Remote work has quickly become the norm over the last few months and, as COVID-19 rages on, it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

Have you and other members of your sales team been tasked with working from home? Are you having a hard time helping the folks you manage to stay focused and continue reaching their sales goals each month?

If you’re struggling with managing your remote sales team, keep reading. Listed below are some tips on how you can do your job in the most effective way possible while working from home.

Clarity Is King

When you’re in any kind of leadership role, one of the most important things you can do is to be clear about your expectations. Clarity becomes even more crucial when you’re managing a remote team, though.

Things change when you aren’t able to pop by someone’s desk or call them into your office for a quick chat. It’s easy for information to get lost in translation. As a result, you might find that your team members have more questions or need more details for certain tasks and projects than they did before.

To minimize confusion and help your salespeople adjust to remote work, aim to be as clear as possible about what you expect from them. This includes setting specific goals for the week when it comes to productivity and giving people actionable steps to take to ensure they achieve those goals.

Encourage Communication

You might think you’re being clear, but you could actually be sending conflicting messages or just not expressing something in the best way. To ensure that your instructions and expectations are getting across in the proper way, encourage your salespeople to communicate with you. Let them know that your virtual door is always open and invite them to ask questions if something is unclear or confusing.

When someone comes forward and seeks clarification or has feedback on a particular matter, meet them with (again, virtual) open arms. Welcome their response and do your best not to get defensive. If people don’t feel that they can come to you with questions or concerns, they won’t bother and will try to figure things out themselves or might ignore responsibilities altogether (both of which can lead to less productivity and less profitability over time).

Make Socialization Acceptable

Communication is key when it comes to managing your team. Make sure your team members know, though, that they’re allowed to have non-work-related communication, too.

Even if they’re not working in the same office, folks on your team still need to have a chance to catch up with one another and have some “water cooler” conversation from time to time. This allows them to decompress, refocus their efforts, and be more productive.

Consider creating a Slack channel for these kinds of discussions and encourage team members to use it. You can even pop in there yourself so that people know it’s truly okay for them to chat with their colleagues every once in a while.

Create Structure

A common pain point for people who are working from home for the first time is a lack of structure. When things can be done at any time, they often don’t get done at all.

Because of this, it’s important to implement workflows and work with your team to come up with a schedule or prioritized task list for the day. Even if your salespeople aren’t all on the exact same schedule, they should still have processes to follow and systems in place that help to hold them accountable.

Monitor Time Usage

Another way to encourage accountability and ensure employees are maximizing the workday is to monitor time usage. There are lots of tools you can use, many of which are free, that will help you keep track of the way your sales team members are utilizing their time.

Avoid micromanaging, but monitor people’s time usage to get a general sense of what they’re doing during the day and how productive they’re being. That way, if someone comes to you with a question or concern, you’ll have data that you can reference to work with them on how they can be more effective and efficient.

Use the Cloud

Document-sharing can be a struggle when you’re managing a remote team. It’s too easy for people to forget to attach documents when sending an email, for example, or to send over the wrong file and hold everyone up.

When you use a cloud-based document-sharing tool, everyone is able to access the information they need and search for important data without having to interrupt the rest of the team’s workflow. A cloud-based tool ensures that everyone gets the most up-to-date versions of documents and files, too.

Invest in Sales Automation

In addition to cloud-based software, another great investment you can make to improve your remote sales team’s performance is in sales/lead call back automation tools like Callingly.

Callingly helps to streamline the sales process and ensure that every lead gets reached out to in a timely manner. It frees your salespeople up to focus on other parts of the sales process, but they can still feel confident that they’re not dropping the ball when it comes to converting people from leads to paying customers.

It’s Time to Lead Your Remote Sales Team to Victory

Managing a remote sales team definitely has its challenges, especially if you’ve never worked remotely or managed employees who are working from home before. If you keep these tips in mind, though, it’ll be easier for you to adjust your management style and help your team stay motivated and on track toward achieving their goals.

One of the best steps you can take to help everyone work as efficiently as possible is to invest in lead call back automation. Callingly will streamline the lead call back process and ensure that all of your potential customers get contacted as soon as possible.

Contact us today for more information on Callingly, or sign up here for a free trial.

Over the last few months, lots of sales teams have started doing remote work and have quickly found that it can be quite challenging. Are you part of this group? Are you feeling overwhelmed at the idea of making sales while working from home?

Building a killer remote sales team is a great first step. However, you and your team also need to have access to the right tools if you want to succeed long-term.

You’ve heard of (and might even use) options like Slack and Zoom. There are lots of other effective tools you ought to have in your arsenal, though. Read on to learn about some of the best ones that your remote sales team ought to be using.

Common Challenges for Remote Sales Teams

If you’re new to the idea of remote sales, you likely have some questions about the most common challenges you and your team are going to face. Remote work has plenty of benefits, but there are also some potential obstacles to be aware of, including the following:

• Keeping team members engaged during training sessions and meetings
• Staying productive and avoiding distractions in the home
• Staying in touch with team members and monitoring progress from afar
• Keeping up with workflows and making sure current and potential clients don’t get ignored or lost in the shuffle

Types of Tools Every Remote Sales Team Needs

These challenges can definitely get in the way of running a successful sales team. With the right tools, though, it’ll be easier to make sure all of your team members are on the same page.

Here are some of the most important types of tech tools to invest in for yourself and your team:

• Communication tools: Look for software that helps you and your team to stay connected and communicate back and forth (via chat and video) with ease even though you’re all in different places
• Scheduling tools: Schedules might be a little more flexible for remote workers, but they still should have a clear idea of when they’re needed, as well as when meetings and training sessions are being held; scheduling tools can help with this
• Productivity tools: Investing in products that can improve your team members’ home offices and at-home work experience will help them stay focused and minimize costly distractions
• Workflow automation tools: Tools that automate various parts of the sales process are especially valuable when everyone is working from home; for example, Callingly automates lead call back and ensures every lead gets reached out to in a timely manner

Best Remote Sales Tools

Now, let’s get into some of the best remote sales tools you and your team members might want to start using. Here are some of our top picks:

Vidyard

You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for great remote sales tools. Vidyard is a totally free Google Chrome browser extension that will make your training sessions much easier.

Vidyard allows you to record your screen and create short, clear videos for your sales reps. When you’re finished recording, you’ll get a link to share with each member of your team so they can all get up to speed. Using Vidyard, you can also track who’s watching your videos to ensure everyone on the team is completing their training.

Krisp

Do members of your sales team complain about their kids making noise or dogs barking while they’re trying to conduct sales calls? Have your own training meetings been disrupted by your cat playing with a toy in the background?

If outside noise is creating distractions and affecting the quality of your team’s work, you might want to start using Krisp. Krisp is an AI-powered noise-canceling app that mutes background noise and creates a more peaceful environment. With Krisp, you can easily remove sounds coming from you or coming from the other end of the call with the push of a button.

Slite

All teams, including remote sales teams, need to be able to collaborate and share ideas. If it’s been harder to brainstorm and come together to address potential problems with the company, Slite can come to the rescue.

Slite creates a place for team members to share ideas in writing and store important documents to reference later. You can use it to keep track of notes, ideas, templates, company documents, and more. Slite provides lots of organization options, too, so it’s easy for everyone to find what they need when they need it.

Ambition

For pretty much every remote sales team, the goal is to close more deals using phone and video calls. If you’re worried about your team members’ ability to do this, or if you just want to light a fire under them and keep them motivated, Ambition is a great product to start using.

Ambition lets you gather all of your team’s sales data into one place for easy analysis. It also offers a gamification platform so you can tap into your team members’ competitive sides.

You can use gamification to maintain engagement and motivation while also rewarding positive behaviors and encouraging team members to beat their personal bests. It’s fun and improves productivity. What more could you want?

Start Using These Remote Sales Tools Today

As you can see, there are lots of great tools out there that you can use to keep your remote sales team on task and set them up for long-term success.

Of all these options, pay special attention to workflow automation and your lead call back software. Your team needs to stay on top of things to succeed, especially when it comes to getting back to potential leads and converting them to paying customers.

Callingly will help you and your team ensure that every lead gets a call back as quickly as possible. It integrates with lots of other remote sales and productivity management tools, and you’ll never have to worry about potential customers falling through the cracks.

Contact us today to learn more about Callingly. You can also sign up here for a free two-week trial.

In the wake of COVID-19, lots of business owners are switching to a work-from-home model. They’re also hiring remote salespeople to help them build their business while still engaging in good social distancing practices.

Are you having a hard time finding the right salespeople to help you grow your business? Are you a sales manager who’s been tasked with bringing on new remote talent?

If the answer to either of those questions is yes, keep reading. Listed below are six strategies you can implement today that will help you to build an incredible remote sales team.

Be Clear About Your Expectations

When it comes to hiring the right people to be part of your sales team, it’s important to start with a clear description of what the job entails and what you expect from the people who work for you. Setting clear expectations right from the beginning makes it easier for you to weed out people who don’t have a certain amount of experience or who don’t have the personality traits that are necessary to be a great remote salesperson.

You should also clarify expectations when you begin the interview process and start talking to candidates on the phone or via video chat. Remember, the more direct you are about what you’re looking for, the easier it is for you to find someone who meets your team’s specific needs.

Review Resumes with Care

It’s common for hiring managers to only give resumes a cursory glance when looking for new employees. If you want to put together a great remote sales team, though, it will pay off to spend a little more time reviewing resumes for each applicant.

During the resume review process, pay special attention to the applicant’s work history. Are there any big gaps in employment on their resume? On the other end of the spectrum, do they seem like a job-hopper, someone who goes from job to job very quickly?

Neither one of these should be an automatic deal-breaker. It’s important to keep them in mind, though, and address them during the interview. You don’t want to bring someone onto your sales team who won’t be committed to the job and helping your company grow, right?

Conduct a Sales Assessment

Since you’re hiring someone to be part of your sales team, you ought to take the time to see how good they are at selling, right?

A sales assessment that simulates the typical selling experience is a win-win. It will give you a chance to see candidates in action. It also gives them a chance to see what it will be like to be part of your sales team.

During your assessment, find out whether or not the candidate understands how to qualify leads. Do they know the difference between an A, B, and C lead? Do they know the importance of finding leads who have the authority and budget to make a purchase, as well as a plan to actually buy what you’re selling?

A salesperson who lacks this basic knowledge might not be a great fit for your team. They might have a harder time bringing in leads who are likely to become customers, which could affect your bottom line or reflect badly on you as a sales manager.

Review Behavior

Because these members of your sales team are going to be working remotely, it’s essential that they exhibit good work behaviors and have the capacity to get things done while also having a high level of independence.

Talk to candidates about their ability to work independently and stay motivated without having a supervisor breathing down their neck. Ask about times when they’ve worked without supervision and find out how they handle those kinds of situations, too.

The answers they give to these kinds of questions will help you see if they have what it takes to be part of a remote sales team and be productive even when no one’s watching them.

Don’t Underestimate Newcomers

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of experience and sales knowledge. At the same time, though, there are advantages to hiring newcomers who haven’t spent a lot of time in the sales world.

When you bring people onto your sales team who are new to the concept of remote sales but who are eager to learn, you have a chance to mold them into the exact type of remote salesperson that you need. This is why it’s good to look for people who want to grow and who will be receptive to feedback.

Sometimes, this is even more important than hiring someone who has lots of sales experience. After all, if they’re a seasoned salesperson, they might be set in their ways and less willing to make adjustments to their approach to fit your specific business model and method of doing things.

Use the Right Tools

Finally, make sure you’re using the right tools to build and connect with your remote sales team. If you want to get a more genuine sense of how a person handles sales calls and other aspects of their job, it’s best if you can conduct your interview and sales assessment via video. This helps you see their body language and view their approach in a more holistic way.

When it comes to connecting with your team and evaluating their performance once they’ve been hired, be sure to use a good project management software, too. This helps you keep track of the work your sales team is doing, stay in touch with new-hires, and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

Start Build Your Dream Remote Sales Team Today

Have you been feeling daunted at the idea of putting together an effective remote sales team? If so, hopefully, the information outlined above has shown you that it can be done. Keep these six tips in mind and you’ll have no trouble finding great salespeople to help you build your business from afar.

When it comes to improving your remote sales strategy and investing in the right tools, don’t forget about the benefits of automated lead call back, either. Using lead call back technology like Callingly can help you and your sales team get back to leads as quickly as possible and increase your chances of converting them into paying customers.

Contact us today to learn more about Callingly. You can also check out our other blog posts for more tips on running a great sales team.

In response to COVID-19, professionals of all kinds have had to adjust their strategy and change the way they do business. Salespeople, in particular, have had to pivot quite a bit to reach out to prospective clients and close deals while still engaging in proper social distancing practices.

Are you having a hard time with remote sales and selling products or services over a video calling platform? If so, keep reading. Listed below are some tips that will help you level up and close more deals.

Invest in Video Calling Equipment

It seems that remote sales are going to be the norm for quite a while moving forward. Even as businesses start to reopen and social distancing regulations are relaxed, it’s likely that a lot of people will still prefer conducting meetings virtually.

With this in mind, it makes sense to invest in some quality video calling equipment and good video calling software. That way, you can ensure that people can see and hear you well when you’re pitching products or services to them or trying to close a deal. This will show that you take your job seriously and are dedicated to providing potential clients with a good experience even when you can’t talk to them face-to-face.

Always Test Your Equipment

It doesn’t matter how well-reviewed your equipment is if it doesn’t work properly. Always be sure to test everything before your video call begins. That way, if there are any issues with your camera, lighting, or sound, you can address them without taking up your customer’s valuable time.

Making testing your equipment a priority helps you to look more prepared and professional, too. It allows you to go into your video calls with confidence and know that you’ve done everything you can on your end to make sure the call goes smoothly.

Send Important Information Before the Meeting

It’s always a good idea to send over important information before the meeting.

The day before, send the person with whom you’re meeting an email that includes things like details of the product or service your offer or pricing information. That way, they’ll have had a chance to review the basics and you can spend more time answering questions or addressing any concerns they might have.

This allows everyone to use their time in the most valuable way. It also ensures that you both get the most out of the video call.

Create Trust

When you hop on a video call with someone, you’ll likely need to put in some extra effort to build trust and help them to feel comfortable with you. Video calls can feel awkward at first, so you need to work on your strategy for putting customers at ease.

Sharing some information about yourself can be a good way to break the ice and build rapport. Asking them about how they’re doing or what they’ve been up to is helpful, too. This shows that you care about them, are interested in their lives, and aren’t just trying to make a sale as quickly as possible.

Personalize Your Message

Be sure to personalize the information you share during each video call and make it applicable to the person on the other end.

If it feels like you’re just reciting the same generic pitch over and over again, it’ll be harder for the customer to trust you. They might even feel as though you don’t truly value them. This, in turn, can decrease the likelihood that they’ll want to buy what you’re selling.

Sit own and review notes on each customer or client before you begin a video call with them. That way, you can ensure you’re speaking to them in a way that makes sense and best appeals to their needs.

Optimize Your Video Calling Space

Set up your video calling space so that it looks good when you’re on camera. Try to make your calls from a room that gets plenty of natural light, and make sure there isn’t any kind of glare on your screen. Arrange a neutral backdrop as well, and check that there’s nothing behind you that could be distracting to the customer.

Keep Calls Short and Sweet

In general, it’s best if you can keep your video calls short and sweet.

Most people don’t want to spend a long time on a video call, especially when they’re talking to someone they don’t know very well. If you find that you’re having a hard time getting people to hop on the phone with you, the length of your calls could be part of the problem.

Instead of inviting potential customers to join you on a 30-minute call, make it 10 or 15 minutes. This feels more manageable and might be more enticing than blocking off a whole half hour of their day.

End with a Call-to-Action

Always end your video calls with a call-to-action. You’ll have a much easier time closing deals if you give the person on the other end clear next steps to take.

Whether it’s sending over information, filling out a form that you send to them, or scheduling another call to tie up loose ends, always give the customer a job and let them know what you’ll be doing, too. This ensures that they follow through and helps you to actually complete the sale.

Need More Help Closing Deals?

Trying to close deals via video calls can definitely be tricky. If you follow these guidelines, though, you’ll have a much easier time feeling comfortable on these calls and making more sales.

Do you need more help with improving your sales process? What if you automated your lead call back strategy so you could free yourself up to focus more on video sales?

With Callingly, you can arrange for leads to receive a call-back as soon as they fill out a form or take another action on your website. Try it for free today and start enjoying the benefits of sales automation.