Sales Productivity Tips, Hacks and Resources: Your Ultimate Guide
Salespeople can be fanatics about productivity and efficiency. For each salesperson, finding the tools, habits, and hacks that really maximize efficiency is tough, but worthwhile. Many experts have shared their sales productivity tips in detail on the web, and we have collected a few – 25 to be exact – of the most excellent blog posts, ebooks, white papers, and general resources on the subject. We write a lot about the subject at Base and have even created an entire resources hub for sales productivity tips.
Time management best practices are important for every salesperson, but there are other areas where efficiency and productivity improvements can be made. Building good relationships with clients can lead to repeat business, which in turn can shorten your sales cycle and yield massive increases in productivity. Maximizing the capabilities of your CRM is another great way to amp up your productivity. These hacks and sales productivity tips are perfect for salespeople in any industry who want to permanently move the needle on their productivity. Leave us a comment if we’re missing a great resource!
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Battling Time: 3 Efficiency Hacks to Meet Quota Quicker
From: Hubspot
This post from Hubspot offers some quick tips on a goal every salesperson should have: meeting their quota more quickly. The tips are geared towards users of Hubspot, but anyone can use these tactics. The zero-inbox method and the concept of using templates to answer common questions from prospects are proven methods for improving productivity.
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Increase Your Sales Productivity: Simple Steps for Profitable Time Management
From: Engage Selling
This post outlines a handy, hour-by-hour schedule for putting new life into your sales process. Steps such as contacting existing clients to ask for referrals, following up with qualified prospects, and even just reading for professional development, should all be part of every salesperson’s regular routine.
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Best Practice: The Social Selling Wheel of Destiny
From: Heinz Marketing
The Social Selling Wheel of Destiny is a fun hack any sales team can use to stay motivated and continue to push their social selling efforts forward. Matt Heinz discusses the usefulness of this technique for one of his clients in this brief post.
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Productivity Hacks: Make the Meeting Count
From: Selling Power
People hate meetings, so if you have to have one, make it count. This post on Selling Power outlines how to make a meeting actually engaging and useful to the attendees by using unique spaces, snappy visuals, and above all avoiding distractions like a buzzing phone in your pocket. This post is a must-read for anyone who regularly leads meetings or gives presentations.
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12 Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Productivity Tips
From: Business Insider
Most successful entrepreneurs have an arsenal of productivity tools that they use regularly to help them bear the immense challenges of building a business. This list of tips from some widely respected entrepreneurs has plenty to contribute to any salesperson’s repertoire. Business Insider has gathered the most useful efficiency tips from Tim Ferriss, Tony Hsieh, and other leaders from some of the most influential companies.
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7 Simple Productivity Tips You Can Apply Today, Backed by Science
From: Buffer Blog
The Buffer Blog is a reliable source of productivity tips and general work & life hacks, and this article won’t disappoint. Any salesperson, or any businessperson at all, sometimes needs a reminder to take notes, remember small victories, and get plenty of sleep.
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Take 30 Seconds to Write Down Key Points After Lectures or Meetings
From: Lifehacker
Writing down the key points after a meeting is a great way to actually remember what happened. This might seem obvious, but there are plenty of people out there who aren’t doing it. Every salesperson could benefit from making this a habit. As Lifehacker emphasizes in this post, writing will help you remember the important points, which will in turn help you follow up appropriately.
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5 Ways to Boost Sales Productivity in 2014
From: The Tinderbox Blog
TinderBox offers some excellent sales productivity tips for the coming year in this great post. They strongly advocate moving parts of the sales process online, as well as careful data management for a clean and efficient sales pipeline.
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Sandler Training Blog
From: Sandler Blog
Sandler Training offers non-traditional sales training that focuses on consistent reinforcement of the habits that work to improve productivity. The Sandler Blog is a treasure trove of productivity boosters for power sellers and sales managers.
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Sales Productivity Tips From The Experts 2014 Edition
From: Witty Parrot
Witty Parrot’s ebook, “Sales Productivity Tips from the Experts” is packed to the gills with wisdom from successful businesspeople who have proven they know how to sell. With chapter titles like “Develop an Acute Ability to Listen,” and “Learn to Leverage the Channel,” the book promotes everything from classic persuasion techniques to ways for incorporating modern technology into your sales routine to boost performance.
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5 Ways to Increase the Efficiency of your Sales Pipeline in 2014
From: Pipeliner
This post on Pipeliner’s blog gives a quick five-step rundown of how a well designed sales pipeline should work, with an accompanying slideshow to drive the point home. A deep understanding of the sales pipeline is a must for power sellers and sales managers, and a periodic refresher can do wonders for productivity.
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Building a Productive Inside Sales Team
From: Medium
Nick Persico’s tips for building a successful sales team are insightful and clearly explained in this Medium post. Persico recommends breaking up your team’s weekly routine, as well as ensuring that everyone on the team is comfortable with every selling style that works for your product. This post is one of many greats in the Sales Hacks category on Medium.
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6 Productivity Hacks for Sales Managers
From: InsightSquared
These 6 Productivity Hacks for Sales Managers include great suggestions like creating a resource library for your reps and teaching reps time management techniques. Regularly working with reps to improve their productivity is a best practice for sales managers, and this post offers some great ideas for how to get started.
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Make Your CRM Work Harder So You Don’t Have To
From: Dun & Bradstreet
This white paper from Dun & Bradstreet has great tips on how to clean up your data and streamline your use of CRM. D&B offers a CRM cleanup service for companies who are really in bad shape, but any savvy seller can apply the same principles to make their data better and easier to use for making actual sales.
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The 12 Sales Metrics That Matter Most
From: Harvard Business Review
This set of important sales metrics from the Harvard Business Review takes a bird’s-eye-view of the measurements that matter in the sales industry. These are great insights for any sales manager or team trying to stay ahead of macro trends in sales across various industries.
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Four Proven Ways to Reach at Least 90 Percent Sales Quota Attainment
From: SiriusDecisions Blog
This post from the SiriusDecisions blog explains four key factors that influence quota attainment percentages on sales teams of all sizes. It is no surprise that “Time Spent Selling” is one of the major factors listed, but the others are just as important for sales managers to be tracking.
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How To Use Persuasion Tactics in Sales
From: Alen Mayer
Persuasion is a part of any sales job, and Alen Mayer offers potent advice on how to make the best use of persuasion tactics in many sales situations. Many of Mayer’s persuasion techniques also serve to bolster the seller’s relationship with the buyer. Success in sales depends on both persuasion and lasting relationships, and Mayer’s tips can be useful the whole way through.
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The Art of Building Client Relationships
From: Tom Hopkins
This post from Tom Hopkins concisely illustrates why building relationships with clients is important, and how it can benefit any business in the short and long term. The ultimate point is simple: caring about your clients, and showing them, will lead to long relationships and repeat business that is good for all parties involved.
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7 Best Practices for Building Client Relationships
From: Forbes
Maintaining client relationships is key for long term sales success. This article from Forbes offers 7 pieces of advice that can be put into play immediately by sales professionals in any industry.
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5 Tips for Creating Relationships That Drive Sales
From: Marketing Profs
The importance of relationships for continued sales success cannot be overstated. MarketingProfs offers tips for soliciting feedback, increasing engagement, and becoming the Trusted Adviser that customers call first when they’re working on something big.
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Customer Loyalty: 5 Tips for Sales Reps
From: Fox Business Small Business Center
Following up on promises is a base requirement for building goodwill with customers. If you really want to impress a client, do them a favor when they aren’t expecting it. Reach out more than you need to, and always be helping. This article on customer loyalty from the Fox Business blog offers advice on how to stay in your customers’ good graces, and at the top of their mind when they need what you’re selling.
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Build Trusted Relationships In the Sales Process by Setting & Meeting Expectations
From: Rain Sales Training
Setting expectations and then meeting them is the number one way to build trust with your customers. By demonstrating to your clients that you understand the risk they’re undertaking, you can help them trust that working with you is worth it. This post from Rain Sales Training offers some tested tips for setting expectations, mitigating risk, and building trust with customers and business partners.
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How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle and Avoid Wasting Time
From: Inc.
A shorter sales cycle can provide a boost to any business’s bottom line, and this post from Inc. has some solid insights about how to make it happen. Hint: calling the right person in any company you’re selling to can save a boatload of time. Do your research and call the right person every time, and your sales cycle gets much leaner.
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Shortening Your Sales Cycle: First Steps
From: InsightSquared
Shortening any phase of your sales cycle can lead to faster sales and better overall numbers, but it isn’t easy. This post from InsightSquared, provider of excellent marketing and CRM analytics, details how to pinpoint where you can make efficiency improvements in you sales cycle.
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Shortening the Sales Cycle
From: Pragmatic Marketing
Pragmatic Marketing offers some excellent tips on how to shorten your sales cycle. PM particularly recommends carefully positioning your product to appeal to all of the key influencers with any say in the deal. Understanding your prospect’s mindset about your product and your price can give you insight that allows you to close deals faster.
Don’t forget to check out our resources page for more sales productivity tips.