Where Sales Reps Waste the Most Time

Imagine if salespeople could focus 100% of their time on sales related activities? How much more productive would they be? How would that translate to incremental sales for the company?

In a report by InsideSales, studies revealed that sales reps spend a mere 36.6% of their time actually selling. So what are salespeople doing with the other 63.4% of their time?

Prospect Research

While it is extremely important for salespeople to extensively research prospects, a study by Docurated’s State of Sales Productivity reported that around 30% of salespeople’s time is spent on prospect research. The majority of those surveyed agreed that sales productivity is lower than it should be due to excess time spent researching.

Every minute spent researching is a minute that could be better spent closing a deal. While prospect research is extremely important, there are new time efficient solutions that have been slow to increase in popularity.

One solution for this time depleting task is the utilization of lead scoring systems. Although the systems are one of the best prospect research tools, only 44% of companies have reported using them. Proper utilization allows for companies to rank prospects and score sales leads, increasing the efficiency of prospect research and time.

Cold Calls

Although cold emailing has grown exponentially in popularity, cold calling has served as a foundation for sales for countless years. Though a simple concept, cold calling is hard, and getting harder. People are typically reluctant to speak with sales reps and avoid cold calls, leaving it up to salespeople to find immediate connections to their prospects in order to capture their attention. Without any personal connection, cold calls are often a complete waste of time.

Another common pitfall in sales is the tendency for sales reps to present themselves simply as ‘salespeople’ rather than to act as a consultant figure. It is more beneficial and time efficient to sell a product to a prospect based on their needs, rather than overwhelm them with information that may not apply to them. Taking a consultative approach to selling helps increase the close rate.

Salespeople are commonly told to follow the 70/30 Rule of Communication in order to boost the cold call conversion rate. In any sales conversation, the rule states that prospects should do 70% of the talking while the salesperson should only do 30% of the talking (and 70% of the listening). Prospects are more inclined to continue with a sale if they feel the salesperson understands them and their needs.

The most important tip in cold calling is establishing a relationship with the prospect. One of the simplest solutions is to keep the information about the prospect directly in front of you. While speaking with prospects, recalling topics from previous conversations fosters relationship growth. This means capturing key data from every interaction with a prospect is therefore critical.

Capturing Key Data

One of the easiest ways to go wrong in a sale is losing a relationship with a client (or failing to establish one at all). It is important to take detailed notes during any interaction with a prospect. The information the client gives translates directly to how the sale should be approached and — ideally — closed.

However, this may be harder than it appears. During a cold sales call, it becomes extremely distracting to continuously switch attention from note taking to interacting with the prospect. Furthermore, it detracts from the quality of conversation and the ability of the sales rep to stay fully engaged.

Luckily, there is a solution. Rather than taking notes throughout the span of a call or meeting, Fireflies.ai provides an automated note taker — a “bot” — that dials into these important sales calls. With an AI assistant that takes notes for you, salespeople stay engaged and focused on their prospects and closing deals.

The Hassle of Updating CRMs

CRM systems are a vital part of sales, yet data entry duties tend to be one of the most hated tasks. InsideSales reports that around 18% of a sales rep’s time is spent working within the CRM software. Utilized to its full potential, CRM solutions have the potential to multiply a company’s sales. However, this is typically not the case.

Bain’s Survey of Management Tools reported that, out of 451 senior executives, one in every five users revealed that their CRM initiatives had not helped their growth but instead ruined relationships with clients. From input of incorrect data to outdated or missing data, CRMs have the potential to damage customer relationships.

In order to make the data entry both accurate and time efficient, the best solution is to automate the process of gathering customer data. Without room for human error, sales data becomes reliable, complete, and up to date.

Follow Up

Regardless of how important it is to follow up, sales reps commonly fail to spend enough time following up. It is important to consistently reach out to both warm and cold prospects in order to track sales leads and gain a better understanding of the sales funnel.

A study by Scripted reported that 80% of sales require 5 follow up calls, and close to 50% of salespeople give up after one call. In order to track progress and follow up with a multitude of prospects, you must focus on keeping key data up to date.

Solution

Each of the above-mentioned tasks consumes the majority of a sales rep’s valuable time to sell. However, the most obvious solution to saving time in each task is automating the process.

A bulk of a sales rep’s work comes directly from updated and reliable prospect data pool. By implementing automated data entry with an AI assistant bot, salespeople can cut time spent on non-sales producing tasks, and instead, focus their efforts on the valuable process of sales interactions.