Building a high-performance remote sales team requires careful planning to handle the challenges. As a sales leader, you can’t just walk over to a salesperson’s desk and deliver instruction or get feedback. 

You have to rely on the right tools, keep channels of communication open, set clear expectations, and find ways to make your sales team more engaged. With proactive and supportive leadership, you will find that the team is more productive. 

Provide the right tools

Your remote sales team will not be able to work effectively unless they have the right tools. For example, having a CRM is critical for a sales team to stay up to date with prospects, leads and current customers. Apart from a CRM, there are many other tools that can help a team, from remote chat and video conferencing to cloud storage and project management. 

From Signal Booster, it is possible to buy a cell phone booster for home and have it installed. It means no more dropped calls for your sales team. They won’t have to go outside to take a call and can enjoy clear conversations whether they are outdoors or in a vehicle. 

Set clear expectations

You need to be explicit with your team and set very clear parameters for every task so everyone is on the same page. Agreeing on specific goals also gives you the framework you need to assess their performance. 

When you set expectations, hold remote employees accountable, and respond quickly when they need help, they tend to perform better and take more initiative. You need to have a way to track and monitor sales as there is no way to measure and evaluate performance without taking sales quotas into account. 

Promote employee engagement

Remote workers often feel disconnected and less engaged, which can harm their productivity and morale. One idea is to implement an online project management channel and post a notification every time a sale is made. 

This means members of the team could congratulate one another. Colleagues could also share their challenges and have discussions about everyday topics they would normally discuss around the watercooler. 

Another way to encourage engagement would be to have the sales team working together in twos to reach their quota. The team with the best results receives an incentive. This can help to promote effective teamwork. 

Manage time usage

It is important for salespeople to spend time on the right opportunities. Spending too much time on leads that have a low probability of conversion is wasted time. A sales team must be able to prioritize its time and devote it to the most profitable activities. 

You can use a time-tracking tool to keep track of what salespeople are working on. If you can measure time, you can manage it. Distractions are one of the biggest challenges for remote employees working from home. With time tracking, they are aware of where their time is going. 

Offer ongoing training

Skills training to improve selling techniques must happen on a continuing basis. As a result of ongoing opportunities to improve their performance, a sales team will be able to up their game and reward you with better results. 

Visits to the office for organized skills training sessions could help to give them some much-needed in-person interaction and make them feel more engaged. 

Sales organizations across the world are updating their sales playbooks to be specific about what they expect of employees in virtual sales roles. Changes in sales processes and selling messages are replacing what has become outdated and retraining salespeople will be essential as new strategies emerge.