Ask any professional business developer the type of work activity they like the least and the 
majority will likely mention “the admin work”. Admittedly, having been a sales rep/business developer for many years, I can certainly attest to the fact that admin work is the necessary drudgery involved in any professional sales job. It may be hard to ever eliminate it completely, but we should always be looking for ways to dramatically reduce it…
Any time spent doing admin work as a sales rep takes time away from the work that really matters when you’re in sales – the SELLING! So, what would make the most impact on your ability to increase the amount of time you’re actually selling?
We have some ideas. But first, let’s think about how to categorize work, because “all work is not created equal”. Work is an interesting concept when you break it down. “Working on the right thing” is very different from “busy work”. Administrative “busy work” saps sales people’s energy and the company of valuable people’s time and resources. But, “working on the right thing”, often called “value-added work”, is what we want from each employee to maximize our return on that investment of salary.
Professional sales people are usually paid well for their work and often have a commission structure tied to the success of their endeavors as well. So, why would you pay them a professional sales person’s rate of pay, if they are performing admin work?
That would be crazy, right?
Companies do it all the time… but there IS a better way.
As part of your company’s management team, I’m sure you WANT your sales people to spend their time selling. Any function that is not directly related to developing, nurturing or closing a sale is simply a waste of your sales people’s time and talent (let alone your budget!).
How can you minimize the amount of time your reps perform functions other than selling?
To understand the real opportunity here, it makes sense to first review your sales process and areas of opportunity for improvement:
- What does your typical sales process look like from start to finish?
- Brainstorm: What would things look like if everything were perfect in that process?
- How does your sales team find leads? Map out the process details in a flow chart. (You might be surprised at the results.)
- Where are potential areas of waste in that process?
- What actions are your sales people performing which could or should be eliminated, handed off, or substantially improved, to free them up to sell?
If you can effectively manage to change and improve the sales process, you will be leveraging one of your most important assets – your sales people’s time and skill – in a way like never before. What could the results look like?
One key area of improvement where management has the opportunity to make quick, dramatic change in the sales process, is in the sourcing of the target list. Without a good quality list, you’d be surprised how much time and effort your sales reps are forced to waste digging around for prospects, building their own target lists.
We often encounter the following, all-too-common approaches to “list building”. Note that each of these approaches usually proves to be ineffective, leading to an increased admin work and decreased selling time for the rep. (Which of the following do you use? Shhh… we promise not to tell anyone!)
1.) Purchase of low cost lists, with outdated contact information and wrong titles/functions
2.) Hand-building lists by researching target companies and/or top 100 company lists, finding decision makers for those companies through various search mechanisms, social networking sites, etc.
3.) A “well planned” combination of #1 and #2
4.) Collecting unqualified leads at a trade show, who were only “in it to win it” (the fishbowl drawing, that is!)
But, what if there were a way to provide your sales people with a list of decision makers’ direct dial phone numbers and email addresses within your target market?
- What if your reps could just pick up the phone, reach the right person every time, and begin the sales process… What if it were really that easy?
- What if you could give back sales people’s time that had been previously spent on admin work – and they could now focus that time and energy on SELLING?
- What kind of results might you see?
- What kind of message would this send to your sales reps, that they are worthy of such a list…?
By using a simple tool, you can have a huge impact on the sales process with very little effort (actually, it will likely be LESS effort than your current process).
Remember the lever system you may have learned about in high school? A lever is a simple tool that makes work easier for us; a strategic aid. Is there a simple tool you could use to have a huge impact on the sales process with very little effort?
There is one critical sales tool you can give your sales team that will have a HUGE impact on sales results. What is this tool? A HIGH QUALITY, TARGETED LIST. By providing your sales team with such a tool, you will increase their selling time and decrease their “admin” time, resulting in increased sales. It’s that simple. Your sales team’s efforts will now be spent calling on a clean, HIGH quality, accurate list – rather than wasting time digging around for leads, or wading through poor quality tradeshow leads.
- Question: Is your list like a lever, or more like a load?
Give your sales people the one critical tool they need to focus on “working on the right things” instead of doing busy work. Use of a high quality list could be the LEVER, the improvement piece, that your sales process is missing. If you want to make real, immediate improvement to your sales cycle, you must provide your sales team with the proper resources to get the job done. Make this one change and watch your sales numbers soar…
- But, where do you find such a list? We can help.
Mentor Tech Group specializes in building high quality, accurate marketing lists for companies marketing and selling to corporate training and HR. Because our lists are hand-built via one-on-one phone interviews with decision makers, they offer the best market intelligence available in the corporate training and HR industries today.
Mentor Tech Group lists include:
- Direct Contact Information – Decision-makers at 6500+ companies in your target industry
- Segmentation by job functions, called “Job Codes“, not just nebulous job titles
- Direct-dial phone numbers and email addresses
- FREE 4-month updates. To insure accuracy, our lists are completely culled and updated every four months. At a current change rate of 33% every 4 months, this included service is critical to your business success.
See what our customers are saying about MTG’s high quality lists, then contact Mentor Tech Group today to learn more about how we can help you locate the leads you seek.
- To learn more, or to request a quote, please call: (651) 457-8600, Extension 3.
We’re here to help you supercharge your sales pipeline, whenever you’re ready!
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