Technology And Sales Force Management
Imagine this, over 30 years ago people barely had any type of technology and sales were still happening back and forth, heck sales and bartering have been going on since life on earth started and before time. Now we are in a very unique time where we have the technology to reach anyone, anywhere in the world. It started with Alexander Graham Bell in 1877 making the first telephone call to, well, where we are now; facetiming people across the world, instant messaging and Google. Within two minutes, you can find out a decent amount about a person with a simple name search. With all of this technology it’s helping us do many things. With regards to personal selling and sales force management, there’s an abundant amount of technological resources out there that help small firms to large firms sell their products to businesses and consumers. The average student right now, she or he may have a smartphone and computer at their disposal with many different applications. First, the smartphone, s/he can call mom and dad back home, send pictures of the campus to their grandmother, facetime friends back home, receive emails from their professors and with all these different applications they can be notified within a second and can send to the other party within a second. Now look at it from a sales angle and we’re looking at the basic Bill selling a line of products for a company. The cell phone can get him in touch with anyone, as long as the other party answers, could be a client, could be his sales manager. This one device makes it incredibly easy for different parties to communicate. Let’s say a customer wants to see a quick picture of a product and wants to see if compared to the size of hand to see just how big it is, that person can take a picture with his smartphone and send it to him or her within seconds. This smartphone can also receive emails, couple clicks here, couple clicks there and you’re getting an email from a customer saying she needs more of this product. The smartphone is so important in today’s sales, it allows you to reach people and for people to reach you at any time. This is just one of the simple tools being used.
The smartphone is the communication tool that helps with all aspects of the selling process, but there are some other platforms that help with getting the sale. With the use of the internet there are many ways to go out and find leads. One way that was very intriguing upon findings, was how useful Indeed. com is and how it helps many sales person find prospects or leads. One might be selling a specific product that would benefit a Facilities manager. A sales person may go onto indeed. com and look up what companies are looking to hire a manager for their facilities. The sales man will then take note that someone new will be coming in to manage the facilities. They may add a note that this company posted the job at this time and that the job should be filled within a month or so. You can take a note on a sticky note or put it into a data base to call this company to speak to the facilities manager in say a month or so. You then give them a call at some point in the future in hopes that there is a new facilities manager. This is good because with a new manager coming in, he or she may want to look into getting new products to use that may add more value to him, whether it’s bringing down costs, more efficient for workers to use, eco-friendlier or in general just a better salesperson to deal with. As a salesperson, you may have more leverage than you think because the person is new and wants to be efficient as possible. Not only that there’s not much of a relationship built with the provider from before. This method has no cost. There are many other sites out there that could help a salesperson who’s looking for prospects in this way. There’s craigslist, Kijiji, monster jobs and many others. You can even just use Google looking for specific jobs out there.
Another platform out there which is very simple to use, is the one we all use every day and that is Google. Google can lead to many good things. One thing a sales person is always looking for is new clients, well with new buildings being built every day that means more businesses are opening up. A simple search of new buildings being built in Halifax or buildings being leased out can lead to new companies coming in. Sales people then take notes on where new buildings are going up and check periodically what businesses are moving in. A simple search with Google leads you to contacts from that company and then you begin your pre-call planning. Google is a very simple and cost-effective way to find leads and of course there are other search engines out there to use.
One of the biggest things in business is networking, Linkedin is social network for business professionals to connect, get resources, support, and build relationships with clients and potential clients. Linkedin has over 65 million users who use it to help build strategic relationships. LinkedIn is a way to connect, but it also is a way to generate leads. First you must create a profile. Plug in what you do for a career, past work experience, where you may work out of and many other details. In order to utilize it properly and get leads there are many ways of doing so. In an article on INC. com by Jeff Haden called “10 ways to Generate More Leads and Referrals on LinkedIn” he lists ways to utilize the website in order get leads. He first says make the profile and then make a video of what you do. One, this gives prospects a video and idea of whom they might contact in the future. Then he says add your connections, add people you know first and go on from there. Then it’s all about finding people who you think you can do business with. He says don’t overdue messages but check LinkedIn often. You aren’t going to get sales day in and day out, that’s why you only spend 10-20 minutes each day. After a certain amount of time, leads and referrals will start coming in and only little time was spent using it.
LinkedIn is also a research tool to look up certain prospects and get their background before approaching. This lead may have not come through LinkedIn, but it’s a good way to know who you’re selling too. With the above platforms listed Indeed will never come back to haunt you, people won’t research who you are on their so there’s no way for it to come back and bite you. With Google, well that can haunt a salesperson, although it’s a tool to do research, it’s also a tool for other people to do research. If someone does a simple Google search of your name and they find your name in a police log in or a picture of you partying on Facebook, this may lead them to not do business with you. Although it’s a tool, it can affect you as well. You better hope there’s nothing up on the internet that could affect you doing business with them. With regards to Linkedin, there are some disadvantages, not everyone is on it or using it consistently and of course the time you may invest in it may be wasted time. (5)All of the technology listed above are definitely tools that can be utilized for a salesperson but with these tools they all help with the pre-contacting stage. With all the information collected from using those platforms a salesperson can then use software to help manage their leads, with automated emails, reminders and information about prospects. Sales force Automation also known as SFA is a software that speeds up the management duties and business tasks, it helps control inventory, different accounts, leads, forecasting, sales team performance and orders.
Sales force automation has many advantages and disadvantages. With regards to its advantages, it increases productivity, keeps proper records, forecasts sales and helps save time when preparing data for meeting. But there’s also some disadvanatges, it’s very tedious, theres a high cost to implement and of course you must train your people to use the service. Beside SFA comes CRM, which means Customer Relationship management which is another technological tool in which makes sales management easier and efficient. CRM allows your business to organize all interactions and relationships with customers and prospects, the goal is to make it, so the customer has a consistent relationship, and everything goes well. There are many advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages are, you have all customer data in one place, this allows your workers to find all the info they need in this one place. As the data base grows, this may lead to more growth for you and your company, as leads may fall into sales etc.
The data is also all in one place which allows more reach for you in just a click of a few buttons, emails can be sent out too many. There are also many disadvantages, the software implemented into many businesses could take long for people to learn and utilize efficiently. Not only that you have to manually update your customer profiles into these data bases which takes time.
Overall there are many ways technology is used in sales force management, the basic tool used is your smartphone and computer, these two things allow you to do some much more research than you may think and with the research you’re able to put it into a data base that helps you become more efficient. Indeed, Google and LinkedIn are all tools that help with researching prospects and getting to them. SFA and CRM are two other tools that help you manage what you have going for you. Technology in the Sales force management is changing rapidly and there’s many ways to stay competitive.
