Meet Dave. Dave’s a fantastic closer. He has the potential to be the company’s Number One All-Star sales rep. There’s just one problem. Dave’s sales productivity is in the gutter.
He’s great at chatting up customers, warming up leads and closing deals. But Dave only spends a fraction of his week actually doing those things. The rest of the time, he’s researching prospects, writing proposals and using two fingers to punch information into the CRM.
Dave is like a lot of sales reps. He’s a likable, gregarious bloke who’s great at getting people to sign on the dotted line.
He’s not so great at sitting in an office tending to mundane administrative details.
You know, the stuff thattakes up more than 70% of his time.
Automation isn’t boosting sales productivity
To solve this productivity problem, the last few years have seen an explosion of new sales tools. All that AI and automation is surely saving reps time, right? 🤖
Hm. Well, in 2018, reps spent about 34% of their week selling. By 2022, with all those new tools in play, that had dropped to 28%.
So not exactly.
More than half the reps surveyed by Salesforce say they’re drowning in tools. Bouncing between all those apps isn’t increasing their productivity; it’s creating more work.
Look, the math is simple. Sales = revenue. So the more time a talented rep like Dave can spend selling, the more money the company will make. Increasing his productivity can be the difference between a banner year and just squeaking by.
Here are eight common issues wasting your sales team’s time – and one solution that helps you counter them all.
Sales team time wasters (and how to counter them)
Time Waster: Inefficient admin work. Typing up notes and filing reports are not exactly Dave’s strong suit. He’s not comfortable in the tools, so basic tasks take him a long time. And since he doesn’t have much time to spare, he tends to look for shortcuts instead of following company processes.
Time Saver: A sales assistant. In just a few hours a week, a sales assistant can handle all those administrative details eating into Dave’s day. Since they’re more focused on the task and more experienced in the tools, an assistant can often get the same things done in less time – and the company won’t pay a sales rep’s salary for them to do it.
Time Waster: Multitasking. It’s official: humans cannot multitask. Science says so. 🔬 But that doesn’t stop Dave from trying. You’ll often find him writing an email to a prospect while he’s on the phone with a customer or reviewing his pipeline from the bleachers of his daughter’s soccer game.
Time Saver: A time-blocked schedule. Constantly switching between tasks wastes time and mental energy. In the end, you get less productivity and lower quality work. Sales reps will get more done if they block time on their calendar to zero in on specific tasks. An assistant can manage those blocks and hold reps accountable to sticking with them.
Time Waster: Inefficient follow-up. When Dave meets with a lead on the road, he usually follows up by email the next day. He calls once he’s back in the office. If the lead is still interested in seeing a proposal, he tries to get one out by the end of the week.
Time Saver: Magic follow-up fairy. 🧚Now imagine this. After a successful meeting, Dave sends a voicenote to his sales assistant. The lead receives a follow-up email within 30 minutes, while they’re still basking in the warm glow of Dave’s visit. The proposal arrives by the end of the day. The prospect hasn’t had time to cool off, and they’re happy to sign.
What’s Dave been doing while the fairy handles this follow-up for him? Why, he made good use of his time and met with several other prospects.
Time Waster: CRM management. Dave knows the CRM is a valuable sales productivity tool. It helps him streamline the sales cycle, identify opportunities, keep track of his leads and understand his customers’ needs. He likes having all that info at his fingertips – but he hates loading it in.
Time Saver: CRM manager. According to Dooly, sales reps spend at least five hours a week performing manual work in the CRM. Dave could conduct five product demos in that time. Closing just one of those leads would cover the cost of having a sales assistant keep the CRM up to date.
Time Waster: Disorganisation. Sales reps have a lot to juggle between prospecting, sales calls, follow-up, proposals and admin work. 🤹 It’s inevitable that the occasional email, phone call or update will be missed. Unfortunately, those dropped balls can add up to big money.
Time Saver: Prioritisation. Like most reps, 80% of Dave’s sales come from 20% of his leads. So it follows that 80% of his attention should be spent there. Turning over low-priority admin work to a sales assistant lets Dave focus on high-impact, revenue-generating activity.
Time Waster: Poor trip planning. A to-do list that reaches to the moon means Dave is more focused on checking off tasks quickly than on doing them well. Sometimes that means booking the first hotel that comes up in the search.
Time Saver: An organised itinerary. The sales assistant maximises Dave’s productivity on the road through smart details like booking a hotel near the meeting location and scheduling meetings with several prospects in the same city. More efficient travel delivers a quick ROI.
Time Waster: Scheduling. Scheduling is the worst. There’s nothing Dave hates more than warming up a lead only to spend the rest of the afternoon in a back-and-forth exchange of “That time doesn’t work for me, how about this? This time doesn’t work for you? How about that?”
Time saver: Scheduler. Once Dave makes contact, his sales assistant takes over. While he concentrates on higher productivity tasks, the assistant finds a time that doesn’t conflict with any meetings, focused time blocks or personal commitments.
Time Waster: Research. There’s a constant tug-of-war in Dave’s mind. Part of him wants to completely focus on working the deals in front of him and closing as many as he can. But he also knows he needs to qualify new prospects to keep the pipeline full.
Time saver: Researcher. While Dave concentrates on working his sales magic, his sales assistant works to keep the leads flowing. From outbound calling for lead generation, to researching project databases like BCI and Pacifecon, to screening enquiries to prequalify them, the assistant’s got leads covered.
Sales assistants keep productivity on track
Most sales reps are driven types. Setting goals is not a problem for them. What’s trickier is taking the small, daily actions that make those big goals happen. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of the day-to-day and let little things slide.
Besides giving reps the time and mental space to concentrate on what they do best, sales assistants help hold them accountable to the things they said they’d do. They’re the angel on a sales rep’s shoulder keeping them on track with KPIs, reminders and follow-ups.
You can’t automate your way to sales productivity. If you want your reps to have their biggest year ever – and why wouldn’t you? – the best thing you can do is free up their time and energy to sell.Zembr’s sales assistants can work the phones, write proposals, manage calendars and do pretty much anything else eating up your sales team’s precious time.Book a consult today to see which services are a fit for you.
