What Does Your Sales Workflow Look Like?

As a sales manager, you can help your team's productivity by optimizing your sales workflow process. Have you spent time thinking about what an optimal sales workflow would look like for your business? If not, no need to worry. This blog post reviews the key elements you need to prioritize when building a successful sales workflow.

Key Elements of an Optimal Sales Workflow

Consider these key elements that your sales workflow should include for optimal performance:

Multiple Channels Keep You Competitive

Today's customers have more options than ever before to gain information about products and brands. If your sales team relies only on cold calling, you're not casting a wide enough net. Don’t fail to target customers just because you’re only using one channel! If you’re only targeting one channel, that likely means you're losing business to competitors who are practicing more robust tactics. To maximize revenue, combine cold calling, personalized emails, social outreach, and inbound marketing campaigns.

You may think other channels are marketing domain. While companies with a good alignment between sales and marketing tend to have the best results, you don't always have to wait for marketing to reach out to leads. After all, the sales team owns the information about which tactics help close deals. Sales reps should feel empowered to take control and make the call, write the email, or reach out on social. Even better when you can automate the process.

Master Automation Without Letting it Master You

It’s important to remove as much manual work from your desk as possible—and that goes for your sales team, too. Automate as much as humanly (or technologically) possible. Create automated sequences that allow you to engage with prospects on a set cadence across different channels. This will keep your team working as efficiently as possible, based upon your knowledge and experience.

While you should rely upon automation to keep your sales cycle flowing smoothly, make sure you have some room for flexibility. Even automating your business process will help you stick to a schedule, you don't want to become so rigid that you can't take advantage of opportunities or handle various problems.

For instance, you might get information that a prospect wants to buy earlier than your plan allows for. Of course, you will want to take advantage of that opportunity by reaching out as soon as possible. Another customer or prospect may have a complaint, and you'll certainly want to have somebody respond to this customer promptly.

It’s also important to include those personal touches to your emails. If a prospect told you to contact her after her vacation, schedule the email and ask how her vacation was. Another prospect may have requested additional information from your website between your last call and your next contact. That email may be scheduled to go out, but you need to have the ability to add a comment about the asset they downloaded. Was it helpful? Or are they interested in more resources you have available?

Let Your Data Help Drive You

Sales teams with data-driven workflow management are several times more likely to close deals and retain customers, according to data insights provided by Forbes.

For instance, the best data-driven organizations are six times more likely to retain new customers, and 23 times more likely to acquire new customers. Because of this, data-driven organizations are more profitable than their competitors.

The data will tell you how long reps spend on the phone before they close, which channels have produced the best leads, and the difference between your top performers and those team members who are struggling. You can use this information to improve your overall sales processes and mentor or train your sales team members.

Sales will always be a numbers game, so you should review your data regularly to let the numbers inform you about what your sales team is doing well and what they could handle better. It's up to you to decide if you want to view your metrics weekly, monthly, or quarterly. However, you should commit to checking your numbers on a schedule.

You may also decide that you need to review your data more frequently when your sales team appears to struggle. Pulling ad hoc reports is never a bad idea, but it’s important that those reports supplement your regular reporting.

Your first attempt to optimize your sales workflow won’t be carved in stone. Over time, you should enjoy a sales workflow based on data that's custom tailored to your business, your prospects, and your customers.

Is your sales workflow built with these elements in mind? If not, it’s time to get started. ConnectLeader’s TruCadence software gives you total control over your sales workflow. It allows you to create sequences across call, email, and social media. It keeps you organized, your deals moving, and puts momentum and velocity at the top of the sales funnel.

With TruCadence, you can maintain automation while allowing for personalization. Learn more today.