Can you accelerate sales force productivity POSITIVELY during tough times?

Yes!

Sales force #productivity can indeed be accelerated positively.

Sales as a profession is very prominent now a days because it teaches about #life. When you start working in this field, you will realize that everyone is a salesman in their respective lives.

Sales can teach a person an important life lesson:

How people behave and how different situations influence a behavior in a person

One can also apply these lessons to their personal lives as well.

The training involved in this field includes the tasks like reading, writing and direct communication with others. These tasks not only make the person more social, but can also boost the self-confidence.

Before starting with increasing the productivity let us brush our knowledge upon sales force.

As we know,

Sales=exchange of a commodity for money? Or

The action of selling something

Productivity is the final goal for any of the sales ventures.

That is, the ratio of effectiveness versus efficiency.

When there is an #improvement in the efficiency or effectiveness of your salespeople, their productivity goes up.

In other words, it can be said that the output of your sales team is the productivity.

What do you know about the evolution of sales?

The process of sales can be tracked back to medieval history as well. Any fundamental transaction or business never happened without the process of selling.

Probably, the AGE of sales can be said “as old as human existence”

But coming to the modern-day sales, it is the result of industrial era that happened over 200 years ago.

As years passed, sales also became a function in organization because of excessive of excessive production because organizations wanted to distribute the products.

And some years later, people didn’t want to just look at the distribution by the sales guys but also influence the consumer(s).

As years passed, sales growth are influenced by the wars which created some changes in the sales.

Even now some people hate sales because of a taboo which included not so well worth considering approaches to sell their products.

And this is the one reason why sales got tarnished.

But there has been a tremendous change over the last 3-4 decades in sales. It became a key delivery point.

These are the reasons why a salesperson should be upright and, on the board, whenever a consumer requires a product and in understand them.

There has been a humongous change in the evolution of sales from the ancient era to medieval period and then to the modern era. External situations are one reason why evolutions happen. For e.g., the increase in number of the digital platforms due to pandemic that happened in 2019.

This is a solid proof for the fact that sales had always been evolving and there is no doubt that sales will evolve in future coming eras.

And one can always be sure that, no matter how many professions come and go but selling will always be a permanent and prominent profession.

In your old age, when someone asks you what the most demanding period in your life was, the pandemic that hit the world in 2019 would be there.

Many lives were forced to press the pause button for a while during the COVID wave. Just like that many professions too had to face the challenge. Sales was one of them!

So, how do you think the pandemic affected the sales?

Sales is a part of business and therefore a part of an organization. So, one should always start by analyzing how the organization was affected by pandemic.

Effect of pandemic on organizations:

·??????The spending was reduced roughly to about 55 % of organizations. But there are organizations that had increased its spending. And the focus of these organizations during pandemic were digital platforms.

·??????Tremendous growth in digital platforms. The investments that were used to divert to the creation of the digital platforms were about 40-50 %.

·??????Both consumers and organizations have changed due to the external situation that happened.

·??????Because of this selling has partly become a remote selling.

·??????Huge growth in digital selling.

?How Sales changed DURING the pandemic?

·??????The traditional sales which started from identifying prospects to post purchase service is no more going to be valid. These functions will be taken care by either marketing or IT organizations.

·??????Remote selling is huge. Number of interactions happen in digital platforms than face to face. This is a significant change that should be adapted.

Sales guy should be empathetic more now than ever as empathy is a key criterion for acquiring new customer(s)

·??????More number of collaborations with multiple stake holders in sales is required.

The critical business transformation of this era is digital platforms

Here are the tips for accelerating the productivity of sales force in the remote engagement model:

·??????Empathy - an important part in it. Think from the customers shoes, solve their problems. Provide alternatives

Customers don't know what they want

·??????Sales guy must be good at knowledge about customers, competitors and product or organization.

·??????Should be good at analytical skills as now digital platforms are evolving.

·??????Analogical skills should also be possessed by the sales guy.

·??????Intuitive skills, High Emotional Quotient (EQ) & Growth mindset.

·??????Self-actualization of the work a person is doing.

One of the main mistakes salesforces makes more frequently is the unawareness of the product and the customer.

If you are a sales guy, what are the things you would look for in a customer?

One should always be good at understanding themselves and then the customer before going into sales. If one can figure who they are and if he can sell to himself then he can sell to anyone.

If you are new to business and sales, you should never lose hope.

Make sure that you are really interested in the business. And don’t lose hope even if you fail. Just rise and be ready for the next step.

Have you found this post useful?

If so, please share with your friends/colleagues or those who can benefit from this.

Also, if you have any tips or questions, please share/post in the comments section.

This blog post has a few excerpts from The Guiding Voice podcast Episode 94 #TGV94 ft. Dr. Sridhar Guda, a professor at IIM Kozhikode with the aim to make the Sales Profession nobler.

Episode Links:

Podbean:?The Guiding Voice podcast

YouTube: ?https://youtu.be/ezP4AOcUSlE

This post is compiled by Sahla Siraj, our #TGV Intern!

We'd like to hear from you on how your organization was able to accelerate the sales force productivity during tough times. Look forward to your comments.

Also, we’d love your feedback on #TGVBlogs as it will help us get better and it feels nice to see your responses!

Please provide your feedback in the comments or email us [email protected]

?Also, read our previous posts:

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Want to GROW in the corporate world?

Hey Fresher, want to LAND in your DREAM job?

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