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Software for Increasing the Productivity of your Sales Team

Let’s face it. Sales people are difficult to manage. They are quirky to the point of being eccentric. They can be whiny, demanding, irresponsible, and highly egotistical. These are not necessarily bad things. These are the traits that allow them to approach perfect strangers and talk them into spending money on a product that wasn’t on their shopping list. This is why you pay them the big bucks. Products and services do not sell themselves; sales people do. You can’t live without them. But they are still hard to manage. Here is some software that makes it a little easier:

Payroll software

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If there is one thing all sales people have in common, it is that they are motivated by money. If you have any doubt about this, just reduce the amount of money they make, and see how that effects their motivation. The better experiment is to increase the amount of money they make. Motivation, and productivity, is instantly improved. Even if that improvement is just a matter of making payday hassle­free, the benefits will still be real. Sales people get paid via a number of methods that can be difficult to track. Spiffs, bonuses, and commissions are all in addition to the salary or hourly rate. Sales people often spend a great deal of time pouring over their pay stub making sure everything is in order. Unfortunately, there is often something amiss that requires even more management time and stress.

Here is a list of some of the challenges to adopting more advanced systems: Inadequate resources to implement paperless pay, including pay card, online statement and other payment options Managing change in many departments with different requirements Providing service to employees who may have different payment requirements These challenges stand between you and your lowest payroll costs. Lower payroll costs can be shifted to higher perks and bonuses for your sales team. How you pay your sales team can be just as impactful as what you pay them. Modern payroll software is a must.

MDM and BYOD

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If you haven’t had alphabet soup lately, trust me, this one is particularly delicious to sales people. The first stands for mobile device management. The second is bring your own device. The first group of letters is what makes the second group feasible. One thing sales people hate doing is being forced to carry two of the same kind of device. No one wants to have to carry two smartphones, or two tablets, or two laptops. Another thing they hate doing is being forced to learn and use an operating system they have already deemed unsuitable for their personal use. If a person has come to rely on the many accessibility features of iOS that are unique to the system, forcing them to use Blackberry or Android does them no favors, and might make productivity impossible in that instance. What companies should care about is security and productivity, not conformity. Modern MDM software allows employees to use their own personal and familiar devices with secure, corporate assets. One’s iPhone can be a business powerhouse by day, and a candy crushing handheld arcade in the evening.

Form completion software

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The most heartbreaking thing for a sales person is to close the deal in principal, but have to put off the signing because they didn’t have the right form, or the forms they have were ruined from that coffee accident. Even if the right form is in the car, bad things can happen to a sale in the time it takes to go to the car and return to the table. What sales people want more than a “yes” is a signature.

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There is some amazing and extremely inexpensive software that will allow a sales person to go from presenting with their iPad, to capturing a signature on the same device. Even complex forms can be filled out on the spot. Mistakes can be corrected on the spot. No need to reach for a new form. This type of software directly translates to fewer lost sales. The right software can make your sales team more productive. And a more productive team is a lot easier to manage.

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