How to Improve Sales Strategy

As a company builds and develops, adjustments may need to be made in order for your growing sales team to thrive. Whether it’s realigning Key Performance Indicators, zeroing in on customer trends, or coaching your team to go in a new direction, there’s always room for improvement. Here are some quick tips to realign your sales force.

1. Evaluate your market

In order to make a change in sales projections for any product, it is necessary to evaluate the market that you are looking to penetrate. Identifying trends within territories, between accounts and across your product portfolio will provide insight into your potential for growth. A few research tools to consider include interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups. These tools can help identify critical information about the importance of price or product features, as well as the strengths and weaknesses against competitors in the market.

2. Set Strategic Goals

Aside from knowing where and when to play, setting the goals and processes in place that are needed to be successful is the next crucial step for improving effectiveness. Traditionally, any results driven goal should be Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART). It is known that documenting and revisiting these goals increases the likelihood of reaching them. In fact, a Harvard Business Study found that the 3% of graduates from their MBA who had their goals written down, ended up earning ten times as much as the other 97% put together, just ten years after graduation.¹ So when you are setting your strategic goals to penetrate the market, be specific, secure measurable parameters, ensure actionable and trackable tasks, always be realistic, and set a time that can be accounted for when the goal is reached.

3. Align your Team

When everybody does well, the organization does well. It is imperative that the strategies that are developed are thoroughly communicated to all teams so they have a clear plan in place to move forward. According to a report published by McKinsey, workers spend an average of 14% of their workweek in communicating and collaborating internally. The study showed that improving the internal collaboration through social tools could help raise the productivity of interaction by as much as 20 to 25%.²

4. Invest in Influential Technology

The technology your company uses to stay on task, communicate and track progress can be detrimental to your sales force. Excel spreadsheets, desperate emails, and silo portals deny the existence of a collaborative environment. As McKinsey stated, collaborative tools and technology can influence productivity by 20-25%. What your company needs is a piece of technology that combines all of your needed features into one. For instance, TikaMobile saved National Account Management teams 3 hours a day by enabling better communication and proposal management with the internal contracts team, providing automated pricing quotes and proposal generation.³

5. Make time for feedback

If you don’t take time to regress every now and then, there is no way to truly evaluate if you are staying on track in reaching your goals. It’s important for the individual and the company to realize success and be honest where there is room for improvement. According to Queens EDU, about 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration as “very important”, yet only 18% of employees get communication evaluations at their performance reviews.⁴ To keep the team accountable, TikaMobile’s TikaCoach allows teams to track goals and communicate with management on progress and success. Periodic reviews are scheduled and tracked, and team’s are provided with a 360 degree view of their performance.

Fortunately, TikaMobile Inc. can help you and your team with a lot of these steps. Our cohesive application and proven workflows bring all of the necessary tools into one place, allowing you to organize, track, and analyze to improve productivity throughout the organization. To learn more on how our product has empowered commercial teams throughout the life sciences, visit our website www.tikamobile.com.

For more information on TikaMobile, let us hear from you or email us at info@tikamobile.com

Citations:

1. 1. https://sidsavara.com/why-3-of-harvard-mbas-make-ten-times-as-much-as-the-other-97-combined/
   2. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/the-social-economy
   3. https://tikamobile.com/nationalaccounts_cs/
   4. http://online.queens.edu/resource/business-leadership/infographic/communicating-in-the-workplace