to each person individually. Ask the employee how to make their work more effective and give regular feedback on work issues.
- Establish at least two hours per week for video meetings with the team. Share the news, the results of the week, and working ideas. If possible, pay for relevant online courses that the whole team will take synchronously and create a chat room for their discussion.
Tools For Building A Remote Sales Department
CRM System
If a sales manager’s task is to communicate regularly with customers on social networks, by email, audio, and video calls, then a CRM system is an indispensable tool for use.
CRM systems for small businesses automate up to 40% of routine work. You do not need to open a bunch of tabs to collect and organize information about clients. A CRM system for enterprises is a tool to analyze the effectiveness of interaction between the company, the client, and the sales funnel.
Video Chat
Choose a single service that the team will use. Video call sales increase the success of closing a deal, which is why it is important to choose a tool that is as convenient as possible and covers all your needs. There are many video and audio call services on the market — Whoosh, Google Meet, Zoom, etc. You can try different tools and choose the one that meets your requirements.
Task Planner
There are special tools to help you distribute tasks between departments, monitor the deadlines of projects, and involvement of employees. They are underestimated in the structuring of business processes. You can divide the projects into tasks and the tasks into sub-tasks. Employees can leave comments on tasks, set terms and priorities, and monitor their execution.
Messenger For Team Communication
Communication with the team and other departments is very important for the employees of the remote sales department. Team internal communication cannot be scattered among various messengers and emailing services. This will lead to confusion and lost messages. Use a single channel, which will be visible only for work-related issues.
Time Tracker
The main task of time tracker programs is productivity analysis. In order to optimize work tasks, it is important for the owner to understand which of them takes the most time in the remote sales department.
The effort to build a remote sales department pays off in the first few months after implementation. Improved communication between departments and reduced employee frustration are the first signals that you are on the right track. Basically, establishing a successful remote sales team requires more attention to your employees and more control to evaluate their progress. Another key to success is arranging a comfortable digital working environment where an employee will have all the tools required to close deals.
