Sales contests are a great way to motivate the whole team. Beyond rewarding sales and revenue, they offer the ability to reward many different types of actions that align with your business objectives. 

 

This positive setting will lead to greater results in the contest and healthier competition that boosts the morale of the whole team and not just the usual top reps and reminds the team that there are many ways to make an impact. This is important because while sales reps are typically tracked and rewarded for their individual sales, the main goal of the sales team is to improve the sales for the entire organization.

25 Sales Contest Ideas to Motivate Your Team

Below you will find a list of 25 sales contest ideas managers can use to motivate reps and increase performance. You’ll see the goal for each one, as well as how they work.

1 | Daily Prize

It may seem that holding a daily contest makes the competition trivial because many of the prizes are small and not of great value. The key to this strategy is that it keeps the reps constantly engaged.

Since the prizes are given daily, the lead or sales tracker is reset each day so that there will be a wider range of possible winners.

2 | Raffle

A raffle is a good way to incentivize reps to achieve short-term goals while being able to win a larger and more lucrative prize. Raffle tickets are given to reps when they reach specific sales goals and the prize is generally only drawn after a long-term sales period has passed.

The secret to holding a good raffle is ensuring that every participant has a measurable and achievable goal that can earn them a chance to get a raffle ticket and enter the drawing.

3 | Customer Reviews

A customer review contest requires a little bit of front-end work from the standpoint that there needs to be an easy way for the reps to obtain a review whether it is good or bad. The easiest way to go about this is to set up a customer survey or take advantage of an already existing survey process.

A customer review contest requires a little bit of front-end work from the standpoint that there needs to be an easy way for the reps to obtain a review whether it is good or bad. The easiest way to go about this is to set up a customer survey or take advantage of an already existing survey process.

Besides receiving the always nice pat-on-the-back from a satisfied customer and the public recognition from upper management, this contest encourages reps to not just be good at selling a product but also be ready to get a review of their service for better or for worse.

4 | Salesperson of the Month

This one is a classic and is often ran as one. The winner is generally the sales rep with the most revenue in sales. But just because this contest carries the classic title doesn’t mean the item being measured has to be classic as well.

Get creative and aim for something unique such as the most individual sales, the most “Nos”, the most reviews good or bad, or the most helpful with coaching other sales reps. Either way you measure it and reward it, the winning sales rep will always enjoy having everyone else see their name and photo on the office wall for an entire month.

5 | Winner’s Choice

A winner’s choice is where the winner gets to decide what the prize will be for either themselves or the next month’s winner, with obvious monetary limits or choices set by management beforehand. It’s a simple way to not have to get too creative and the benefit is you’re less likely to have someone complain about the prize.

6 | I OWE U! (from the boss)

An I OWE U from a superior is always a fun sales contest and cause for excitement on the sales team. It’s best to set a structured timeline and goal well in advance. Since it will most likely be you or someone near you fulfilling the debt, it is best to make clear the prize or selection of prizes.

If you want to get a solid gauge as to what type of debt your sales reps are looking for, then have them submit their requests ahead of the contest and you can select one of the prizes as long as they are not too outrageous.

Common prizes for the winner may include eating/cooking lunch together, giving professional coaching sessions, washing and cleaning their car, or even more humorous things such as performing karaoke to their favorite song in front of the whole team.

7 | On a Boat (Boss for the day)

It is a pretty simple prize for whatever the contest may be. The winner gets to be boss for a day or some variation of it. You could let them take your position for the day, sit at your desk, pick the location for the next company lunch, or run a meeting. Either way the winner will be happy to hear all day long those two sweet words come out of your mouth, “Yes Boss!”.

8 | Sales Poker

This is another fun sales contest that requires each participant to acquire 5 cards out of a 52-card deck. Each card is earned by achieving an established goal. At the end of the sales period, the sales rep with the best hand wins the prize. It is an easy game that allows all participating sales reps a chance to win, even if they weren’t necessarily the best performing sales rep for that period.

9 | Lead Conversion

The premise of this sales competition is that leads are handed out randomly and evenly to the sales reps and the one person or group to convert the most leads into sales during a specific timeframe wins the prize. This sales game allows for a winner by chance since some reps might get more quality leads than others.

10 | The Whopper (or Top This)

What’s a whopper without its lettuce and tomato? The trick to winning this contest is to be the one to upsell the customer the most. The length of the sales period can vary and the prize along with it.

11 | Most Wanted

This is similar to the “Whopper” contest but differs in what types of leads are handed out. In this sales competition the manager identifies and hands out leads of the biggest leaders in the industry. No small fish here nor any random ones either. These leads are highly desirable targets and the sales rep or team that lands the biggest single sale wins.

12 | Upsell Contest

This sales game is designed to reward sales reps for upselling and increasing revenue from existing partners. Some options for measuring the upsell progress and determining a winner is to select either the largest upsell dollar amount earned, the largest upsell percentage earned relative to the client’s prior account history, or the highest amount of client’s that are upsold.

13 | Sales Bingo

Bingo is always a good time. Turn it into a sales contest by making the squares represent different sales goals. What makes this sales game fun is that it requires skill and luck. The skill to make the goal on each square and the luck to get them in the correct sequence.

14 | Most No’s (in a single week)

The Most No’s game is a fun and creative sales contest idea used to stir the sales team pot. The reason is because it seems so counterintuitive to be wanting more rejection. In reality, it drives an increase in sales activity and the likelihood of a rep getting a “Yes”.

The goal of the game is to see who can get the most No’s/rejections within a sales period whether it is a day, a week, or a month. Generally, the game shouldn’t last longer than a week since the longer the game continues, the less competitive it becomes. The gap between the lowest and the highest “No’s” counts gets wider.

15 | The Loser

It never pays to be the loser but sometimes the loser does pay. Simply put, the loser of the sales contest pays an amount towards a company party or something fun that in the end everyone will get to enjoy.

Be sure to make the amount somewhat insignificant, like $20, so that the loser won’t be too upset when they have to pay up. Some good ideas for where the money go are holiday parties, company picnics, team lunches, happy hour events, or even have a charity chosen by the team.

16 | Retention-Based Sales Contest

In most industries, the companies that are the most profitable aren’t usually making one-time sales but are instead focused on creating repeat sales with the same clients. Sales reps will often get focused on landing new clients instead of catering to the known clients that have already given them their business.

To create a more loyal client base, it’s recommended to have some sales contest ideas fixated on encouraging sales reps to garner loyal and repeat business. One way to do this is to hang up in the office a repeat business whiteboard. The goal of displaying their individual progress is to help them visualize their individual contribution to the company’s loyal client base.

17 | Enterprise-Level Sales Contests

Keep your team motivated and take away the focus on individual sales. Create a fun sales contest where offices compete against other offices or managers against managers. This is all about boosting team morale, creating a greater team cohesion and losing the emphasis on the individual.

A satisfying reward for the winning team or manager is often just bragging rights.

18 | Time-Reward Sales Contests

A high motivator and fun sales contest idea that gets the competitive juices flowing is a reward of time off. It suggested to use this reward near the end of a sales cycle because sales reps will sometimes hold off on making certain deals so when the next sales period starts, they have a deal ready to go in their pocket.

The rewards can range from leaving early on a Friday, arriving late on a low volume day, or even a paid time off (PTO) day.

19 | Buddy Up

Use the buddy system. Pair your top sales reps with the lower performers and reward the top sales team at the end of the month. The main result of this exercise will be greater team collaboration and the lower performers will have a chance to learn what makes their highly productive counterpart so effective.

20 | Pitch Contest

In this contest, top producers anonymously submit their sales pitch and the team tries to guess who’s each one is. At the end of all the submissions the whole team can vote on whose pitch they liked the most. All participants get to keep a copy of the pitches which they can learn from and use moving forward.

21 | Sales Team Scavenger Hunt

Frequently, a sales team has members that have become specialists in selling specific products or targeting certain clients. The scavenger hunt sales contest encourages your sales reps to team up and utilize their special talents to accomplish an objective.

The objectives can range from reaching a set revenue goal to selling a specific product to accomplishing a certain number of upsells. As the team members work together to fulfill their scavenger hunt objectives, they will naturally increase collaboration, boost morale, and drive sales.

22 | Surprise Salesperson Appreciation

Don’t let a team member go unnoticed even if they aren’t at the top of the charts. Choose a day when the entire team brings in a little gift or letter showing their appreciation for a chosen team member. Sales reps are notorious for being hyper-competitive and will often lose sight of keeping the overall morale high. Show every team member they are important to the success of the business and each other.

23 | Brackets

Much like college basketball’s March Madness, this sales game breaks the team into brackets. Each team member competes against a fellow sales rep and the one that out-sales the other during that week advances in the ranks.

As the weeks go on the competition gets more intense as the winning reps advance. At the end, the winning team member (and potentially the runner-up) gets a prize.

24 | Fantasy Sales Teams

Fantasy football teams have infiltrated the office water cooler, so why not take some of that competitive talk and let it infiltrate the sales team? Break your sales team up and simulate a random draft pick. Points are then awarded to each team’s “player”’ for their sales. The manager or team that earns the most fantasy points in the end wins the competition.

25 | Traveling Trophy (Floating Prize)

Each sales period the sales rep with the highest sales gets awarded a trophy to display on their desk. As long as they stay on top of their game, the trophy stays in their hands. When they are knocked off their highest sales pedestal, the winning rep takes the trophy and displays it at their desk.

As silly as it may seem, the flaunting of a decently sized gleaming trophy at a fellow team member’s desk can spark the competitive edge a manager is looking for in their team. Add a little more emphasis to the sales games and post pictures of each week’s winners in the break-room.

Benefits of Sales Contests

By nature, humans are very competitive beings. It has come from millennia of competing for resources and status. For those two reasons we compete with each other on almost every level and in almost every way possible whether it has to do with school, sports, work, or even the greenness of your lawn. Competition gives people a sense of pride and purpose.

With that in mind, sales managers and leadership can capitalize on human tendency through sales competitions. The main goals of sales competitions should be to increase individual performance, elevate team activity, and boost overall morale.

 

Tips for Planning Sales Contests

The best way to get everyone excited about a new sales contest is to ensure that no individual has an upper hand from the start. In order for a sales competition to guarantee a level the playing field between top and bottom performing reps, implement rules or mechanisms of:

1. Chance
2. Measurement of activity

With mechanisms of chance, the winners of the sales games are less likely to always be dominated by top reps because their normal strategies of making sales become irrelevant. Along those same lines, the outcomes based on measurable amounts of activity also inhibits the top sellers from dominating the games if they are unwilling to put in the effort that the bottom reps are able and willing to do.

The reason for applying these two characteristics to the sales games is that it makes every rep equal from the start and encourages healthy competition. Let’s face it, nobody is thrilled to compete in or win a game when the outcome is practically predetermined.

Common sales contest mistakes to avoid when setting up your contest:

While running sales contests can definitely boost morale, they do come with a risk. Be sure to avoid these common mistakes which can cause the opposite of the intended effect.

1. Your contest only motivates top salespeople and fails to reach your team as a whole.
2. It fails to hold your employees’ interest after the first few days.
3. Improvements in performance do not last once the contest is over.
4. It creates a competitive environment that hurts collaboration and employee spirit.
5. Scores are tedious and time-consuming to track.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

S&OP is typically conducted by executive-level management professionals on a monthly basis and allows them to better align their plans with company-wide objectives.

One of the most common organizational issues is misalignment between sales and operations teams. Fortunately, this problem is easily fixed via sales and operations planning that is profit-centered and focused on building relationships between company departments.

What Is Sales And Operations Planning?

Sales and operations planning is the process of managing a business’s key components, such as sales, finance, and the supply chain. Small companies with only a few business processes may not need robust sales and operation planning, but as businesses grow, leadership should implement S&OP, in order to:

• Gauge whether staffing levels are adequate
• Define short- and long-term goals
• Evaluate whether sales territories are performing as expected
• Determine whether to allocate budget for new priorities
• Improve resource planning

The sales and operations planning process relies heavily on data and the ability to analyze it in different ways. S&OP software makes it easy for managers to find data and set up reports that help them evaluate key business functions and employee performance.

Methods Of Sales And Operations Planning

Sales and operations planning is crucial to the financial well-being of most companies. As such, it’s important to have all stakeholders present for S&OP process meetings, including sales reps, production, human resources, engineering, marketing, new product development (NPD), inventory/backlog, strategic initiatives, and financial teams.

The sales and operations planning process can be handled in one of two ways, depending on the unique situation your organization finds itself in:

Top-Down Planning: This approach to sales and operations planning focuses on a single sales prediction, upon which management professionals base their strategy and allocate their resources as needed.

Bottom-Up Planning: This approach to S&OP is often used in situations where manufacturing timetables are inconsistent. Rather than basing plans on a specific sales forecast, a strategy is built from the bottom up by assessing what’s needed to produce specific products and/or services within a reasonable timeframe.

Whichever approach your company decides to take, ensure the representatives present for each department have the authority to make on-the-spot decisions. If they don’t, your S&OP process flow will quickly grow stagnant and unproductive.

7 Benefits of Sales and Operations Planning

Now that we know what is sales and operations planning, we can discuss why it’s advantageous. Here are seven benefits to the S&OP process:

1. Eliminate Departmental Silos

The real value of S&OP lies in the collaboration opportunities it creates. By eliminating departmental silos, every facet of a company is able to align using common data points, which often leads to increased accuracy, better efficiency, and lower costs.

Organizational collaboration is a hot-button topic in 2023. But unless every department is aligned via a single S&OP process, it’s nearly impossible to achieve.

2. Improved Inventory Management

Inventory management can make or break a business. If your team doesn’t produce enough products, customers will grow impatient and angry as they wait for their orders and your brand’s reputation will suffer. But producing too many products is equally hazardous. A warehouse full of unsold goods can quickly lead to cash flow issues.

Because an S&OP plan analyzes consumer buying habits, as well as a company’s ability to meet potential demand, inventory management greatly improves.

3. Increased Throughput

Throughput, if you’re not familiar with the term, is defined as “the rate of production or the rate at which something is processed.”

Solid sales and operations planning will allow your company to create more products in less time because the processes for doing so will be more efficient and the necessary amount of resources will always be allocated to the right tasks.

Additionally, this increase in productivity will lead to financial savings. After all, the less time your team spends creating products, the less costly said products will be to produce.

4. Higher Product Quality

Fortunately, increasing throughput does not impact product quality. In fact, a sales operations plan should actually lead to better products than your company was able to previously produce.

Why? It all has to do with efficiency. An efficient process will naturally minimize mistakes, thus allowing your organization to quickly pump out higher quality goods. Furthermore, better products lead to business savings. Every flawed product your company produces must be remade, resulting in wasted materials and/or employee resources.

5. Reduced Lead Times

We touched on it briefly, but it bears repeating: sales and operations planning will shorten lead times, thus improving customer satisfaction in the process.

We live in a microwave society. When your customers order a product, they want it now, not later. By improving inventory accuracy and making sure your organization always has the proper amount of products in stock, your customer will receive their orders in a timely fashion.

Fair or not, Amazon set the bar with its two-day (sometimes even quicker!) shipping policy. S&OP will ensure your company is able to reduce lead times and come closer to meeting customer expectations in this regard.

6. Better Customer Service

Exceptional customer service is a staple of successful business. By producing better products and delivering them to customers in a timely manner, you’ll be able to elevate your brand in the eyes of its target market.

Happy customers are generally life-long buyers. Since it costs five times less to keep a customer than it does to generate a new one, it’s important to ensure customer satisfaction. Additionally, happy customers have the potential to become brand advocates, which can turn into a valuable marketing channel for businesses.

Both customer retention and advocacy are more easily achieved when an effective sales and operations planning process is in place.

7. Higher Profitability

Higher profitability is a result of the six other sales and operations planning benefits we just discussed. If your company is able to eliminate organizational silos, predict inventory requirements more accurately, boost throughput and product quality, and better serve its customers, higher profitability is almost inevitable.

Greater efficiency is always beneficial to businesses. S&OP allows companies to intelligently streamline operations in order to boost profit numbers.

Challenges of Sales And Operations Planning

Implementing S&OP does come with some challenges. The primary challenge is getting buy-in from leadership — the manager who sees a need for S&OP may need to convince financial decision-makers that the benefits of S&OP outweigh any expenses.

Depending on the size of a business, several people may need to be involved in the development and implementation of S&OP. To avoid the challenges of miscommunication and a prolonged implementation, it’s helpful for one person to spearhead the S&OP initiative, set agenda for discussions, and define a timeline for launching any new processes.

Common Steps in the S&OP Process

The S&OP process can be broken down into six essential steps: data gathering and forecasting, demand planning, production planning, pre-SOP meeting, executive S&OP meeting, and the S&OP strategy implementation.

Let’s take a look at each of these steps in greater detail:

1. Data Gathering: The sales and operations planning process consists of a series of meetings, the first of which is designed to gather data in order to accurately forecast the future. During this meeting, information from previous sales and industry trends are assessed and future predictions are made.

2. Demand Planning: This step requires collaboration between multiple departments to complete properly. Executives from sales, operations, marketing, etc. come together to adjust inventory levels, marketing and sales strategies, and customer service policies to match the data gathered in the previous step.

3. Production Planning: Next, company leadership analyzes their company’s supply chain in regards to capacity. They’ll decide if the current set up — manpower, machinery, suppliers, etc. — are adequate for their forecasted needs. A supply plan is then crafted on the decision they reach.

4. Pre-SOP Meeting: This stage of the S&OP process requires leadership personnel from multiple departments to meet, collaborate, and evaluate the financial ramifications of the forecasted demand and supply plans.

6. Exec S&OP Meeting: Next, leaders from finance, sales, operations, marketing, and other relevant departments meet once again to discuss all data previously gathered and develop a viable sales operation plan to implement.

7. Finalize and Implement S&OP: Finally, once the S&OP plan is finalized and approved, it’s implemented and monitored for effectiveness. 

By conducting each of the meetings above, you’ll be able to implement a winning sales and operations plan for your organization.

Key S&OP Metrics

Sales and operations planning isn’t a one time event. Your S&OP plan must be monitored and evaluated on a regular basis, as we mentioned. To do so, pay attention to the following metrics:

Demand Forecast Accuracy: Did you accurately forecast demand, or were your projections off? Continually assess how on-target your forecasts are.

Inventory Turnover: Related to demand forecast accuracy, how quickly are you turning over inventory? As quickly as you thought you would?

On-Time Delivery: It’s important to analyze your supply chain and ensure your team is delivering products on time. If not, you likely have a supply chain issue that needs fixing.

Order Accuracy: Similarly, it would also behoove you to monitor your S&OP plan for order accuracy. Speed is great, but not if you’re quickly producing subpar work.

Total Sales: Moving on to financial S&OP metrics, total sales numbers will help key you in to how healthy your organization is in the monetary department.

Gross Margin: Hopefully, your total sales meet your projected targets. Equally as important, ensure your gross margin is hitting company projections too.

Working Capital Projections: Does your company have as much working capital in the bank as your team forecasted? If not, it’s time to evaluate why and adjust projections.

There are plenty of other key S&OP metrics you could measure as well. But the seven listed above are important and will get your evaluation efforts started off on the right foot.

Tips for Improving Your S&OP Process

At this point, your sales and operations planning process should be in place. Congratulations! But your work is far from over. 

To ensure the S&OP plan is as effective as it possibly can be, keep these sales and operations planning best practices in mind:

1. S&OP Should Start at the Top

Your sales and operations planning efforts will only be successful if company leaders buy-in and lead the charge. Without executives, the process will get bogged down as lower-level employees continually seek approvals.

Plus, upper management sets the tone and mentality for the entire company. When every day team members see their bosses making a point to prioritize the S&OP process, they’ll naturally learn to prioritize it too.

2. Clearly Define the End Goal

What is your organization trying to achieve by implementing a sales and operations planning process? Inventory optimization? Reduced supply chain costs? Maybe you want to improve demand forecasting accuracy.

Whatever your objective, make sure it’s clear to all at the beginning of your S&OP process flow. That way everyone involved knows what they’re aiming for and can collaborate cross-functionally to achieve it.

3. Know Your Sales Numbers

It’s common knowledge that sales are hard to forecast. There are just too many variables to effectively predict the number of sales a company will make within a given time frame. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even try.

By studying your sales numbers from months and years past, you can work out future sales projections with reasonable accuracy.

Image: SPOTIO Executive Insights report.

This information can then be used during the sales and operations planning process to better predict supply and demand needs.

A tool like SPOTIO will give you accurate, real-time information regarding your team’s sales numbers, which can be used to improve your forecasting efforts.

4. Plan for the Unknown

Nothing in life—or business— is guaranteed. As such, it’s vital that you plan for the unknown. Have contingency strategies for multiple scenarios. If you lose your biggest client, how will your company pivot? If you land a new mega-account, how can you meet the new demand?

You can’t plan for everything, nor should you try. But having a few backup strategies in place is just smart business and should become a part of your sales and operations plan.

5. Understand the Impact of Supply and Demand Changes

If you don’t understand how supply and demand changes will affect your organization, you’ll likely run into problems—problems that could easily be avoided with a deeper understanding of the chain and time spent modeling different scenarios.

For example, were you to land a new account and increase production to meet heightened demand over the next six weeks, modeling will be able to tell you what kind of short-term financial setbacks you’re likely to incur, as well as long-term benefits. Management can then use this information to make more informed decisions.

Do your company a favor and study your supply chain by modeling different scenarios and understanding how certain changes affect your company as a whole.

S&OP Software

The good news is, there are great S&OP software solutions to help you implement and monitor everything we’ve covered in this article. Here are a few top options:

SAP Integrated Business Planning

SAP Integrated Business Planning is a popular solution for S&OP purposes. The tool features scenario planning and simulations, social collaboration, and powerful predictive analytics. When combined together, these capabilities ensure organizations are able to plan their resources effectively and monitor their results with ease. 

SAP Integrated Business Planning is available for purchase as a monthly subscription, though pricing details are not listed on its website. Contact a SAP representative for more information.

Infor Sales and Operations Planning

Infor Sales and Operations Planning is another great tool for S&OP purposes. Like its competitor, SAP, the Infor solution allows users to easily monitor sales and operations.

A few specific features include the ability to synchronize supply and demand imbalances, evaluate “what if?” scenarios to master the connected value chain, and visualize data to quickly compare to multiple statistical forecast models. Infor also comes with 24/7 elite support.

Pricing information is not available on the Infor website. Contact the team for cost details.

SPOTIO Field Sales Engagement Platform

Lastly, we have SPOTIO, wish is not a traditional S&OP software. But it does have valuable tools, which companies can use to better manage outside sales reps, plan sales strategies, forecast future results, and measure sales team success. This is important information to have when sales and operations planning.

From lead generation solutions to appointment setting options to CRM integrations, SPOTIO is packed with the features you need to both sell and make solid business decisions. Request a free demo today and see the software in action for yourself.

The Value of S&OP

Business leaders may recognize the value of sales and operations planning, yet not know how to implement it. With the right software — like SPOTIO — companies can begin the S&OP process immediately, focusing on essential business functions, then expanding S&OP to other areas over time.

SPOTIO gives you the real-time data you need to make better business decisions, improve your forecasting, and troubleshoot underperforming territories. It also helps sales reps work more efficiently, eliminating the need for tedious administrative tasks.

Let SPOTIO help you with your S&OP.

How big is your slice of that pie?

Ultimately, that will depend on how successful you are as a sales rep.

In telecom sales, the most valuable reps are the ones that get out the door and talk face-to-face with their customers. They can use the hard work they’ve put into researching and understanding their product to answer questions in person and help customers find the best solution for their needs.

While there are many moving pieces in the sales process, there are a handful that typically prevent telecommunications sales reps from reaching their true earning potential.

We’ll look at each one in this article, and then cover 10 ways you can level-up and succeed.

Key Responsibilities of Telecommunications Sales Positions

So, what exactly do people in telecom sales positions do?

First, telecom sales managers are the ones that organize the team and get it ready for action. They take on the responsibility of hiring and training new sales reps to create the best possible team.

These sales managers also equip teams with the best tools and keep track of the team’s performance as a group and as individuals, providing help when necessary and pushing them to achieve more.

For telecom sales reps, the job is very similar to other sales roles.

To start, they’ll need to prospect for new potential customers and qualify them to find the ones that really fit their business. Next, they’ll develop a personalized pitch that takes into account the needs and circumstances of each prospect.

For many reps, a lot of time is also spent following up with those prospects, answering questions, overcoming objections, and helping them find the perfect solution for their problems.

Why Telecom Sales Reps May Not be Earning to Their Full Potential

While the telecommunications sales market is full of potential earnings, some sales reps are still not raking in the cash.

Why?

There are some common reasons why telecom sales reps might not be earning the amount they expected:

• Sales reps are unprepared to address objections.
• Reps aren’t conducting effective qualification.
• There’s no established strategy for assigning sales territories.
• Sales reps are unprepared for the objections their leads raise.
• Reps don’t follow up with their qualified leads.
• The team lacks a system for tracking rep performance.
• Sales reps are undereducated in their product, how it works, and how it solves problems for their customers.
• Sales training isn’t an ongoing process.

Do you see yourself reflected in this list? If so, don’t worry: Each of these common sales issues has a solution.

In fact, if you’re looking to level-up your sales game, we’re going to discuss 11 ways that you can improve your skills and reach your earning potential.

11 Ways to Boost Your Telecom Sales Pipeline

1. Set a 30-60-90 Day Plan

One of the biggest reasons that sales reps fail to reach their potential (or their quota) is that they lack a viable plan to do so.

That’s where the 30-60-90 plan comes in. This tool is normally used in onboarding, but it can also help an established sales rep align themselves with the team, and work forward toward the goal of closing more sales.

It normally looks something like this:

(Source)

Basically, this involves separating out goals for the short term and the long term. What can you accomplish in 30 days? In 60? In 90?

Write down these goals, and measure your success as you move forward. That way, you’ll keep progressing.

2. Know the Customer Better Than They Know Themselves

Who are your customers?

If you can’t answer that question clearly, it’s time to get back to your customer personas.

These personas are built like profiles of real people. They include information such as demographics, company information, pain points, goals, challenges, shopping preferences, data on where they go to gather information, and so forth.

Check out this example from L&T:

Ultimately, you need to know your customers and the challenges they face every day. Then you’ll be able to appeal to them on a personal level.

Using customer personas allows you to view your leads not as just numbers on your sales charts, but as real people that you can provide solutions for.

3. Build Transferable Product Knowledge

Other than people who work in telecommunications, who really understands how this stuff works?

The majority of your customers probably don’t understand the inner workings of the telecom services and products they use. More than that: They don’t really want or need to understand.

Here’s where you, the telecom sales rep, come in: You must become the friendly guide who leads customers to the products that will solve their problems most efficiently.

This requires you to have two important skills:

• An encyclopedic knowledge of the products you sell and how they work.
• The ability to transfer that knowledge successfully.

Don’t bombard leads with unimportant details about the inner workings of the telecom world. Leave the technical jargon at the office, and focus on clearly explaining how your product solves a problem.

By doing this, you can become the helpful consultant and confidant that customers call when they have an issue they can’t solve.

4. Prospect Smarter

Did you know that 42% of sales reps say that prospecting is the part of the sales strategy process they struggle with the most?

If you want to level-up your sales, you need to improve prospecting.

First, you need to find the right tools to research effectively. For example, SPOTIO’s Lead Machine helps field reps perform quick research by taking a target area and detailing the places where you’ll find better leads.

Simply input your ideal customer data and SPOTIO will filter results for you. You can sort by over 50 data points such as job title, company size, annual revenue, etc.

Let an expert tool like SPOTIO do the heavy lifting for you, and you’ll find that prospecting is a breeze!

Another way to improve your prospecting skills is to warm up leads via social media. Connecting on LinkedIn is a great way to engage prospects and find new leads.. Follow their posts to learn more about their companies, and react to their content to establish common ground.

5. Map & Assign Territories

Without clear territories, the sales reps on a team will be stepping on each other’s toes, working the same areas, or missing out on valuable leads.

It’s the job of the sales manager to assign territories. By doing so, they can help their whole sales team to stay focused and work more efficiently.

Using a tool like SPOTIO, telecom sales managers can map out specific areas for their reps to work in based on data points such as:

• Cities
• Counties
• ZIP Codes
• Specific streets or addresses
• General neighborhoods

This quickly enables managers to complete balanced territories for their reps to work, increasing their productivity and helping them reach their goals.

6. Use Pain-Based Qualification

Purchase decisions are usually motivated either by pleasure or pain. In telecom sales, it’s safe to say that most purchases are made because of some sort of pain, whether the wireless internet doesn’t reach the back corner of the office, conference calls keep cutting out, or the legacy telecom equipment is out of date.

It’s your job as the telecommunications sales rep to uncover that pain, and qualify a prospect for your product.

Start by trying to understand the problem. Ask questions like:

• How did you try to fix the problem?
• Why did you choose that approach?
• Why do you think this solution didn’t work?
• What would you like to do differently this time?

Then, you can dig a little deeper into the actual pain that this problem has caused:

• How much did this cost your company?
• How did it affect you (or your team) personally?
• How committed are you to solving this problem?

This line of questions is known as the Sandler Pain Funnel, and will help you understand the problem better, as well as how your product can solve the issue.

7. Prepare for Objections

Sales reps need to know exactly what to say when common objections arise.

First, write out a list of the most common objections prospects have.

Next, write down questions you can use to better understand the objection, and an appropriate response. Each prospect has their own motivation or thinking, and its important that you understand the root cause of this objection before you respond.

For example, let’s say the objection is over the price. Are they concerned because the price seems too high for what they’re getting? In that case, you can help them understand the value of the product and what it can do for them. But if they’re concerned about price because they have a tight budget, you might focus on the ROI that other customers have received.

8. Perfect Your Pitch

To build the perfect pitch, know your prospect and your product, and match their problems to the best possible solution. In other words: explain clearly what you do, but focus on how it benefits the customer.

Check out this example of a fantastic elevator pitch from G2Crowd:

“G2Crowd is the user-voice platform for people to be able to say how they actually think about software, and not be told by the analysts, or people who don’t use it, or the reference from your best customers. You’re actually hearing directly from the user and engaging with people who actually use the product.”

 

This pitch is short, informative, and motivational. You can follow this example by making your pitch clear, and focusing on how your product benefits the customer.

Always remember to be enthusiastic. That enthusiasm for your product can easily transfer to your prospects.

9. Improve Your Follow-Up Game

The best way to improve your follow-up is to vary the channels you use. Field reps obviously focus on the in-person contact, but don’t limit your follow-ups to meetings.

Try sending a follow-up email, getting on the phone, or even getting in contact over social media. This varied approach may help you reach a prospect better.

Also, when following up, be persistent. It’s been found that 80% of sales require 5 follow-up touches after a meeting, but a whopping 44% of sales reps give up after the first follow-up.

Don’t leave valuable prospects on the table.

Of course, there is a balance here: While you should be persistent, don’t let the follow-up process drag on forever. Set a limit of a couple of months, and if you get no response, know when to stop.

10. Track Rep Performance

To improve rep performance, all data must be stored and tracked. For telecom sales managers, using a tool like SPOTIO can help them keep an eye on how each of their reps is performing, and who may need a little help.

SPOTIO’s rep tracking feature allows managers to stay informed in real-time as their outside sales team is in the field.

Sales reps can drop pins as they work, updating the status of new prospects and leads and letting their managers know where they are. Managers can also see data on how sales reps are performing, who’s hitting or missing their quota, and so forth.

11. Focus On Sales Training

Based on team performance, sales managers may identify opportunities for additional sales training. Keep in mind that sales training should be an ongoing process, and empowering sales reps to learn may help reduce turnover.

Final Thoughts

Working as a sales rep in the telecommunications industry may not be the easiest job, but it is well worth the effort.

This industry is growing, and the telecom sales reps who are working to improve their game now will reap better rewards in the future.

Are you ready to be one of them?

If so, using the right tools will make a difference. SPOTIO has helped sales teams increase productivity by 46%.

What could it do for you?

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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity. 

In addition to what you should be doing, sales time management often comes down to what you shouldn’t be doing.

In order to double your selling time you need to place as much of a focus on eliminating the tasks you shouldn’t be doing as the ones you should. The primary reason for this is the countless number of activities that simply waste your time each day without contributing to helping achieve sales targets.

The timeless phrase “time is money” has never been more accurate for field sales organizations. Prioritizing your workday can often result in the difference between closing a deal and being shut out. When your time is used in a strategic approach, you’re more likely to record your biggest week or break out of a slump.

While there’s many upsides to this specific topic, organization is commonly one of the most challenging things for field sales reps to completely comprehend and implement. With the number of things that need to be done on a day to day basis, field salespeople have numerous things competing for their attention.

Time management in sales comes down to how you’ll prioritize and maximize your time each day. Instead of working more hours, which takes you away from your personal life, a few easy-to-use organizational tips can drastically improve your efficiency.

Table of Contents:

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks
2. Route Planning
3. Qualify Prospects
4. Automation
5. Stop Procrastinating
6. Learn to Say No
7. Dial in The Process
8. Ride the Momentum
9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask
10. Manage Your Inbox
11. Eliminate Distractions
12. Create Your To-Do List The Night Before
13. Use Time Blocks
14. 80/20 Rule
15. Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer
16. Expect To Pivot

16 Tips to Better Manage Your Days, Stay Organized and Increase Efficiency

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks

Administrative tasks are the number one thing preventing sales from spending more time in the field, where they should be. Look for the admin work that can be automated through one tool or another. The minutes, and even seconds, you can save will begin to add up quickly, even if you don’t realize it initially.

Aside from just saving time, you will feel less flustered by the number of things weighing on them on a daily basis. This will allow sales reps to divert more of their energy and attention away from mundane tasks, and focus on things like running demos or answering questions that show buying potential.

A couple tips:

• To-do List: a to-do list app, uses AI to learn your personal productivity habits and schedule your overdue tasks accordingly. In other words, the app will figure out the optimal time for you to get everything done.
• Mailchimp: the world’s largest marketing automation platform. It’s like a second brain that helps millions of customers—from small e-commerce shops to big online retailers—find their audience and engage their customers.

2. Route Planning

Implementing a tool with route optimization is an extremely simple way to boost the production of your field team. When you give reps the power to optimize their routes, they won’t be wasting valuable time driving back and forth across town.

3. Qualify Prospects

Use the lead machine prospecting tool to narrow in on ONLY those people in your territory that meet the demographic details of your ideal customer profile.

As you add your desired customer criteria, the number of leads decrease as Lead Machine hones in on your target customers. No more time wasted selling to people who have no interest in your product or service.

4. Automation

The more you can automate, the more efficient you become. And thanks to the world of technology and open API’s, to some degree or another, you have the ability to automate almost every part of your day.

But what – and how – are sale professionals such as yourself automating their business processes?

Whether it’s lead creation, CRM data entry, opportunity creation, or document management (just to name a few), sales enablement platforms like SPOTIO give you the power to choose from hundreds of business process services to expedite every facet of your sales activity and tracking tasks.  

As a sales person, the more redundant and administrative type tasks you can streamline, the more time you will spend face to face charming your next buyer into a purchase.

5. Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination is extremely detrimental to field sales reps. It’s most often associated with the tasks salespeople despise, like updating their CRM and other administrative work. Utilizing time blocks is a great way to eliminate procrastinating. Breaking your work down into smaller steps is also an effective sales organization tip. Being detailed in your daily tasks is another technique that has proven effective. By knowing exactly what you have to do throughout the day, you can remain focused.

6. Learn to Say No

Saying no to a manager or superior can be a scary proposition, but it’s one of the best sales rep organization tips to get the most out of your day. The first marketing manager we had at SPOTIO is the inspiration for this salesman organization technique. He often told people in our organization that he couldn’t answer our questions or help us complete a task we needed assistance on.

He handled it in a very respectful way. He told us when he had time available or requested that we schedule an appointment on his calendar. What surprised our team was that he handled these situations the same way with everyone in the company, including the CEO.

It wasn’t until after talking to the CEO about how he structured his day that I really put much thought into it. Our CEO had a lot of respect for how plugged in he was on a daily basis, and how he had the discipline to tell each of us that he couldn’t do what we needed the second we asked him. This structure allowed him to remain extremely dialed in and focused on the task at hand.

Might we recommend the book ‘Essentialism’.  This is a great reach which shows you how streamline your days by focusing only on things that are crucial to your end goal, and eliminating all things that are not absolutely necessary.

7. Dial in The Process

One task inhibiting sales rep organization is their pitch. Scripts are often looked down on, and not a “fan favorite” for salespeople, but they usually serve a quality purpose. Many prospects are similar to each other, which is why your company develops their ideal customer profile.

Instead of generating a completely new list of qualification questions for each prospect you speak with, create a set of core questions that you can use as your framework and customize when needed. This framework can be applied to other tasks that eat up a lot of time as well.

Some Example Questions You Can Use:

• How many salespeople do you have?
• What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to managing your sales reps?
• Tell me about your situation… why are you on the market for a new product?
• What’s your biggest challenge right now?
• How long has this problem been going on?
• Have you tried to fix it?
• What do you think it’s costing you?
• How quickly do you need it fixed?

Take prospecting, for example. Develop a way to research and find prospects based on the previous accounts you’ve won. Look for the similarities that show up throughout these accounts over and over. Once you know which data sources are the most valuable, you can immediately go to those sources when researching new opportunities.

8. Ride the Momentum

After winning a deal, completing an important task, or reaching a milestone, your sales reps first instinct may be to reward themselves with a break. But this seemingly harmless practice is actually counterproductive. Instead of taking a break, it’s best to build on our success and dive right into another call.

Momentum is powerful, and difficult to come by. Your salespeople should use the positive flow of energy and confidence to get going right away with another opportunity.

9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask

The perception that those who are blessed with the ability to multitask are more productive workers could not be farther from the truth. Multitasking is a productivity facade. Yes, you’re checking off more boxes and hustinling down your to-do list, but you’re not putting forth your best work. Liken this to quantity versus quality.

A study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that you lose up to 40% of your productivity when trying to do more than one thing at the same time.

The reason is because your mind operates far better when it can focus on one thing at a time. Each type of task requires you to think in a unique way, so by switching from one to-do to another, you’re confusing your brain. So instead of pulling the rug out from under your current task, stay the course and avoid switching to something new. Let your mind get comfy and settle on one thing at a time.

10. Manage Your Inbox

If you’re like most people, your inbox is sure to be a cluttered mess on a daily basis. Start by blocking off time on your calendar each day to read and respond to emails. Remember that time blocks are going to be your best friend. Eliminate all distractions during this time to complete the task as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Create an auto-reply email that goes out anytime you receive a new message. Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour Work Week created a pretty witty template you can replicate:

“Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to email twice daily at 12:00pm ET [or your time zone] and 4:00pm ET.

If you require urgent assistance (please ensure it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 12:00pm or 4:00pm, please contact me via phone at 555-555-5555.”

As you work through the sorting process, identify emails you can take action on immediately. The thought is to prevent delaying something until a later time when you can accomplish a desired action immediately. Look for the emails that you can instantly delete, like spam or promos. Use labels and folders as much as possible to remain as organized as possible without doing any work.

The final thing you can do to manage your inbox more effectively is to unsubscribe from unwanted messages. Sure, it might take a minute or two to complete that process, but it is much more efficient to unsubscribe than it is to get an email from the same company twice a week that you’re just going to delete anyways.

We suggest using a tool like unroll.me to manage and automate this process.

11. Eliminate Distractions

It can be hard to stay focused when your favorite time-wasting site is just a click away. To ensure you stay focused, ruthlessly get rid of every distraction. If you don’t use a website for your job, block it using the browser extension Blocksite.

Reps should also stow their cell phones out of sight. It’s all too tempting to check social media or your texts if you can see or hear notifications come up.

12. Create Your To-Do List The Night Before

Instead of wasting your productive mornings organizing your day, do it right before you leave for the night. That way, you can get right to work when you come into the office the next day. Save taskslike these for when you’re burned out in the evenings, and make the most of the time you have.

13. Use Time Blocks

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy invented by Francesco Cirillo designed to boost productivity by segmenting your day between bouts of intense focus and short breaks.

14. 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) is nothing new to the majority of salespeople. The rule follows the principle that 20% of your time produces 80% of your results. The goal is to focus your time, 

effort and energy on the tasks that will result in a maximum return on your investment. Reduce the hours you put into the tasks that are likely to have minimal impact on achieving your sales targets.

For field sales reps, the best way to think of and apply the 80/20 rule is to recognize that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers.

Sales rep organization comes down to knowing where to focus your attention. This places an increased emphasis on qualifying prospects sooner rather than later.

Qualification is exceptionally important as it pertains to the 80/20 rule because you’ll undoubtedly have names in your pipeline that will never convert, while others will become high-value, long-term customers, but you have to know how to spot them. Keep this in mind: if you’re speaking to an unqualified prospect, you’re not actually selling.

15. Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer

According to experts, the best time to connect with prospects is in the afternoon, the very early morning, the evening, the late-mid early morning, or on weekends. I think that about covers it. As you probably know, there is no perfect time to connect with your target buyers. It really depends on that particular buyer’s behavior and the way they allocate time to get their jobs done.

If a salesperson is selling to contractors, calling at 10:00 a.m. isn’t going to work because they’re already busy on the job site. Calling on a restaurant with a thriving lunch and dinner business any time after noon is probably not going to yield a favorable conversation. Strive to structure your day around your target buyer’s schedule to avoid wasted time and unanswered calls.

16. Expect To Pivot

Being in outside sales, organize your leads by location and always have the date of your last contact for each prospect noted. If you get stood up for an appointment, you can quickly regroup and connect with other nearby prospects to secure a new meeting rather than drive back to the office or cool your heels in a coffee shop until the next meeting. To help manage this process, a tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Management feature is a tremendous help improving sales efficiency while you’re out in the field.  

This tactic also applies to inside sales. Prospects cancel all the time, so salespeople should always be prepared to pivot into other profitable activities. The trick is to not shift gears on those activities. Say you’re prepared to have an exploratory call scheduled to run an hour and the prospects flakes on you. Since you’re already in the mindset of the exploratory call, spend that reclaimed hour prepping for other exploratory calls you have booked that week. Your mind is already focused on the exploratory process. Keep it there.

I’m sure some of you are saying to yourselves, that’s foolish advice — you should use that time to prospect or make follow-up calls. But here’s the thing. Unless you have your leads at the ready and you’re fully prepped to prospect, the odds are you’ll waste time getting ready to make those calls.

Conclusion

The goal is to work smarter as opposed to harder. Nobody wants to work longer hours to make the same money or meet their sales targets. By eliminating distractions and having a strategic, focused approach, you’re going to spend more time doing the things that will actually lead to sales.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 outside sales platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

So what is a 30-60-90 day sales plan, and what should it include? Read on to learn how to create a three-month sales plan for any outside sales career.

What is a 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan?

A 30-60-90 day sales plan explains the measurable goals for a new hire’s first three months on the job and demonstrates their commitment to personal accountability. More importantly, a 30-60-90 day plan shows management that new hires will be focused on results, even during the onboarding process.

Ultimately, the plan helps sales reps and managers agree on what success will look like in the first 30, 60, and 90 days. It leaves very little ambiguity for measuring a successful transition.

Why Do You Need A 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan?

Sales managers and new sales reps both benefit from a 30-60-90 day sales plan, because it documents progress, challenges, and wins.

Sales leadership can use this plan to ensure sales team members are growing in their role, and to identify any need for additional training or guidance. For both managers and employees, documenting goals and accomplishments is helpful for the sales performance review process — both parties can see details that they might’ve otherwise forgotten over time.

What to Include in a 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

Whether you’re creating one for yourself or for a new employee, each phase of your 30-60-90 day plan should detail a specific focus, priorities, sales goals, and a plan for measuring success.

Consider the following when creating your plan:

Align with team goals

To set your own priorities, you must first understand your team’s goals. These are typically defined by management.

During the interview process, ask questions about sales team goals, the strategy for achieving them, and what success looks like for the team.

Measure progress and success

A plan is not a plan without a clear way to measure success. Include a way to measure each objective in your 30-60-90 day sales plan. Depending on the activity, your goals should tie to one of the following:

1. What you’ve learned
2. How well you’ve adjusted and integrated into your new sales team
3. How ready you are to perform your role without extra support

If, like most successful sales professionals, you have at least one mentor you can count on for advice, ask them to share their own 30-60-90 day sales plan example with you for inspiration.

Five Scenarios That Call for a 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

A 30-60-90 day sales plan takes some time to put together, but you won’t have to do it often. Following are four scenarios in which you may need to create such a plan:

During the interview process

Most sales job interviews today involve multiple steps and stakeholders — from the initial screening with an HR generalist, to the final meeting with high-ranking decision-makers. If you clear the first hurdle in the hiring process, you should start working on your sales plan.

A hiring manager may informally ask you how you would approach your first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job. That’s your opportunity to make a great impression — instead of simply answering the question, you can present a copy of your formal plan that shows you’re thinking ahead and serious about the job.

First week on the job

In some cases — especially if you’ve earned an internal promotion — you may not need to present a 30-60-90 day sales plan until your first week on the job. Even if you’re not asked to provide a plan right away, doing so can help you demonstrate your commitment to your new role.

New territory assignments

If your role is expanding to include management of new territories, create a 30-60-90 day plan for new sales territory areas . Your plan should define geographic boundaries for territories, which sales reps are responsible for those territories, and the metrics you’ll use to evaluate territory performance.

Onboarding new sales managers

A 30-60-90 day sales plan is also useful if you’re onboarding a new sales manager. You can show new sales managers what sales processes or systems they’ll be learning about in the first 30 days, define expectations for the first three months, and explain how you assess performance and communicate feedback.

Building Sales Skills

Companies may expect their sales reps to be continuously improving upon their skills — and to identify opportunities for doing so. Once you’ve settled into your new role, you might need a new 30-60-90 day sales plan that defines:

• How you’ll research new technology that improves your efficiency
• Your timeline for implementing new technology
• How you’ll share new knowledge with your team

You might also use a three-month sales plan to outline your goals for improving your sales strategy, and the sales quota you’re aiming for.

Key Steps for Writing an Effective 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

Ready to get started on your plan? Follow these action steps:

1. Create an outline. Begin by sorting your ideas based on each 30-day increment:

• Onboarding/learning (first 30 days)
• Executing your plan (days 31-60)
• Improving upon your plan (days 61-90)

2. Define your goals. Be ambitious — but realistic — about what you want to achieve personally, and on behalf of your employer, in your first 90 days on the job.

3. Define your metrics. How will you measure your goals? In the first 30 days, your “metrics” may be as simple as “Review employee onboarding videos,” or “Complete CRM platform training.” Metrics will tend to become more granular as you settle into your new role.

The details of your plan will depend upon your role. For example, a 30-60-90 day business plan for sales managers is likely to be more external-facing, with a focus on how to learn about the daily routines of your direct reports. If you’re joining a company as a new territory sales rep, your 30-60-90 day plan should focus more on how you will develop your skills.

Milestones for a 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

Now that you understand the value of a 30-60-90 day sales plan, let’s talk about the appropriate milestones for each phase.

30-Day Plan

You’re starting from scratch, and should begin by answering, “What does success look like in the first 30 days?”

In many cases, the first 30 days should include completing your company/role training plan, understanding the target market, mastering the company’s products or services, and getting to know your colleagues.

Here’s a sample checklist of points s to consider for the first 30 days:

• Have you completed all required company training?
• Do you understand the high-level priorities for your company and team?
• What are the goals your company plans to achieve in the next year?
• Do you have a complete understanding of the target market?
• Do you understand your company’s key products and/or services?
• Do you understand what makes your company unique?
• Do you understand the competition?
• Have you developed connections within the organization?
• Do you have a clear sales plan?

This part of the plan should be heavy on information gathering.

For each of the items in the plan, and any others you add, schedule weekly checkpoints to track progress. This may be a 1:1 with your manager or mentor. At the end of the first 30 days, be prepared to report back on your completion of the plan.

If you didn’t complete a key commitment, that’s OK. As you become more familiar with the job, items on your list may be deprioritized and rolled into the next phase.

60-Day Plan

During the second month, new sales reps are able to spend more time in the field. During this phase of the plan, the focus should be getting to know the market, nurturing relationships with prospects and clients, and understanding the customer experience, including what’s working well and where the team can better support customers.

During the 31-60 day period, you should ask for feedback from your manager, team, and customers about what you’re doing well and what you can improve.

During this time, you should also be looking for opportunities to learn from your peers and identifying ways to work more efficiently. This shows your sales manager that you are eager to keep up with the team and that you want to help move the company forward.

Here’s a sample checklist of points to consider for your 60-day plan:

• Have you introduced yourself to key clients and prospects?
• Have you completed a customer experience and satisfaction review?
• Have you participated in adequate job shadowing with peers and management?
• Have you completed all formal training requirements?
• Have you started developing new leads?
• Do you have a tool to help you map out sales routes?

By the 60-day checkpoint, you should be able to show that you can handle the workload and that you’re ready to succeed on the team. Between days 31 and 60, you should have enough of an understanding of the business to speak up, ask questions, share ideas, and engage in discussion.

90-Day Plan

Days 61-90 are all about building on what you learned during the first 60 days and making an impact. This may mean you start optimizing your prospect list with larger, more strategic clients. It may also mean revisiting cold leads to see whether you can initiate new conversations.

Your plan for days 61-90 should cover how you’ll establish and build relationships with clients and prospects, as well as how you’ll implement feedback to become better at your job and help support your team.

Here’s a sample checklist of points to consider for your 90-day plan:

• Have you met all key accounts and started developing relationships?
• Have you started prospecting for new leads?
• Have you actively asked for feedback from your peers and management?
• Have you used feedback to adjust your strategy and approach?
• Have you established a schedule that works for you, your clients, and your team?
• Have you established credibility within the team?
• Do you feel successfully “on board”?

At 90 days, you should feel confident in your new role. While nobody will expect you to be a seasoned expert, you should know enough to perform critical sales tasks without a lot of guidance.

4 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Building A 30-60-90 Day Sales Plan

You should be off to a great start in developing your 30-60-90 day sales plan. But, as with anything, things can easily get derailed.

In this section, we’ll cover common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Failing To Include Details

As you’ll recall, the most important function of your plan is to clearly outline your objectives. Make sure that your plan has no room for misinterpretation. Include specifics in your plan such as dates, percentages, and other figures.

2. No plan to measure success

It’s not really a plan if there is no way to measure success. Within each phase of your plan, be specific about what constitutes successful completion of a task.

3. A fixed mindset

When you start a new role, you have a lot to learn. By the time you start executing a plan, you’ll likely find some of your assumptions incorrect, and you’ll need to adjust the plan accordingly.

Don’t let this bog you down, or worse, stop you from following through. Make sure your plan is flexible enough to make adjustments as needed.

4. Not Following Up With Your Manager

A 30-60-90 day sales plan requires ongoing two-way communication between employee and manager. Without ongoing feedback, there’s no way to know if you’re truly meeting expectations.

Ready. Set. Plan.

Your 30-60-90 day sales plan should serve as a tool to establish yourself in a new role and organization, and to promote your growth and development.

Coming to the table with a plan is the best way to hit the ground running, build credibility, and show team members you are eager and prepared.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 sales acceleration software designed to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity in just 2 weeks.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

There’s a great debate taking place about Inside Sales vs Outside Sales. Is one method better than the other? If so, which one? There’s certainly no definitive answer because it depends on the person you’re talking to, their prior background, previous experience, and how they prefer to sell.

We’re going to let the cat out of the bag right now: inside sales isn’t any better than outside sales or vice versa. Both approaches can yield amazing results. The key is understanding the difference between the two so that you can choose the right one for your organization. So that’s what we’ll focus on today!

Keep reading to learn about inside and outside sales, how each can benefit your company, how to build teams in each medium, and more.

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales: What’s the Difference?

You can’t settle the inside sales vs. outside sales debate for your company until you understand the main differences between these two approaches.

In this section, we’ll define what inside and outside sales are, as well as salary, sales cycle, job activities, popular tools, and necessary skill sets, for each.

What is Inside Sales?

Inside sales, sometimes referred to as remote sales, is the process of selling to customers from a distance. Inside sales reps typically work from a company office and use phones, emails, and other digital communication channels to close deals.

The organizations that tend to have the most success with an inside sales process are B2B brands, especially in the SaaS and tech industries.

What is Outside Sales?

Outside sales, AKA field sales, is the process of selling to customers via face-to-face correspondence. Outside sales reps spend a majority of their time traveling from customer to customer, away from their company’s headquarters.

Companies that employ field sales teams often sell expensive products and/or services.

Salaries for Inside and Outside Sales Rep Salaries

What does it cost to hire an inside sales team? What about the cost to bring in a few outside sales reps? Let’s talk about typical salaries for inside vs. outside sales:

Inside sales rep salary

According to Glassdoor, the average inside sales salary in the United States is $44,791 a year. Payscale pins the figure a bit higher at $45,448 a year. Either way, expect to pay inside sales reps about $45k a year.

Outside sales rep salary

Referring back to Glassdoor, the average outside sales salary in the United States is $57,696 per year. But according to Payscale, the average salary is closer to $50k per year. Regardless, outside sales reps typically make more than inside ones.

Of course, the salaries mentioned above are just averages. If your company is located in a high-cost area such as San Francisco, you’ll likely need to pay more.

Sales cycles

One of the biggest differences between inside and outside sales is the complexity and length of the sales cycle. Let’s examine this in greater detail:

Inside sales cycles

The average inside sales rep deals with short sales cycles. In fact, it’s possible for an inside seller to go through an entire cycle, start to finish in as little as a few hours.

This is because most inside sales reps sell low-cost products. As such, their margins are quite slim, which means they don’t have time to spend multiple days on each lead. The goal is volume: more sales in less time equals success.

Outside sales cycles

Outside sales reps, on the other hand, are used to long sales cycles. Why? Because they typically sell high-cost products and services. To close these kinds of deals reps must build trusting relationships with prospects, which requires time.

Job activities

So what do inside and outside sales teams actually do on a regular basis? Each has a unique set of sales activities they need to complete to find success.

Inside sales activities

• Report to a company office and work consistent hours.
• Use the phone, emails, and other digital channels to engage prospects.
• Nurture leads by answering questions and displaying product knowledge.
• Close deals at a consistent clip in order to meet predetermined quotas.
• Catalog relevant sales data into a CRM and report to management.

Outside sales activities

• Connect with leads and schedule in-person meetings with them.
• Travel from prospect to prospect to meet prospects face-to-face.
• Stay in-touch with leads and nurture them through the sales cycle.
• Catalog relevant sales data into a CRM and report to management.
• Close high-value deals as often as possible and meet quota.
• Attend industry conferences, trade shows, and other events.

Toolkits

Inside and outside sales teams use different tools—mostly because they’re asked to complete different tasks, as we talked about in the previous section.

Outside sales teams need tools that can help them do things like build and manage territories, map routes, and monitor rep activity. For inside sales teams, auto-dialers and email tracking software are more pertinent.

Let’s take a closer look at the tools used by inside and outside sales teams:

Inside sales toolkit

• CRM Software: Customer relationship management software, better known as CRM software, is essential for inside sales reps. With this tool, sellers can catalog information about prospects, track their progress through the buyer’s journey, identify upsell and cross sell opportunities, and much more.

• Email Sequence Software: Most inside sales reps use email to connect with, qualify, and sell to prospects. The problem is, it takes a lot of time to send individual emails. Email sequence software allows reps to automate emails so that they can accomplish more sales activities in less time.

• Prospecting Tools: An inside sales rep is only as good as his or her leads. That’s why prospecting tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator and UpLead are so important for inside BDRs. With these tools, inside reps can easily find potential buyers, connect with them, and pass information along to their CRM of choice.

• Wireless Headsets: A wireless headset might not be mandatory for inside sales reps, but it’s pretty close. Once an inside seller has one, they’ll be able to multitask much easier. For example, they’ll be able to take notes while they chat with prospects on the phone, boosting their productivity levels.

Outside sales toolkit

• Canvassing: Before outside sales reps can close deals, they have to meet prospects. As such, canvassing is an integral part of the sales process. Canvassing software makes it much easier to organize prospect information.

• Territory management: One outside sales rep can’t sell to all of your company’s customers. That’s why you need software to divide territories and give each to the most qualified rep. Doing so will increase team efficiency.

• Appointment setting: Outside reps are asked to regularly connect with potential customers in face to face scenarios. But before they can do that, they have to schedule their meetings in the most efficient ways possible. An appointment setting tool is essential in this regard.

• Route planning: Outside sales reps spend a lot of time traveling. A software tool that can identify the shortest route between customers and prospects will greatly increase rep productivity.

• Rep tracking: Is your outside sales team succeeding? Management needs tools to track their reps’ activities to answer this question; then use the information gleaned to increase sales performance.

• Customer mapping: Where are your customers located? How about your leads and qualified opportunities? When outside sales reps can see this information on a map, their job becomes much easier to do.

• Sales tracking: At the end of the day, sales are the only things that matter. As such, outside sales managers need to track and forecast sales for their teams, which is much easier to do with the right software tools.

Skill sets

Inside sales and outside sales may have a lot of similarities, and while they’re both still “sales,” there are some key differences that define a successful rep for each category, like inside reps understanding the importance of terminology.

Sales models

While we’ve alluded to the different sales models for inside and outside sales teams, we haven’t fully described what each one looks like.

Inside sales model:

• Acquire qualified leads.
• Connect with potential buyers via digital channels.
• Typically close deals in 90 days or less. (Note: sales cycles can vary.)
• Spend less money on inside sales teams and scale with less effort.

Outside sales model:

• Travel from prospect to prospect.
• Nurture and convert potential buyers.
• Typically close deals in 90 days or more. (Note: sales cycles can vary.)
• Spend more money on outside sales teams and scale with greater effort.

Geographies

Another key distinction in the inside vs outside sales debate has to do with geographies. In general, inside sales teams focus on selling to prospects in large territories. In fact, some inside sellers don’t focus on territories at all. They might sell to a customer in Oklahoma one week and a customer in London the next.

Outside sales teams, though, usually focus their efforts in very narrow territories. For example, an outside seller might spend all of their time in a single neighborhood, assuming said neighborhood has a collection of quality prospects.

Outside sellers typically work narrow territories because they travel from prospect to prospect. It would be extremely time consuming, not to mention expensive, for outside sellers to travel to different states and/or countries to meet with leads.

Close rates

What about close rates? Do inside or field sales reps close a higher percentage of deals? There are always outliers, of course, i.e. folks who buck common trends. But generally speaking, outside sales teams boast higher close rates.

This is because outside sales teams are adamant about finding and pursuing high quality leads. If they don’t, their entire sales strategy falls apart because it will take too much time and cost too much money to make a sale.

Inside sellers have more leeway. As such, they often focus on quantity because their margins are so thin. This lowers their close rate.

So, as you can see, while outside sales professionals have better close rates than inside sales reps, it’s not because they’re better at their jobs. It’s because they focus on more buy-ready leads, allowing them to convert a higher percentage of them into paying customers.

Metrics and KPIs

By now it should be pretty obvious: inside and outside sales are very different. Because of this, each sales team structure focuses on different activity-based and performance metrics.

Here are a few important metrics and KPIs for each:

Inside sales metrics

• Connect Rate
• Call Outcome
• Calls Per Hour
• Meetings Scheduled
• Deals Closed
• Forecast Accuracy

Outside sales metrics

• Sales Activities
• Leads Created
• Meetings Scheduled
• Logged Visits
• Deals Closed
• Referral Requests
• Attempted Upsells

Benefits of Inside Sales

As we’ve said multiple times in this article, when it comes to inside vs outside sales, one is not better than the other. They’re just different. As such, each sales strategy has different benefits. Here are a few benefits of inside sales:

• Greater speed: Inside sales professionals are able to respond to customers quicker. Why? Because they don’t have to travel to meet them. They just pick up the phone and give them a call, or type out a quick email.

• Fewer costs: Inside sellers make sales from inside a company office, which means they don’t have to worry about travel expenses. This fact allows inside sales teams to generate and convert leads for less money.

• Higher productivity: It’s a well-known fact that the average sales rep spends just 37% of their time selling. The number is even lower for most outside sales professionals because, once again, they have to travel to prospects. Windshield time is one of the biggest productivity killers for outside sellers.

Benefits of Outside Sales

What about outside sales? What are the benefits of this sales model? There are many. But we’ll focus on the top three:

• Stronger relationships: Because outside sales teams have face to face interactions with prospects, they’re able to build stronger relationships with customers and encourage greater loyalty from them.

• Higher close rates: Like we discussed in a previous section, outside sellers boast higher close rates than their inside counterparts. This is doubly beneficial because outside sales generally result in bigger deals, too!

• Easier to motivate reps: Lastly, it’s usually easier to motivate outside sales reps than it is to motivate inside ones. Why? Because almost all outside sales teams are paid commissions. Most people will work harder when they have money on the line. When inside sellers are only paid an annual salary, there isn’t as much incentive for them to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Inside and Outside Sales Statistics

We’ve given you a ton of information so far. How about we share a few cold, hard facts next? Here are 14 statistics about inside vs. outside sales:

• Inside sales teams are growing 15x faster than outside sales teams.
• An outside sales call costs $308, an inside sales call costs $50 (PointClear)
• 44% of inside sales pipeline comes from marketing, and inside sales average dials are down 20% year-over-year (Bridge Group Inc)
• 37% of high-growth companies use inside sales as primary sales strategy (vs. 27% for field sales, 23% for internet sales, 8% for channel sales) (Pacific Crest)
• Only 33% of inside sales rep time is spent actively selling. (CSO Insights)
• Sales reps can spend up to 40% of their time looking for somebody to call. (Inside Sales)
• Research shows that 35% to 50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. (InsideSales.com)
• The average yearly quota for an inside sales professional is $985,000. (Harvard Business Review)
• Face to face or field sales teams make up 71.2% of the sales force.
• 65% of outside account executives attain quota, which is 10% higher than inside reps.
• Outside sales reps now spend 89% more time selling remotely than in 2013.
• Outside sales reps achieve an average 40% closing rate. (IHireSalesPeople)
• Following the COVID-19 pandemic, 27% of field sales teams were considering a shift from traditional field sales into virtual sales roles.
• The average yearly quota for outside sales reps is approximately $2.7M. (Harvard Business Review)

Structuring Inside and Outside Sales Teams

Are you interested in building inside and outside sales teams for your company? Then you should know that there are three ways to structure your department:

1. Split Your Inside and Outside Sales Teams

With this approach, your inside and outside sales teams will operate independently and each will have their own goals, leads, and quotas to hit.

The best part about this setup is that it enables each team to play to their strengths. The downside is that you’ll essentially have to run two separate departments: one for inside sales and one for outside sales.

2. Have Your Inside and Outside Sales teams Work Together

With this approach, your inside and outside sales teams will work together. Don’t worry, inside reps will still handle inside sales tasks and outside sales reps will handle outside sales tasks. But they won’t operate in silos.

Here’s an example: Your inside sales reps will connect with potential customers who live outside of the hundred mile radius that your outside sales reps work. When they find ready-to-buy prospects, they hand them off to outside sellers who then travel to the prospects place of business and attempt to close the deal.

3. Hire Hybrid Sales Reps to Complete Inside and Outside Sales

With hybrid sales, your sales reps will handle both inside and outside sales tasks.

What does this look like in the real world? When your reps are in the office, they make calls, send emails, etc. in an attempt to connect with prospects. On out-of-office days, your reps travel to their highest priority leads for in-person meetings, at which they do their best to close deals.

Inside Sales or Outside Sales: Which is better for your business?

It’s a tough decision to make. Both inside and outside sales approaches have pros and cons. To help you make the right choice, analyze the table below.

Have you decided to invest in outside sales? Then sign up for a free demo of SPOTIO. Our industry-leading sales engagement platform will help your team automate tedious tasks, split territories, connect with prospects on a variety of channels, track rep activities and company sales, and more.

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