Why Online Collaboration is Pivotal for Remote Sales Teams

Remote Sales Teams

 Today, remote jobs are becoming more and more popular. Many companies prefer hiring remote employees because it is more profitable for them. However, you need to make their work as effective as possible.

How can you do that? What should you do to organize effective online collaboration for sales teams? Let’s move on to discussing the importance of online collaboration for modern salespeople and the best tips to help them be more productive.

Why Streamlined Collaboration Matters

It goes without saying that collaborative selling is the main key to optimizing customer relationships. Collaborative selling is not a new trend. To achieve the best possible result, salespeople need to rely on each other.

Collaboration amongst your sales team can improve the customer experience as a whole. When each member of the team is focused on the same goals, it will be much easier to meet the needs of customers and boost sales.

The Roles and Responsibilities of Sales Teams

Before we move on to discussing the main benefits of teamwork in sales, we should cover the basics. What are the main roles of powerful sales teams?

  • Data management. They need to process and evaluate data in order to promote the effectiveness of selling campaigns;
  • Sales forecasting;
  • Training new employees;
  • Data evaluation;
  • Dealing with contract proposals;
  • Development of new strategies.

The Benefits of Online Collaboration for Sales Teams

When it comes to the efficiency of a project, cross-team collaboration is a critical aspect to consider.  Here are the main advantages of collaborative sales:

  • Convenience in organizing company meetings. Some companies have offices in different cities across the world. With the help of sales team collaboration software, it is much easier to organize a company meeting.
  • More effective project management. The project manager will always have important data about the campaign progress at hand.
  • Cost savings. Sometimes, it is a challenge to find physical space to accommodate the needs of your company. Thanks to online collaboration, it is much easier to host online meetings.
  • Better productivity. It can fuel faster and better completion of projects because your employees will be able to meet online, discuss and solve issues right after they emerge.

All in all, online collaboration is an effective way to improve efficiency. Sales teams have a plethora of tools at hand to complete their tasks. They can immediately get in contact with any teammate (even if they are working abroad) and solve any issues that may arise.

Moreover, such solutions enable fast decision making and inspire salespeople to be more productive. Thanks to a broad selection of video conferencing systems, employees can get in contact at any time using minimal resources.

How to Encourage Collaboration within Sales Teams

If you are currently looking for the most effective ways to make your salespeople more effective, here are some tips for you.

Train your sales team to collaborate

It is easier to talk about collaboration than to implement this technique in practice. However, you can easily tackle that challenge. Start the changes by changing yourself. Take some courses and train your employees to collaborate with each other. Show them the most effective ways to collaborate.

If you are going to use software that can help your staff be more effective, show them how to use it. Develop a schedule. Ask them to organize meetings a few times per week, and encourage them to share their progress.

Give your sales team the right tools

Make sure that your colleagues have the right tools for successful collaboration. Start using CRM dashboards or other cloud-based platforms that will help them track the results and be more productive.

Nimble’s newly optimized Today Page gives you a clear, customizable dashboard view of your sales pipeline, calendar appointments, tasks, and social signals.

nimble today page

Combining sales intelligence and social insights, the Today Page helps you gauge your most important priorities and work more effectively. Start your day with essential business insights about your contacts to take actions that will help you build better relationships and close more deals.

Establish a safe environment to ask questions

A safe environment at work is the best method to increase sales. Encourage open conversations between teammates. They might help fill in the gaps and make your marketing campaigns more effective and targeted.

Let team members crowdsource solutions to problems

It is safe to say that crowdsourcing is an effective way to increase creativity, reduce costs and leverage ideas. So let your team members crowdsource solutions because this will help your business grow.

Hold knowledge-sharing sessions

You should keep in mind that regular alignment meetings and knowledge sharing sessions are the key to success. Let your employees communicate about the campaigns, share ideas and discuss the strategy. As a result, it will be much easier to move forward. Sale collaboration will help increase revenue.

Let them innovate

You should allow your employees to use the latest, innovative trends that can help them improve collaboration.

Track progress and improve process and innovations

You should definitely trust your salespeople, but you can’t rely on faith alone. Monitor their progress and if you see that some particular employees can’t work together (can’t be productive), you need to separate them. 

Be a strong, fair leader

Effective sales teamwork is impossible without a strong leader. A good leader must know how to prioritize tasks, set KPIs, maximize the ROI, and divide bonuses in a proper way.

Effective Collaboration Techniques for Sales Teams

It goes without saying that work related to marketing is inherently competitive. Moreover, competition motivates employees to sell more. However, a good job is impossible without collaboration. Here are the main techniques that can improve sales collaboration:

  • Give bonuses when applicable;
  • Use powerful CRM software to track the results of their work;
  • Ask them to take part in all marketing/management meetings;
  • Encourage sales and marketing communication;
  • Set weekly/monthly goals for teams;
  • Organize planning sessions.

How to Streamline Collaboration for Your Sales Team

It goes without saying that if people work together, they will accomplish more tasks and achieve much better results. Besides, more people means more creative ideas, more hands, and more flexibility. 

What if your team is already working on a project, and you are currently looking for ideas to improve their collaboration? What should you do?

We recommend:

  • Besides using messengers, ask them to contact each other via phone, especially if the task is urgent. As a result, you’ll solve the issue faster.
  • Create team territories. It is a superb way to push up sales.
  • Start using CRM tools like Nimble. There are lots of solutions, you just need to choose the one that will fit your needs.
  • Ask the marketing and sales departments to work together. In this case, they will achieve much better results.
  • Develop working models.

collaboration tools for teams

Tools for Collaborations

Today, there are plenty of tools that can increase sales and make your teamwork much better. If you don’t use them, it is time to give them a try:

  • Nimble is a worthy CRM tool to grow your business and push sales.
  • Slack is a superb communication platform where you can create channels, send either direct or group messages to team members and monitor the latest news.
  • Basecamp is a multi-featured team management tool.
  • Google Drive requires no introduction. Google Drive is the best platform where you can store files.
  • Wimi is a relatively new tool where you can store files, share documents, perform tasks, etc.
  • Evernote is the best tool for creators and those who need to collect things quickly and effectively.

The selection of productivity is huge; you just need to choose a few tools that can meet the needs of your company.

Benefits of Collaboration Tools for Sales Teams

Collaboration tools can help your employees be more effective. Have a look at the main benefits you’ll get after implementing collaboration tools in your work:

  • Have more time to build relationships with customers.
  • Automatically reach hundreds of customers simultaneously.
  • Develop highly targeted, segmented contact lists for better outreach.
  • Monitor tasks, manage calendar appointments, action items, and more.
  • Forecast sales to plan for the future.
  • Keep track of the latest updates in your company.

All in all, a worthy collaboration tool allows you and your team to work smarter — anywhere you work.

Tips on Optimizing Sales Team Collaboration

It is understandable that salespeople focused on achieving good sales results need to implement the latest achievements of modern technologies. A team leader should be focused on team collaboration first because the general revenue of a company depends on the work of the whole team, not on individual employees.

So what are the main tips for improving sales team collaboration?

  1. Download and install a high-quality CRM tool.
  2. Organize frequent company meetings.
  3. Always discuss the plans for company development.
  4. Track the team’s progress.
  5. Set the right goals and always check whether they are achieved.
  6. Encourage sincere conversations.
  7. Ask the sales and marketing teams to work together.
  8. Set KPIs.
  9. Give bonuses for performance.

All of these things will help your team be more productive.

If you are currently looking for the best CRM tool that will meet the requirements of your company, try Nimble CRM. It is a smart solution that allows you to work from any corner of the world. Monitor sales, send hundreds of personalized emails, access more customers with less effort, and much more! Nimble can give you everything you need for good and stable workflow.