Scaling your sales without scaling your sales team… sounds like wishful thinking, doesn’t it?

The immediate solution one might come to for increasing sales is probably hiring more sales representatives – who else is going to make those additional sales, after all.

What if I said the answer is actually the sales team you already have? And no, it’s not extra training, or even any extra work for the team!

Today, the answer is smart, yet simple software and technology solutions that make your existing team more productive. Effortlessly and practically instantly, too. Now that’s a wish come true.

AI-Powered Sales Suggestions

Perhaps the most obvious form of sales technology that can consistently boost metrics such as lines per order is product suggestions.

Product suggestion algorithms can analyze customer behavior, purchase history, and preferences to recommend relevant upselling and cross-selling opportunities. These suggestions can empower your sales team to offer personalized recommendations to customers, increasing the chances of closing larger deals and maximizing the value of each transaction. The suggestions can also be visible to customers in the e-commerce shop (think Amazon).

Something extra valuable about these AI-powered tools is that they can provide these insights and recommendations to your sales representatives, regardless of their level of experience. This means new hires can sell bigger and better right away, rather than having to train for months or even years to be as effective as a veteran rep.

Streamline with an Integrated Platform

A less obvious answer, yet one of the most significant barriers to productivity for sales teams, is eliminating the need to juggle multiple applications and platforms throughout the day.

Platform and spreadsheet hopping leads to time wasted on data entry, searching for information, and navigating between tools. An integrated platform saves teams from having to bounce around to different applications, bringing together all the essential functions they require in one centralized hub.

Imagine having your customer relationship management (CRM) system, inventory management, order processing, e-commerce, and data entry tools all seamlessly integrated into one platform. This enables the sharing of information and resources to improve collaboration, streamlines workflows, reduces manual data entry, and minimizes errors. Overall, it allows your sales representatives to focus on what they do best: selling.

Know what to do next

A disorganized workday can be a significant hindrance to productivity, and the first step to solving that is the integration mentioned above, but the next solution technology can provide is organizing what you do in a day.

A digital dashboard can provide a clear overview of daily tasks, goals, and essential metrics, making it easy to navigate your day. Similarly, an automatically sorted customer list lets a sales rep know exactly who needs to be contacted next, so they can make it through their daily touch points and sales in order of importance.

Sales reps won’t miss out on sales when smart tech can make sure they know when it’s been too long since they’ve reached out to a customer, or tell them who is likely to order. It’s easy to be productive when technology keeps track of your progress and provides you what you need when you need it.

Time-Saving Automations

Repetitive tasks can eat up a significant portion of a sales representative’s day. Automating these tasks can free up valuable time that can be better spent on building relationships with customers and closing deals.

Look for software solutions that offer automation features, such as:

• Automated data entry: Automatically capture and update customer information, order details, contact history, and other relevant data.
• Workflow Automations: Customizable or prebuilt workflow automations mean your processes will always follow through. Automatically send and receive pricing approvals, schedule activities, send invoices and messages to customers, and more daily tasks.
• Email automation: Send personalized follow-up emails, order confirmations, promotions, and reminders automatically.
• Reporting automation: Generate reports and analytics with a click of a button, eliminating the need for manual data compilation. Sales performance analytics help make data-driven decisions and identify areas for improvement.
• Automated Lead Management: Capture, organize, and track leads in a single platform. Automating lead distribution can save sales managers 5-10 hours a week, plus make sure none of your leads stagnate so you capture as many new customers as possible.

By automating these time-consuming processes, your sales team can focus on higher-value activities that directly contribute to revenue growth.

Scaling your sales without scaling your team is not only possible, but as simple as affordable software. By embracing the right software tools and AI-powered solutions, you can empower your existing sales force to be more productive and efficient. To stay ahead in distribution, you need to work smarter, not harder.

If you’d like to learn more about SupplyMover, a sales enablement, CRM, and e-commerce suite built for distributors, watch a quick video to see what we’re about!