Does your sales department appear to be adequately equipped? In today’s world with mergers and acquisitions and layoffs, many businesses don’t have a complete method for utilizing the tools their remote and mobile employees carry every day.
Your sales team likely has a cell phone , or smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, etc. ) and laptops or modem card, as well as an assortment of home office expenses. It’s crucial that these resources are managed by your company to ensure the effectiveness of sales forces as well as efficient expenditure.
There are four top-level actions that your company should take to determine or review the sales force toolkit
Review your present situation
Set the parameters for your toolkit
Choose the right vendors and discuss rates
Implement
Evaluating Current State
Before you can start converting all of your sales staff to iPads and iPhones first, you must know what apps your team is using and the amount you’re spending. It is easiest to begin by identifying the services currently handled by your company. It is essential to take an account of all the corporate services, while scouring for cost-effective services. Does your sales team pay for broadband for your home office as well as landline and fax service? Are they paying for mobile phone services, hotels wifi? These costs are difficult to find.
To start your current state evaluation , you’ll have to:
Audit services offered by corporate auditors (cell phones hardware, software, etc.)
Audit expense reports for communication spending (landline, internet, fax, etc.)
Conduct a survey to determine spending patterns, usage patterns and other needs
Surveys are an excellent method to collect information that will help you help you with your audit findings as well as obtain demands from the sales staff. Incentivize your sales team by ensuring they understand that the survey is directly related to the tools they’ll use within the next few months. I would suggest that the survey be confidential to ensure genuine responses. One of the organizations I worked for had more than an 80percent response rate which is awe-inspiring.
Define Your Toolkit
Once you’ve figured out the tools that your sales team uses and how much your company is spending on, you’re ready to start defining your toolbox. Keep in mind that this isn’t an exercise to cut costs. The objective is to determine the best possible solution that your sales staff can use. It is likely that you will reduce costs, however, depending on the current service you have you could end up spending more. But, the improved efficiency and selling power should be able to justify the investment.
Do not just concentrate on your wireless service, make sure to include cost-based services and landline services, as well as software and hardware applications.
Potential Toolkit Includes:
Corporate Liable smartphone (Blackberry, Android, iPhone, etc.)
Wireless Modem Card
Femtocell
Mobile applications and mobile-formatted intranet pages
Fixed Mobile Convergence
Broadband internet
EFax or similar
Multi-function office printer for home use
An iPad?
It is evident that, this possible toolkit will meet the requirements of remote workers. Your business may not require every one of these solutions however, with a complete toolkit is a guarantee that your staff will be most well-equipped.
Select Vendors and Negotiation Rates
After you’ve audited your current situation and formulated your strategy, you’re prepared to choose your suppliers and negotiate rates. Based on the state the current contract you may have to issue an RFP in full or start negotiating with your current suppliers pool.
Some points to be aware of.
Concentrate on the spending which is the most important. Be determined to reduce charges for services, not only an amount of discount.
Do not pay attention to the small amount or the expense that isn’t important. Do not ask the carriers to offer a lower text messaging fee even if your sales team does not make use of (or require) texts.
Start with the third and fourth tier carriers Utilize their dynamism to leverage your primary provider.
When you’re negotiating for hardware be sure to include that the major box retailers are available. Staples, Office Depot, CDW and so on. All offer corporate programs that could be comparable to working directly with the manufacturer.
Negotiating rates and selecting vendors are different for each option. There’s no one-size-fits all method, but if you follow the guidelines above , you’ll be in good condition.
Implement
Implementation is the final stage to deploy the new sales toolkit for force. The toolkit has many moving pieces, which is why you should have a an all-inclusive plan that covers all the stakeholders. You must ensure you are aware of the following factors:
Be aware of who gets the equipment.
Updating your user database
Make sure that your model of support is current and up to the minute
The wireless policy should be updated to reflect possible modifications
Determining the activation and delivery model
The plan for communication
This is merely a brief listing of the tasks to be accomplished before sending your first device of the new generation out. Do not let a bad execution plan ruin your new sales toolkit for force.
The creation of a sales force toolkit is an essential requirement for any company that have a large remote workforce. The sales force toolkit should be a element of your overall wireless management system.
