Why Sales Support Matters
- June 30, 2022
As a salesperson, only three things matter: your product, its value, and how well you can sell it.
It's a simple equation — and one that takes on different forms depending on the nature of your products and services.
But if you take one thing away from this introduction to sales support, let it be this: if your sales team is not equipped with everything they need to close deals, they won't make as much money as they could—and neither will you!
What is sales support?
Sales support is a process that helps salespeople to achieve their quotas. The marketing department can provide sales support, the finance department, or other departments within the company.
Sales support is essential for every successful salesperson because it helps them understand their target market better and makes them more efficient in selling their products or services.
Sales support can be divided into two categories:
Internal-Support
Internal support comes from within your company and includes all the activities that different departments do to help you achieve your sales goals.
For example, the marketing department may provide you with information about your competitors' products and services to compare them with yours, give you marketing advice and provide feedback on the effectiveness of your promotional campaigns.
The finance department may provide you with financial information about your customers to assess their credit risk and make better decisions about whether or not to sell their products or services.
External Support
External support comes from outside your company. This includes all the activities performed by third parties such as distributors, agents, or partners who help promote your products or services in return for a fee or commission on each sale made.
Why you need sales support
Most of the time, the sales team is on their own to hit their quota. They are expected to bring in the business without much help from other departments.
But this is not a good thing because many things can go wrong and cause delays in closing deals.
Here’s why you need a robust sales support to hit your sales quota quickly
1. Sales support increases productivity
Salespeople are the employees who need the most help. They're constantly on the road, making cold calls and meeting with prospective clients, so you can't expect them to keep everything straight in their heads. That's where sales support comes in.
Sales support helps salespeople do their job better: customer relationship management software, CRM systems, email marketing tools, etc.
A good CRM system can help your salespeople keep track of all their leads and customers, organize their schedules and manage their activities on the road. An email marketing tool can help them communicate with prospects without waiting for replies from their clients' inboxes.
In short: Sales support makes it possible for your salespeople to focus on selling instead of keeping track of everything else that goes along with it.
2. Sales support improves communication between departments
The best sales teams can communicate effectively with other departments in their company, including marketing, customer service, and human resources.
When employees from different parts of an organization work together seamlessly, they can build relationships with customers, provide better customer service, and increase sales.
An excellent example of how this works is when a salesperson goes through their list of leads and finds one that would benefit from having a product demo sent out.
This can be accomplished by having someone in marketing create and send out the demo using email marketing software such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. If the lead responds positively to the demo, then it will most likely result in a sale for the company.
However, if this process takes too long or doesn’t happen at all because there is no communication between departments, then the lead may go cold before ever getting contacted by anyone at all!
3. Sales support improves customer experience
One of the main reasons why sales reps miss their quota is because they’re not able to close enough deals.
Often, this is because they don’t have enough time to devote to each prospect and customer.
However, if you can provide them with tools that will help them track their progress and be more efficient in closing deals, then they’ll be able to spend more time with each client.
Sales reps are often under pressure from the company or their managers to meet specific quotas. They need all the help they can get to do so. Your organization needs to invest in a robust sales support system (SSS).
4. Sales Support Ensures that Sales Reps are Incentivized Adequately for Their Performance
It would be best to incentivize your sales teams correctly, and that's where sales support comes in. It’s not just about paying them a salary. It’s about ensuring that your sales team can hit their goals.
If they don’t make enough money, they’ll leave for another company that does offer more incentives. By offering bonuses and other perks, you can keep your best employees happy and motivated to do their best work every day
Also, if your salespeople are getting paid what they deserve when they perform well, they have a reason to keep producing great results.
You also want them to see how much money they can earn if they continue doing well over time so that it encourages them to stick around longer with you instead of jumping ship as soon as possible after hitting their quota because they feel like they’re being underpaid or underappreciated in some way.
5. It Helps You Track Leads Generated by Each Rep and Their Activities
The best way to ensure that your team hits their sales quota is by providing the right tools and guidance. Sales support can be the difference between a successful or unsuccessful sales cycle.
You need to give your sales reps everything they need to succeed in their role. This includes training, direction, and guidance from management as well as access to resources like sales tools and reports.
Sales support helps you track all leads generated by each rep and their activities throughout the year (sales cycles). It also gives you insight into how much time each rep spends on their leads vs. those shared with other reps or teams.
By tracking these metrics over time, you'll see if any changes need to be made to improve productivity and efficiency.
In addition, sales support helps you:
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Track all leads generated by each rep and their activities throughout the year (sales cycles).
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See how much time reps spend on their leads vs. those shared with other reps or teams.
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View all activity within a single dashboard.
6. It Allows you to Understand how Your Company is Performing Compared to its Competitors
When running a business, it can be hard to know what you're supposed to be doing.
Do you focus on growing your customer base? Do you invest in research and development? Should you focus on getting more customers or making sure the ones you have stay happy?
It's essential to understand which of these things are most important for your company at this stage in its development.
To do that, it helps to compare yourself against other companies that are similar to yours—companies that are at a similar stage of growth, with similar goals and objectives. This is called benchmarking.
Benchmarking allows you to see how your company stacks up against its competitors when it comes to areas like:
- Sales volume (total revenue)
- Number of employees
- Market share (percentage of the whole market share held by each company).
7. Sales Support is Suitable for Your Money
You probably have at least one person who sells your products or services.
If you have more than one salesperson, you know that they're a massive part of your success—and they probably make up a significant portion of your costs.
Sales support can be valuable to your company: it helps reduce costs by reducing salespeople's time doing data entry and record keeping. This means that more of their time can be spent selling, which means they'll sell more—and make more money for themselves and you!
Most of the time, the sales team is on their own to hit their quota. They are expected to bring in the business without much help from other departments.
But this is not a good thing because many things can go wrong and cause delays in closing deals or even losing them altogether.
8. Clients Don’t Always Know What They Want
Sometimes, clients don’t know exactly what they want and how it will solve their problems. This can lead to delays in closing deals as you try to figure out what they need.
If they have no idea what they want, how will you sell them something?
You need some help from other departments such as product development or customer success teams to figure out precisely what they need so that you can pitch your products or services effectively and close more deals faster.
Bottom Line
If you're going to hit your sales quota, you need a reliable support system to help you manage the workload.
You need to trust that your support team will work hard and be fair with their time.
And finally, you need to feel like the people on your team can handle anything that comes their way—whether it's an unexpected problem or a challenging new customer.
Written by
Jeppe Liisberg
I'm an entrepreneur and web developer. I've built or helped build a handful of startups.
I strongly believe in dedicated software that solves one task, but solves it really well. During my experience as an internet entrepreneur, I never found that software for cold calling, so that's why I decided to build Myphoner.
I'm very proud of what Myphoner has become, and I'm dedicated to doing everything I can to make it stay a success. That's why I greet all new customers personally and always read and reply to the feedback I get.
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