5 Time-Saving Tips For Busy Sales Teams

We’ve put together some advice to help you maximize your schedule, including using a scheduling app to manage your client bookings. 

For salespeople, time management can be an ongoing issue. Often you’ll find that you don’t have enough time in the day to meet with everyone you planned to. Intensive admin work can add to your frustration. How can you close deals when you can’t find a minute to make that final closing call?

In this article, we share some quick wins to help you find more time in your day.

Time-box your calls

When a lead comes in, you don’t have the luxury of time to spend hours on the phone. Prioritize your calls according to importance to ensure you don’t spend all day locked in conversation. 

If you simply need to qualify a lead, have some standard questions ready to help you guide the call. You’ll be able to gauge quite quickly if the lead is qualified or not. Look over any existing data you have to help you pre-qualify as much as possible. 

Try to keep introductory calls between 7-10 minutes. If you’re cold calling, you’re more than likely going to end up speaking to someone’s voicemail. Have a script ready to help you keep your messages under a minute long. 

If you’re speaking to someone for longer than half an hour, you’re not only wasting your own time, but your customer’s as well. Short is always better.

Batch your demos

Conducting demos is an important part of the B2B sales process. They can also be hugely time-consuming. If the volume of demo requests exceeds what you can handle in a week, consider scheduling them at set times from your office and invite leads to attend a time slot that works for them. 

You can also conduct demos in the form of webinars, which can be pre-existing or scheduled at certain times of the week. Scheduling your webinars allows participating guests to pose their questions to you live, like they would if the demo was one-on-one. Including the webinar link in your email signature further eliminates time-consuming back and forth. If a lead wants to attend a demo, they can simply click the link and register. 

Use a scheduling app

Using automation to connect people is an important sales tool and saves a significant amount of time. 

A scheduling app like ScheduleOnce integrates with your website and calendar to allow leads to automatically book a call or a meeting with you without any back and forth. Your booking page includes the type of calls or meetings you accept as well as your available time slots. A lead simply needs to select a date and time and the confirmation will be sent automatically. You can also include a link to your booking page in your email signature. 

Using a scheduling app can potentially increase your meeting bookings by threefold and allow you to make and receive double the amount of sales calls.  

Invest in a CRM

According to LinkedIn's 2019 State of Sales Guide, 64% of salespeople interviewed use CRM tools to close more deals. Finances Online reports that 65% of businesses who use CRMs see a 50% increase in productivity and a 65% increase in sales.  

In a nutshell, a CRM, or Customer Relationship Manager, stores all your customer data in one central location, and makes that data available to everyone in your sales team. You can automate emails, link your calendar and scheduler app, and track a sale from start to finish – all without having to navigate between different applications. 

A CRM works in harmony with your sales tools and optimizes your team’s activity, allowing you to work more efficiently.  

Use email templates

Composing a new email for each and every lead that reaches out to you is going to take up a lot of your time. Rather use email scripts and templates to respond to emails quickly. These can be easily personalized to suit the sender and recipient. There are quite a few useful extensions available from the Chrome store. Use the same standard questions you would for a qualifying call to help you qualify that lead quickly.

Scripts and templates are a great way to reach out to new leads who fill out web forms or sign up for your company newsletter. Keep these emails short and focused, with a clear call to action explaining what you’d like the recipient to do next. 

If you’re using an email management system or CRM, include personalization fields to ensure the system includes the lead’s name and company name. More than 93% of decision-makers are more likely to consider a company if they personalize communication during the sale. Personalizing your subject line will also dramatically improve your open rates. 

Making a few changes to your sales process helps optimize your daily schedule, giving you more time to focus on more important things like building relationships and closing deals. You’ll see a difference in your sales numbers almost immediately. 

You can make the first change right now by test-driving an online scheduling app that removes the back and forth from scheduling meetings. Try ScheduleOnce for free now.