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 have the greatest impact 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 salary investment.
Professional salespeople 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 salespeople 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 salespeople’s time and talent (let alone your budget).
How can you minimize the amount of time your reps spend on admin functions and increase their selling time?
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 salespeople performing which could or should be eliminated, handed off, or substantially improved, to free them up for more time to sell?
If you can effectively manage to improve your sales process, you will be leveraging one of your most important assets – your salespeople’s time and talent – in a way like never before. What if every sales rep could make an additional 15 outbound calls per day? What if they could craft and send another 10 targeted emails per day, every day?
What could the results look like? Let’s find out. Give us a call at 888-887-0556 and we will explore ways to improve your sales process.
We’re here to help, whenever you’re ready!