How futuristic digital sales tools can power an expert sales strategy

Sales tools are some of the latest in a long line of innovations by workplace software providers. While building brand relationships with clients and customers has remained the same, technology has become more sophisticated to make the daily role of a sales rep easier than ever before: spanning the full length of your sales funnel:

1. Analytics
2. Email marketing
3. Pipeline management
4. Calendar
5. Contacts and Accounts
6. Project Management

From maintaining a strong Contact list to guiding strong leads confidently through your company Pipeline, sales tools empower your team to manage a high-volume bottom line and perform at their most productive.

The Landscape of Modern Day Sales

The landscape of sales has undergone large and rapid changes since 2020, and it doesn’t look like things will be reverting any time soon. Instead of the average salesperson’s day consisting of face-to-face meetings, firm hand shakes and good impressions, it’s now more likely to consist of phone introductions, setting up Zoom calls, and trying to look well-groomed from the waist up. One study in October 2020 found that only 12% of 3,000 surveyed office workers wanted to move back to full-time office work. What’s more, a massive 72% of people indicated they would like to work a futuristic hybrid of part-time office and part-time remote work.

Global Impact

This, of course, has enormous implications for all sectors on a global scale, but no more perhaps than for the sales team whose daily tasks require them to create and maintain strong and trusting relationships with both prospects and clients. While historically these relationships are best built in person, CRM providers such as Optimiser have adapted quickly to provide effective substitutes in the form of savvy digital toolkits for all your sales requirements.

There has also been a knock-on implication for clients, who are feeling less and less inclined to part with their money or make large investments, and require higher levels of empathy and communication. Studies have found that value and convenience are two of the guiding factors for consumer behaviour, and have noted a pull-back on non essential spending across most major economies. Companies are rapidly being required to display values and assets they did not previously have to consider, so it is more important than ever that from the largest enterprise to the smallest SME, your business has the flexibility to meet changing expectations as the consumer-seller relationship continues to evolve.

“Digital CRM tools, whether office-based or not, are the future of managing a high-performing sales department.”

So exactly how does CRM provide solutions to all of your business’s newest sales concerns? It may seem as though a lot of time and resources should go into your digital sales tools to ensure they are effective and worthy of your time. In fact, under a single subscription, you can find cost-effective and simple ways to address all of the following:

1- Making a connection

As we previously mentioned, making a connection in the digital world instead of the physical has left a lot of sales reps to navigate a new workplace environment with few clues as to how to do so effectively. Building relationships in person depends a lot on eye contact, body language, and a genuine interest in providing them with your product or service, and despite the quantity of articles on how to make a great first impression over your video call, there are still ways you can take it further.

Your CRM is designed to collect information regarding your business interactions with your customers across every point in your sales funnel, and consolidate that data into a single profile per user, giving a deeply insightful glimpse into that particular contact or account. Collected as part of that data are a customer’s browsing and purchasing history, and a bank of interactions which provide a three-dimensional ‘avatar’. AI technology integrated with your CRM then works proactively with your data to share insights into customer trends and sales forecasts. 

With this information, you will see an improvement in the number of sales you make, the length of your funnel, and better allocation of your resources. It’s safe to claim that your CRM helps you know and understand your clients in more detail than if you were to meet and take similar notes in person. 

2- Build resilience and flexibility

Are you, your business and your staff currently flexible and resilient in the face of rapid change? Through all the changes 2020 and 2021 have presented to global business so far, some companies (particularly smaller ones) have managed the pivot relatively well, while others are left playing catch-up. 

This problem is in part due to large, complex and outdated operating procedures that are difficult to implement and update. Cloud-hosted CRM offers the perfect antithesis to this. Although the notion of the ‘cloud’ dates back to the 60’s, cloud computing was only used in practice in 2006 by Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Since then, cloud-based software has become the norm, due to its adaptability and potential scale. These factors allow software updates to happen automatically, for your digital tools to expand as your business does, and that your centralised store of key company data is up to date, relevant, and accurate as live metrics come streaming in from across your platforms.

“From the largest enterprise to the smallest SME, your business should have the flexibility to meet changing expectations as the consumer-seller relationship continues to evolve.”

Having access to where the market stands at present is an invaluable tool when it comes to forecasting your sales activity, customer purchasing habits and industry trends. Allow your sales team to preempt the market ensures their communications are engaging and relevant by targeting niche segments. The best part? These tools monitor all parts of the market in which your business is present, meaning global sales teams can change their strategies according to territory-relevant data, while still feeding back into the same company database.

3- Internal coordination

The second benefit of digital CRM-hosted sales is the ability to coordinate a sales team across projects, markets, and even continents. It might seem as though being in the office and providing instructions to your teams in person is a far more time efficient and error-free way of management, but if someone misunderstands or forgets to take note of a task, suddenly you’re a day away from your KPI deadline with key factors incomplete and no way of solving them. 

Good CRM providers understand that the sales funnel is multi-dimensional, and so most tools integrate: they touch upon every part of the user’s experience through your onboarding journey.

Provide your teams and users with the individual tools they need to succeed, as the need presents itself in the real world. Gain rapid and live evaluations of relevant industries and markets globally, and generate custom reports based on key criteria that are relevant to you. Spread your reps equitably across projects, allocate tasks and priorities to the relevant people immediately, and deploy resources to areas of lag all from a single platform. 

Now, imagine you’re back in the office and need to update your staff with live metrics and task allocations. You can’t call a sales meeting every time, or you’d never have time for anything else. Digital CRM tools, whether office-based or not, are the future of managing a high-performing sales department.

How Optimiser can help you on your sales journey

Overall, CRM providers are there to help sales people perform their best work and create excellent customer relationships. Despite a rapidly changing sales and office environment, digital sales tools will play an important and stable part in the daily tasks of your team. Perhaps you can’t replace the impact of a successful face-to-face meeting, but you can build powerful and trusting relationships online while strengthening and coordinating your teams.

Optimiser’s sales tools optimise the entire lead journey across your business, from generation through handling and nurturing to retention and advocacy strategies. Built with your full business model in mind, Optimiser’s Lead Management Suite is fully integrated into powerful CRM tools: enabling reps to develop customer-oriented sales strategies. Analytics use data-led insights to assess lead warmth and advise logical follow-up strategies, while the email tool and comprehensive account profiles keep communications personal and focussed on loyalty.

See our solutions for sales teams or get in touch for a personalised walk-through call to see how Optimiser can power your futuristic sales strategy. Contact us.

Optimiser is a comprehensive CRM software company, providing businesses a customisable solution to their personal goals for sales, productivity, and growth. Powerful integrated modules include lead management software, a B2B sales toolkit, automated marketing suite and more for sale under a single subscription. Try Optimiser’s CRM software demo with access to the full Enterprise Licence FREE for 30 days, and find out how you can skyrocket productivity in just one month!