How to Build a Remote Sales Team
The secrets to a successful remote sales team.
Working remotely is the future of many teams.
This is especially true of any team focused on inside sales.
After all, inside sales are online sales that can be managed from anywhere, anytime, with a laptop and internet connection.
Building a remote sales team is key to these operations and to the success of companies that have inside sales. Whether B2B or B2C, your remote sales team needs to be top-notch.
But this is easier said than done, and things can go wrong if you don't plan right.
Let's learn how to build a remote sales team that helps you take your revenue to the next level!
This is especially true of any team focused on inside sales.
After all, inside sales are online sales that can be managed from anywhere, anytime, with a laptop and internet connection.
Building a remote sales team is key to these operations and to the success of companies that have inside sales. Whether B2B or B2C, your remote sales team needs to be top-notch.
But this is easier said than done, and things can go wrong if you don't plan right.
Let's learn how to build a remote sales team that helps you take your revenue to the next level!
Challenges of Remote Sales Teams
There are some inherent challenges that come with working remotely that you as a company or company leader need to be aware of. Let's go over a few:
Lack of tools or too many tools
It's been proven that too many tech tools or too few will directly impact your team's productivity and chances of converting prospects into buying customers.
Too many and your workers feel overwhelmed. Too few and they struggle to reach quota.
Let's break this down:
Tech tools are a must for remote work. Even for in-person jobs, CRMs, messaging, scheduling, video calls, and sales enablement – all make a difference.
But you have to pick the right tools.
You need to know your team's needs and how they match up with your company goals, and then deduce from there what you need.
A sales team typically needs to:
You should ask yourself:
Is your team using it? Is it helping? Why or why not? Do you want to keep spending on it?
These questions will help you gauge their usefulness.
For example, tools that check that your teams are moving their cursor around only serve to stress your workers and generate mistrust.
You've hired them, so trust them to get the job done with the right tools at their disposal.
Keeping motivation levels up
It's hard for remote sales teams to see the fruits of their labor. This in turn may make it difficult to keep the level of motivation constant.
Remote sales teams won't always be part of the big, contract-signing meetings that they have all relentlessly been helping to take place.
They won't see the impact all of their daily tasks have.
It makes it difficult for your team to remain motivated if they fail to understand how what they do daily positively affects the company.
It's a good idea to have monthly or bimonthly meetings with your team, going over both the good and the bad, in terms of numbers and strategy. Being transparent and clearly showcasing and communicating how important the work they are doing is will keep your team motivated and hungry to grow.
Difficulty in determining pain points and needs
A complication for remote sales teams is the lack of actual face time with prospects.
Especially when initiating outreach, it may make it difficult to determine your prospect's pain points and needs.
Your team may use meaningless messaging or target the wrong customer profile.
And if they are so off base that they do not receive replies, they may end up hitting a wall quite soon that seems insurmountable.
Your market research is very important for them.
You need to have created base materials for your remote sales team to use as a base. Both an ICP and marketing messaging are absolutely key ingredients in your sales team's success.
Allow them to adapt as needed based on feedback they receive from prospects, but provide them with some talking points and ideas of customers as a starting point. They will then become your main source of information for how to target and market your product or service, as they'll receive immediate feedback and information regarding your industry.
Need for content that truly helps the sale
As mentioned above, you need to provide your sales team with existing content to help them sell.
A landing page for your product or service, a blog that provides additional insight into your services or products, white papers or e-books – all are forms of lead generation in the B2B world that also help your sales process.
But it should not be fluff or sales-y: this content needs to provide true value.
Your team can use similar messaging or links, or attach informative content you've created to help interest and persuade prospective customers to find out more about your product or service.
The sales are not happening in person, in a brick-and-mortar store. The process of persuasion is taking place online, so the more content you have online, the better for your sales team.
Avoiding distractions at home
This is a difficulty for any remote team, sales or otherwise.
The key to avoiding distractions at home is to segment time. It's not as if an office is any less distracting, really.
You have several teammates working in the same space that may converse or distract each other throughout the day.
At home, however, children, pets, deliveries, or other distractions may arise.
The best way to help your workers is to suggest they create time blocks.
Set apart three hours for cold calling. Start your morning by sending out LinkedIn connection requests. Make a LinkedIn post around midday. Prospect for three to four hours in the afternoons, and then spend your mornings reaching out to folks.
Time blocks are a great way for remote teams to concentrate on work while maintaining a work-life balance with tasks they may have at home beyond work.
It's been proven that too many tech tools or too few will directly impact your team's productivity and chances of converting prospects into buying customers.
Too many and your workers feel overwhelmed. Too few and they struggle to reach quota.
Let's break this down:
Tech tools are a must for remote work. Even for in-person jobs, CRMs, messaging, scheduling, video calls, and sales enablement – all make a difference.
But you have to pick the right tools.
You need to know your team's needs and how they match up with your company goals, and then deduce from there what you need.
A sales team typically needs to:
- Be able to send email sequences
- Set up a sales cadence with multiple touchpoints, including emails, dials, social media
- Have access to calendars to schedule meetings or demos
- For inbound sales, the ability to qualify leads
- Be able to prospect with a research tool such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Connect with other members via messaging and weekly calls
- Keep everything organized and updated on a CRM
You should ask yourself:
Is your team using it? Is it helping? Why or why not? Do you want to keep spending on it?
These questions will help you gauge their usefulness.
For example, tools that check that your teams are moving their cursor around only serve to stress your workers and generate mistrust.
You've hired them, so trust them to get the job done with the right tools at their disposal.
Keeping motivation levels up
It's hard for remote sales teams to see the fruits of their labor. This in turn may make it difficult to keep the level of motivation constant.
Remote sales teams won't always be part of the big, contract-signing meetings that they have all relentlessly been helping to take place.
They won't see the impact all of their daily tasks have.
It makes it difficult for your team to remain motivated if they fail to understand how what they do daily positively affects the company.
It's a good idea to have monthly or bimonthly meetings with your team, going over both the good and the bad, in terms of numbers and strategy. Being transparent and clearly showcasing and communicating how important the work they are doing is will keep your team motivated and hungry to grow.
Difficulty in determining pain points and needs
A complication for remote sales teams is the lack of actual face time with prospects.
Especially when initiating outreach, it may make it difficult to determine your prospect's pain points and needs.
Your team may use meaningless messaging or target the wrong customer profile.
And if they are so off base that they do not receive replies, they may end up hitting a wall quite soon that seems insurmountable.
Your market research is very important for them.
You need to have created base materials for your remote sales team to use as a base. Both an ICP and marketing messaging are absolutely key ingredients in your sales team's success.
Allow them to adapt as needed based on feedback they receive from prospects, but provide them with some talking points and ideas of customers as a starting point. They will then become your main source of information for how to target and market your product or service, as they'll receive immediate feedback and information regarding your industry.
Need for content that truly helps the sale
As mentioned above, you need to provide your sales team with existing content to help them sell.
A landing page for your product or service, a blog that provides additional insight into your services or products, white papers or e-books – all are forms of lead generation in the B2B world that also help your sales process.
But it should not be fluff or sales-y: this content needs to provide true value.
Your team can use similar messaging or links, or attach informative content you've created to help interest and persuade prospective customers to find out more about your product or service.
The sales are not happening in person, in a brick-and-mortar store. The process of persuasion is taking place online, so the more content you have online, the better for your sales team.
Avoiding distractions at home
This is a difficulty for any remote team, sales or otherwise.
The key to avoiding distractions at home is to segment time. It's not as if an office is any less distracting, really.
You have several teammates working in the same space that may converse or distract each other throughout the day.
At home, however, children, pets, deliveries, or other distractions may arise.
The best way to help your workers is to suggest they create time blocks.
Set apart three hours for cold calling. Start your morning by sending out LinkedIn connection requests. Make a LinkedIn post around midday. Prospect for three to four hours in the afternoons, and then spend your mornings reaching out to folks.
Time blocks are a great way for remote teams to concentrate on work while maintaining a work-life balance with tasks they may have at home beyond work.
How to Build a Remote Sales Team
Having looked at some challenges inherent in remote sales teams and how to overcome them, let's dive into how to actually build a remote sales team for your business. Let's take a look at five key steps:
1. Outsource with the right company with the right tools
A great way to get started in growing your business is to outsource your sales team, especially if it is remote. Outsourced sales companies such as SalesPipe are experts at pairing the right company with the right talent.
There are many benefits that come with outsourcing, especially early on in the sales process.
Chief amongst them for growing companies is that it is cost-effective to do so, it provides you with access to top talent off the bat, and you have access to the right sales tools.
These sales professionals are familiar with the challenges of working remotely and have already overcome them. They can provide valuable insight for you as you continue to build your own team as well.
For example, most people are unaware or unfamiliar with the importance of email deliverability when it comes to sales outreach and the tools associated with it. This is insight only an outsourcing, specialist company can provide.
2. Have a defined ICP and CTA
As we saw above, you need to have some idea as a company leader or business owner of who your target customers are and what you want to achieve.
Is it a call or a demo? Do you want to go straight to a sale? How long is the sale cycle in your particular industry?
Based on this, you create your call to action – your CTA.
Your ideal customer profile (ICP) is the list of titles, locations, company size, revenue, etc you provide your sales team, so they know who to target while prospecting.
With both of these aspects clearly defined, you will find your pipeline growing quickly and steadily.
3. Set clear KPIs that align with the ICP and CTA
Sales is a numbers game, so you want to have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that reflect that.
It helps both you and your team stay accountable and aware of what is happening, and what is working. You can then deduce why it is working or not, replicate success, or switch gears accordingly.
They must align with the CTA and ICP for them to make sense to your team.
And they can help provide your team with continuous motivation. After all, seeing numbers increase is a great way to help them see their impact.
4. Provide your team with all the resources you have
Similar to the second point, but not as specific: your remote sales team should have access to all the pertinent information and research you have.
They devise different strategies based on that research. If they do not have access to it, something can very easily be missed.
You are not in an office space where they can simply reach over or search in a file cabinet.
You need to ensure they have access to the documentation they need to be set up for success, no matter where it is.
5. Give them the freedom to test things out and make sure they feel comfortable coming to you with their feedback
Finally, one of the best aspects of a remote team is the flexibility and freedom they provide.
You can try new markets, try different strategies according to time zones, or even different countries according to language.
They can try multiple different types of sales channels, and find the best one for you and your product or service.
Or they can receive feedback from prospects about the messaging you are using or the market, which you can take advantage of.
But you need to ensure that they feel free to do this A/B testing and are comfortable enough to provide you with the feedback they receive. They are the face of your business to folks, the first impression in a lot of cases – so trust them, and benefit from it even further.
A great way to get started in growing your business is to outsource your sales team, especially if it is remote. Outsourced sales companies such as SalesPipe are experts at pairing the right company with the right talent.
There are many benefits that come with outsourcing, especially early on in the sales process.
Chief amongst them for growing companies is that it is cost-effective to do so, it provides you with access to top talent off the bat, and you have access to the right sales tools.
These sales professionals are familiar with the challenges of working remotely and have already overcome them. They can provide valuable insight for you as you continue to build your own team as well.
For example, most people are unaware or unfamiliar with the importance of email deliverability when it comes to sales outreach and the tools associated with it. This is insight only an outsourcing, specialist company can provide.
2. Have a defined ICP and CTA
As we saw above, you need to have some idea as a company leader or business owner of who your target customers are and what you want to achieve.
Is it a call or a demo? Do you want to go straight to a sale? How long is the sale cycle in your particular industry?
Based on this, you create your call to action – your CTA.
Your ideal customer profile (ICP) is the list of titles, locations, company size, revenue, etc you provide your sales team, so they know who to target while prospecting.
With both of these aspects clearly defined, you will find your pipeline growing quickly and steadily.
3. Set clear KPIs that align with the ICP and CTA
Sales is a numbers game, so you want to have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that reflect that.
It helps both you and your team stay accountable and aware of what is happening, and what is working. You can then deduce why it is working or not, replicate success, or switch gears accordingly.
They must align with the CTA and ICP for them to make sense to your team.
And they can help provide your team with continuous motivation. After all, seeing numbers increase is a great way to help them see their impact.
4. Provide your team with all the resources you have
Similar to the second point, but not as specific: your remote sales team should have access to all the pertinent information and research you have.
They devise different strategies based on that research. If they do not have access to it, something can very easily be missed.
You are not in an office space where they can simply reach over or search in a file cabinet.
You need to ensure they have access to the documentation they need to be set up for success, no matter where it is.
5. Give them the freedom to test things out and make sure they feel comfortable coming to you with their feedback
Finally, one of the best aspects of a remote team is the flexibility and freedom they provide.
You can try new markets, try different strategies according to time zones, or even different countries according to language.
They can try multiple different types of sales channels, and find the best one for you and your product or service.
Or they can receive feedback from prospects about the messaging you are using or the market, which you can take advantage of.
But you need to ensure that they feel free to do this A/B testing and are comfortable enough to provide you with the feedback they receive. They are the face of your business to folks, the first impression in a lot of cases – so trust them, and benefit from it even further.
Conclusion
Remote sales teams are the future of inside sales, if not already the current reality.
While there are challenges inherent in remote work, they are not insurmountable, and remote sales teams can be efficiently and successfully built.
You just need the right partner by your side ;)
If you're ready to build your remote team with top outsourced talent, fill out this form, and we will be in touch soon!
While there are challenges inherent in remote work, they are not insurmountable, and remote sales teams can be efficiently and successfully built.
You just need the right partner by your side ;)
If you're ready to build your remote team with top outsourced talent, fill out this form, and we will be in touch soon!
Post by Flor Fustinoni.
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