What's one thing that high-performing sales teams do differently than everyone else?

They use technology better than their competitors!

This is especially true when it comes to managing your sales process and pipeline. In fact, using a CRM helps increase sales by up to 29% and improves productivity by up to 34%, according to Salesforce. Whether you are using well-known CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot or a CRM specific to your industry, high performing sales teams don’t see their CRM as a ‘big brother’ watching them but rather a vital tech tool to help them sell more effectively.

Top salespeople run reports themselves, take notes during calls directly in the CRM, and even store email templates to reuse and repurpose. All of which helps the salesperson stay organized and in control of their day.

Now, there’s no doubt that embracing technology can greatly enhance the performance of your sales team. But, as a Sales Leader, it’s important to remember that you should avoid relying too heavily on technology and instead focus on selecting the right technologies that address your team's specific needs.

To pinpoint what type of technologies would help your Dealership, let’s consider the following 6 ways savvy sales pros leverage technology to drive successful outcomes:

1. Presentations and proposals are more tailored.

If you’re taking great notes and logging them somewhere (ideally your CRM) you’ll be able to personalize everything from your emails and phone calls to presentations and proposals. The power of saying “You Mentioned” at the start of presentations, only happens as a result of great note-taking and the organization to find what the prospect mentioned quickly.

2. Meticulous follow up.

Keeping track of all your prospects and customers can be tricky! Especially when a certain level of detail is needed. Leveraging automation and scheduling tools to create tasks, set reminders, use templates, and create cadences will help streamline the follow up process while setting your team up for success and maximizing their time.

3. Uncover Hidden Stakeholders*.

Using the latest technology, like Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), allows your team to have full visibility into who is reviewing your proposal. Using DSRs also reduces the chances that your pricing can be downloaded and shared with a competitor. Through the power of technology, you can even drill down into what specific pages of a document were viewed.

4. Pre-Call Planning Excellence.

The very best sales teams make use of data and research tools to be informed and share more insight. For instance, Vertical IQ is a tool that has questions you could ask as it relates to specific industries. There’s also Power BI, LinkedIn, and so my more. The key here is using data to fuel your sales process.

5. Asks more meaningful and personalized questions.

Building on the last point, tech-savvy sales teams use data to enhance their pre-call planning process by reviewing past call notes, industry research, competitor information, etc. This helps to build a roadmap focused on asking better, more meaningful and personalized questions of their prospects and customers.

6. Improves overall performance.

Technology has the power to assess your team’s performance on a whole new level. With AI enabled Conversation Intelligence, you can utilize recorded calls and meetings to assess performance. For instance, to catch filler words or how often they are engaging the prospect. Using this type of technology will help managers coach, reps self-assess, and the whole team course correct when needed.

Knowing what technology to invest in can be overwhelming, which is why focusing on the outcomes you want your sales team to achieve will help you narrow in on your needs and select the right technologies and partners.

It is an exciting time to sell but equally a challenging time to sell. It’s harder than ever to engage buyers as we navigate noisy competition and fierce economic headwinds. Rise above the competition and leverage the power of great selling skills and technology to create an unstoppable team.

*#3 Uncovering Hidden Stakeholders: Our partner, Allego Revenue Enablement Platform, is the engine behind our DSRs and we can now help Dealers access this same resource too. Let us know if we can help!