Sales professionals often face team collaboration challenges—they want information at their fingertips, fast, and when they need it. Whether it be information about current deals, win/loss stories, competitive information, training, or sales enablement materials, using traditional tools like email and spreadsheets can slow collaboration and disrupt the sales cycle. So, how can mangers break down silos and improve sales team collaboration?
Here are a few ways I have used collaborative work management (CWM) tools to improve my team’s processes.
Share Win/Loss Announcements
All sales professionals want tactics for good selling. CWM tools enable this through collaboration and social conversation features. Anyone on the sales team can share both win and loss announcements in one place, offering valuable lessons for others in the field, as well as practical tips that can be applied to opportunities in progress. This doesn’t only apply to sales, however. Our friends in marketing can share the latest campaigns, new public relations activities, and new assets. This gives everyone the opportunity to read, collaborate, or congratulate sellers without having to wait for that weekly meeting. Plus, it helps ensure everyone remains up-to-date on the most recent information.
Sales Document Management
Sales people often have a set of core documents they use. NDAs, contracts, collateral, sales enablement materials, the list goes on. Instead of storing these documents via email or your desktop, CWM provides sales teams the ability to store all necessary documents in one place, and there is version control. So, if marketing needs to update a product datasheet, or if business ops updates pricing docs or contracts, all changes are managed and shared within one tool—so everyone is always leveraging the same, up-to-date document and collateral. Team members simply open a document to edit, then changes are saved for all other members to view.
Having the right technology in place is a huge factor when it comes to building a collaborative, successful work environment.Teams must be cohesive and on the same page, otherwise work begins to suffer, progress is lost, and people end up frustrated. Collaborative work management tools benefit all departments of an organization, particularly if projects involve people spread out between departments or geographic locations. No longer will employees have to struggle to communicate with their team members across the globe; everyone will have the information necessary to do their work in the most productive way, right at their fingertips.
For any organization looking to uplift their sales processes or that simply need a better way to stay organized, first determine what you are trying to accomplish. Whether it is collaboration, task management, or planning, understand the group of people you are working with and how it can fit their processes.
Collaborative work management tools are not just for project managers! Tools like Planview Projectplace can be vital for any department looking to improve collaboration—like sales.
To learn how ProjectPlace can benefit each department in your organization, check out the following use-case blogs, covering: Public Relations, Human Resources, Blog Management, Cross-Department Communication, Demand Generation Marketing, Event Management, Digital Marketing, Customer Renewals, RFP Project Planning, Sales Team Collaboration, Customer Experience, Solutions Marketing, and Sales Project Management.
