6 Outside Sales Techniques To Improve Field Sales Results

Every field sales team has a number of challenges to overcome—and not all of them are external.

For example, if your team isn’t doing a great job selling your products and services, then you can bet that you’ll have some unhappy customers on your hands. And while it’s easy to say that “customers don’t buy products—they buy solutions,” there are still plenty of ways you can improve field sales performance by making sure your field reps are equipped with the right tools and resources needed to do their jobs well.

Here are six strategies for boosting outside sales success:

1. Concentrate Field Sales in Your Target Markets

It’s important to focus on geographic areas where you have the greatest potential for success. You don’t want to spread your field sales team too thin, or they will end up being inefficient and ineffective, which isn’t good for anyone. Instead, identify your target markets—those places where you have the best chance of winning new business and retaining customers through repeat purchases.

2. Create a Mobile Environment for Your Outside Sales Team

Mobile devices are critical to the success of field sales teams. They allow your reps to access information, client data, and prospect profiles wherever they go.

Choosing the right mobile devices for your sales team is an important first step in setting up a mobile environment that will help them do their jobs more efficiently. There are many different types of mobile devices: smartphones, tablets, laptops and 2-in-1s. Which one should you choose? It depends on what type of work your reps do most frequently and which activities they need to perform with their device(s). For example: if you need your salespeople to primarily communicate via email or video conference calls then smartphones may be best suited for this function; otherwise laptops may provide more processing power when completing tasks such as compiling reports or presentations on the fly.

3. Give Your Field Sales Reps the Right Tools to Do Their Jobs

The right tools can help your field sales reps focus on selling, not on searching for information or manually tracking tasks. Here are some of the best tools:

• VOZE as a CRM
• Nimble data capture solutions that integrate with VOZE and other business systems
• Lead management solutions like HubSpot or Marketo, which help you keep track of all your leads…and follow up with them!
• In-app chat options such as Drift or Podium (if you aren’t using either already) so that your reps can communicate directly with customers from their phones. This makes it easier to schedule meetings and get more information from prospects.
• Programs like Google Sheets or Trello for managing project plans, checklists and other resources related to sales activities.

4. Use Data to Prospect and Retain Customers

You can use data to predict future customer behavior and retain customers, but it will take some effort on your part.

• Use data to predict future customer behavior: By using predictive analytics, you can make better business decisions about how to market products and services for customers who are most likely to buy them.
• Use data to retain customers: Customer retention is important because it reduces the cost of acquiring new customers while increasing profits by reducing overhead costs and improving customer satisfaction scores (which leads to more referrals).

5. Supervise and Support Your Outside Sales Team

Supervising and supporting your outside sales team isn’t an easy job. But it is one of the most important parts of a high-performing field sales force and can make or break a company’s success.

You need to provide support in a variety of ways, such as:

• Providing sales support
• Monitoring sales performance
• Providing sales training and coaching opportunities
• Providing motivation for your sales reps through recognition and rewards

6. Successful field sales teams are built on a foundation of quality management, support, and attention to detail

Successful field sales teams are built on a foundation of quality management, support, and attention to detail.

Management: Management is the glue that holds your entire organization together. If you have good managers at all levels of your team, then you’re already ahead of many other companies in the same space. When it comes to field sales teams specifically, having great managers can make or break the success of your business (and if you happen to be a manager yourself—or thinking about becoming one—here are some tips).

Support: The best way to keep your team happy and motivated is with strong internal support teams who know how to handle any questions or issues they might have as they work with customers in their respective territories. You want these people in place so that they can address concerns quickly before they become major problems later down the road (and here’s why).

Attention To Detail: Another way you can build trust among customers is by showing them how much effort has gone into providing them with quality services at every level during their interactions with your company’s employees; this means paying close attention when talking with clients about specific needs or preferences so that nothing gets lost along the way.”

There’s no doubt that field sales is a tough job. But by using these six key strategies, you can ensure your field sales team is developing and growing in ways that will help them succeed.

At VOZE, we have moved note taking to the next level by leveraging your voice to record all of your call notes onto your phone and then our system transcribes and saves the call notes, schedules follow-ups, reminders, and tasks to prepare you for the next interaction with your prospect.

Request a demo of VOZE today to see how we can accelerate your outside sales team's productivity.