Advice For Managing A Remote Sales Team

The primary question that arises for an employer is, “how do I know what my team member is doing, and what progress is being made? ” Not every remote worker is skilled at self-management, but fortunately there are apps and tools available that can overcome this potential problem. Individual and team performance will be the ultimate measure of the remote team’s success, and reaching established goals should be a constant priority. Remote employees should be hired with the expectation that they will be compensated and retained based on performance and productivity, similar to an office-based worker. To build an effective remote team and onboard the right workers you will “need aclear set of expectations and open communication”. In this way, you can attract the type of worker that you are looking for, and only interview those that are a good fit.

Participating in these sites can result in contact with established contractors in a given region or country. If you hire contractors or freelancers, this may alter the management process, since they are typically paid on a project basis or hourly and might not share the same income motivation as employees. However, they can be encouraged with the promise of future projects if they meet certain performance objectives.

The development of modern web-based technology and communication tools has made the use of remote virtual teams possible, where 100% of the team member work remotely. The primary barrier is the misconception that remote virtual teams cannot be as effective or productive as office-based staff. However, the management and business objectives of using a remote team must be weighed against potential compliance issues with each country involved. These challenges must be met in both the company’s home country as well as the team member’s locale, including complying with immigration, tax and employment laws. Despite the trend to solve technical glitches by phone or computer-access programs, there may be times when on-site support personnel are needed.

Sales forecasts are only meaningful if they are backed up with clear benchmarks for progress from the sales lead state to closing a new or recurring contract. Milestones can be reviewed at bi-weekly or monthly videoconference meetings to encourage remote sales team members to be prepared with progress reports. Training a geographically disparate remote team can pose a challenge, and if feasible it may be best to offer regular trainings in the home office . Otherwise, the only other option is to conduct training via voice or video chat, webinars and other internet based mediums. This can be fine for technical workers, but other roles may require some type of personal interface to convey company culture, principles and methods.

They must arm themselves with the know-how to build a remote sales team from scratch, coach them for efficiency, and finally manage them to deliver results. Camaraderie means mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together. Remote sales teams do not get much time to spend together due to clashing time zones and calendar schedules. Even the best sales who can sell ice cream to Eskimoes need some amount of training to fine-tune their craft. When the sales team is made up of freshly recruited folks, they need some acclimatization to get into the groove. They need some amount of coaching to understand the processes in place, how leads are procured, and the overall sales strategy.

The Remote Route

The thing is, there are specific challenges that come with hiring and managing workers—especially sales teams—remotely. Just as with any remote team member, communication with a salesperson is critical, especially if they are in foreign location. Communication through mobile devices, online apps and messaging can create an ongoing link to management and other team members.

It is helpful to review how remote work differs, and what employee onboarding processes will be needed. Nonetheless, the advantages of hiring remote employees or contractors are hard to ignore, and more companies are turning toward forming remote teams for fill certain types of work roles. In some cases, they are evolving toward it by using “hybrid” teams, with some workers in-office and other working remotely. Businesses with a remote sales team need the right B2B sales tools that give them a competitive edge and keep leads moving through the pipeline.

Every sales rep has some tricks up their sleeve that enable them to turn leads into deals. This consists of how they research the prospect, how they deduce their pain areas even before having the discovery call with customers, and how they connect the business offering to solve their problem. Video Managing a Remote Team conferencing and phone calls are extending the much-needed support to carry on business without skipping a beat. Although the effectiveness of remote selling is up for debate, sales leaders have quickly realized that it offers a wide range of benefits that are simply irresistible to ignore.

It’s why we create numerical goals for individual reps, and it’s why results are updated on a team scoreboard as they come in. Even though they’re saving commute time, I’m encouraging my team to continue waking up at the same time everyday. This is important, because it keeps your body and mind in the same pattern of productivity and work. This process takes about 4 hours, and it’s not something I would do if we were in the office. While everyone needs to own their metrics as if they’re personally trying to raise a round of venture capital, we’re still a team. As a manager, you have to be even more dedicated to giving the group — and individuals — a solid chunk of your time.

Building A Remote Sales Team

They also serve in measuring the sales rep’s performance against planned targets. Any shortfall can be corrected through a collaborative effort or through a change in individual sales strategy. In a remote setting, most of the employee onboarding activity is done virtually.

• Once these habits are in place you’ll find it way easier to stay on track, regardless of your motivation levels on a particular day.
• Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S.
• This type of sales training ensures new team members stay involved every step of the way.
• Managers need to ensure they keep their remote sales team engaged and motivated.
• The goals that you wish to achieve from the strategy should also be communicated to the employees so that they can be aligned with it.

By using a remote technical team, a company can recruit based on a worker’s area of expertise, rather than proximity to the home office. This allows the business to build a technical team that has the range of skills and experience to match customer needs. Motivation of remote teams will depend upon the degree of inclusiveness and connection they feel. Some team members may initially be motivated by the income and relative freedom of remote work, but over time will also require reinforcement of their value to the team and company. Regular reviews and evaluations can help individual team members to stay motivated, and working toward clear team goals will keep the remote team motivated as a whole. For company management, hiring and connecting a team of remote workers is only the beginning.

Type Of Worker

Encourage your reps to approach new prospects from a place of empathy. Gone are the days of feeling the buzz from calls happening from the sales floor. No longer can reps wheel their way over to your desk to ask a quick question about sales process or methodology. Everything takes more effort, more intention, more reinforcement, more documentation and more empathy towards your reps who may be facing burnout without even knowing it. The addition of healthy and balanced conflicts may be just the shot of adrenaline your remote team needs to boost morale and productivity in sales.

It is old, everybody knows to work around it, and you want your sales rep to sell what your business is offering. Give them a practical task with https://globalcloudteam.com/ real-world challenges like sales calls. We are perfect for ice breaking, striking up interesting conversations, and having a fun time together.

To start building out your sales process, we recommend Miro boards to map out the prospects’ journeywith your team based on all eventualities. After we do so, they can develop sales-enablement tools and resources that help throughout the entire sales process. They also create assets on the website that we know our organic visitors are craving and better invest our marketing dollars in the initiatives that we know our most qualified leads are coming from. Suddenly you’re able to double the amount of one hour meetings you can have in a day since you do not get the same disturbance and no need to travel to customers. SMART goals ensure that the sales reps have a clear direction to take. They know how many leads they should connect with and how much revenue should be achieved from each lead in order to reach their targets.

Our best expert advice on how to grow your business — from attracting new customers to keeping existing customers happy and having the capital to do it. Good CompanyEntrepreneurs and industry leaders share their best advice on how to take your company to the next level. GrowOur best expert advice on how to grow your business — from attracting new customers to keeping existing customers happy and having the capital to do it. The points mentioned above are just a few of the benefits using a remote workforce can provide. Sales training and onboarding is not only time-consuming in terms of planning and delivery, but also takes up a significant amount of financial resources.

Ways Organisations Can Share Information Better

The nature of remote work has spurred HR departments to begin developing a set of best practices for the onboarding process. Most of these go beyond standard HR practices and are designed specifically to meet the needs of remote workers. For this reason, some type of localized customer support will be necessary, in addition to the remote technical staff. One solution is to offer periodic remote team training in the home office, or even in sales regions, where all members can gather for a few days of intensive training and meetings.

A simple employee engagement form can help you learn your strengths and weaknesses. Once everyone submits their responses, read through and see what your team has to say. They write regularly on emotional intelligence and people-first leadership. Their work has been featured by Fortune, Yahoo, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, Harvard Business School, Forbes, and more. They’ve spoken at remote work conferences like GitLab Commit 2021 and advised Fortune 10 companies on remote strategy. Burnout has a variety of sources, but often the greatest help isn’t to help at all.

Use Kpis And Metrics To Track Sales Results And Your Team’s Performance

Taking an ad hoc approach (i.e. some members working remotely and others in-office) could undermine the benefits of a remote team for a company. There is a growing trend among companies of all types to utilize remote teams of employees or contractors, in order to fill specific business roles or complete shared technical or design projects. For a company considering this step, we have assembled this thorough guide to effectively recruiting, onboarding and managing a remote team. My career has included a sustained period where I was working in virtual positions and leading a remote sales team. Before I entered the SaaS world, I was an outside sales rep for Yellow Pages and advanced into a sales manager role.

If the manager is not ensuring that everyone is remaining engaged, it could lead to disastrous results in the future. Use the information we have provided you with to keep your remote sales team engaged and motivated. As the leader of a remote sales team, you need to make sure everyone on your team is communicating with each other daily. Take the time to schedule some meetings only on a bi-weekly basis where everyone is kept up to date on the latest project or company event.

If it aligns with your sales process and team’s personalities, it could encourage sales members to work harder to be the top salesman on the team. If you have ever taken a recruit or junior sales member to a sales meeting with you for training purposes, this is something you can do with your sales rep in a virtual client meeting. It’s quite easy to pull off merely having them join you in a call or by listening to the recording of the completed meetings. For these types of training, you have the chance to lead by example, show your reps what needs to be done and what is expected of them when they run their meetings. Now, with all the work pressure and volume of sales intact in a remote environment but with none of the human touch, your salespeople will tend to feel lonely, cut off, and distant from their team. Trust is taken for granted in an office space where your sales team rubs shoulders on a day to day basis.

This provides a more balanced approach to training, and also give team members a vital opportunity to interact in person. There can be cost savings with using a remote team, since there is no need to maintain multiple office locations with the use of technology based communication tools. A remote team can be managed from one central office, even when team members are located in other countries.

Compliance Concerns With Remote Teams Dispersed Internationally

Virtual methods of onboarding are essential for remote teams due to the fact they may be spread out over wide geographical areas. There should be some method in place for accommodating this reality including online conferencing and communication apps such as intercall. A new remote worker may not be prepared for the challenges of their new role, especially if they are located in a different region or country.

It automatically records and transcribes your calls, as well as surfaces important insights and sentiment analysis from your calls. On top of that, Fireflies integrates natively with Salesflare — your meeting transcripts will automatically get sent to your Salesflare account right after your meetings. Just connect with your prospects and customers on LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter. Whatever makes most sense in your industry or with your type of clients. Be yourself and a bit more informal than you’d be in a face-to-face meeting.

A remote workforce still wants a sense of camaraderie, belonging, and accountability. Creating a clear process for your leads and your sales team is the second most important element of managing people remotely. If you’re in need of an expert’s advice and inspiration, we’ve got both. Read on for tips from Agorapulse’s director of Inside Sales, Jenny Brennan.

Best Remote Employee Onboarding Practices

Here are some things you can do to make the onboarding of remote sales reps easier. Consider this as building blocks to having your entire remote sales team in place and work with effectiveness. For sales leaders, that means finding ways to coach their sales reps to work deals with more rigor and creativity.