As with remote work, remote selling is here to stay.
More and more businesses are adopting a remote setup, if not a hybrid model. And so far, the results have been promising.
Employees have largely been more productive, and companies are still reaching -and in some cases exceeding- their quotas. The sheer volume of online sales is also as remarkable as ever.
Hence, if you’re a business owner who wants to increase your remote sales as well, you need to have a good grasp of how it works. Managing remote teams isn’t easy, and sales teams are no exception.
Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier. Here are four of them:
Set Clear Expectations
Sales is the heart of every business. If no one is buying your product or service, what’s the point?
But for your salespeople to perform well, you need to make your expectations clear from the very beginning.
This simply means providing your employees with standards to maintain, as well as a sufficient structure with which they can operate in. We’re talking about sales objectives, quotas, and specific procedures or steps to follow when working on potential leads.
Don’t forget to hop on a video call with your sales teams every now and then, especially when you’ve got a new hire. Make sure to go over the procedures for generating leads, following up customers, and closing deals, just to make sure that they start off on the right foot.
Invest in Cloud-Based Resources
Get the right remote tools in your arsenal, and make them as accessible as possible.
Invest in Cloud-based storage systems that your remote sales teams can access from anywhere. Google Docs are a good example. They allow authorized parties to log in to a shared cloud securely and view any data without fuss or delay.
However, don’t forget to set up data privacy and confidentiality protocols, of course.
This way, every member of your team will have all the info they need at hand to close a sale, should the opportunity present itself.
Build and Maintain Trust
Communication is key to building and maintaining trust. However, constant communication can be challenging for remote sales teams. After all, you don’t see each other every day, and that’s if you’ve actually met in person.
But as with a lot of things, all it takes is a little bit of effort and creativity.
Start by planning your work schedule around the availability of your team members. If you’re in different time zones, find a time where they overlap. This is where not-so-drastic time zones come in handy. AU and Philippines, for example, only have a two-hour difference. *wink*wink*
Then have regular check-in sessions. These don’t have to take long, they can simply be occasions for you to follow up on leads, have a look at your most recent numbers, and discuss any concerns.
The bottomline is, you want to show your team that you’re still on top of things while allowing for both autonomy and accountability.
Encourage Active Collaboration
It’s good to meet your sales teams regularly to monitor their performance. However, these meetings are also a great opportunity to foster a collaborative culture.
Rather than focusing on the sales objectives at all times, why not ask one of the high performers to share some tips? Or highlight the significant improvements of your most hardworking members?
Even if your remote sales team might be distributed throughout the globe, they’ll work better if they see their teammates as more than just names on the company group chat. Sales is indeed a competitive field, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t learn from one another.
Curious about how to make remote selling work? We’ve got you!
Remote Staff has been assisting AU SME’s and entrepreneurs find talented remote workers from the Philippines since 2007. Aside from hiring remote sales teams on your behalf, we also provide onboarding assistance so you can focus on teaching them more important things – such as closing that all-important sale.
Call us today or schedule a call back so we can get started.
Serena has been working remotely and writing content for the better part of the last decade. To date, she's written for Pepper.ph and Mabuhay Magazine, among others, and has churned out more than a thousand articles on everything from The Basics of Stock Market Investing to How to Make Milk Tea-Flavored Taho at home.
