Automate Everything Between Sales Meetings

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Sales automation isn’t a magic wand that cures all your sales issues – but it’s pretty close to it. Only 34% of the average salesperson’s time is spent on selling. Even a small uptick in this percentage can lead to a dramatic increase in revenue outcomes.

The remainder of their time is spent on admin tasks like: 

  • Data entry 
  • Internal meetings
  • Writing emails 
  • Training
  • Scheduling meetings
  • Prospecting, finding contact information, and researching leads 
  • Researching sales tips and reading industry news 

You should automate everything that exists between sales meetings. So, how do you start automating the sales processes for your team?

Start by defining your sales processes

If you haven’t already mapped your sales process, start here. A sales process is a systematic sequence of steps. A salesperson follows it to guide a potential customer from first contact to purchase and beyond. 

Breakdown the sales process your team goes through. Then you’ll decide which tasks should be automated and which shouldn’t.

Here’s what your sales process might look like: 

  • Research leads and prospecting
  • Preparation to contact the lead 
  • Initial contact
  • Relationship building
  • Book an appointment
  • Qualify leads
  • Book appointment.
  • Close the deal

Within each sales process, there are likely tasks that are repetitive. Identify these repetitive tasks sucking up time but not adding much value. Now you can go about searching for ways to automate certain processes. 

Keep in mind that automating is much more cost-effective than hiring. Rather than hiring more sales reps to reach your sales goals, or hiring an admin person to organize leads, the software is much cheaper. It does the job without human error. 

Automate prospecting and lead generation 

When it comes to sales prospecting, LinkedIn is the common platform. But there are many, many others like 411, Apollo.io, Lusha, Seamless.ai, ZoomInfo, and more. Specialized database services are available too. 

If your company uses LinkedIn for sales prospecting, you can use automation to spend less time looking for the right leads. It also helps with finding their contact information. For example, Sales Navigator lets users set up custom filters. These filters get users emails from LinkedIn about new potential prospects.

Some of the filters include: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd connections, Location, Industry, Job Title, and so on. Keep in mind that more connections mean more 1st and 2nd connections. These expand sales reps' pool of prospects. 

Automate lead enrichment 

Enrichment is extra information that gives your sales team more insight into the prospect. This data will help a sales rep see if the prospects are qualified and how best to interact with them. 

Key aspects of data enrichment include:

  • Adding missing information. Fill in gaps in the data. Add missing fields like contact details, demographic data, or other needed attributes.
  • Updating outdated data. Ensuring that the data is current and accurate by regularly updating it with the latest information.
  • Appending external data. Integrating external data sources to add new dimensions to the data. For example, adding social media profiles, purchasing history, or geographic information.
  • Standardizing data. Ensuring consistency and uniformity in the data format, such as standardizing addresses, phone numbers, or names to a common format.
  • Validating data. Checking the accuracy and reliability of the data by cross-referencing it with trusted sources.

Many vendors provide data enrichment services. A few are Apollo.io, Clearbit (acquired by Hubspot), InsideView, Data.com, D&B Hoovers (Dun & Bradstreet), FullContact, Lusha, and. ZoomInfo. 

Manage leads with CRM tools 

It’s mind-boggling that companies still use manual methods to collect and store leads. Today having a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is a must in any organization. It provides various automation features that streamline and enhance the efficiency of a sales team.

Here are some key ways in which a CRM system enables automation for a sales team:

Automatically tracking and logging all customer interactions, such as calls, emails, and meetings are core capabilities. So are tracking of sales quotas and progress towards targets. 

Sales workflow automation is another strength. CRMs can automatically create tasks for sales reps based on actions or triggers, such as follow-up reminders, calls, or emails. Automated lead capture is too. CRMs can automatically capture leads from various sources such as websites, emails, social media, and more.

Don’t overlook reporting and analytics either. You can generate and share regular sales performance reports and real-time insights with the team and management without manual intervention.

Use email templates

Personalization can increase conversion rates. But, wasting time over it can lead to lower productivity. 

Using email templates provide reps with a balance between personalization and increased productivity. Like marketing emails, reps will use tags or simply fill in the blank where customization is needed. 

You can balance personalization using templates for their company's details. These details come from the lead enrichment process. You can also template the rest. Tools like ChatGPT can integrate with outreach tools for automated personalization down to the content level.

Automatic outreach and call recording

What if you could save time with manual outreach by having certain outreach emails automated? 

Automated outreach and call recording are key parts of modern sales. They greatly improve efficiency and effectiveness. Besides streamlining, it ensures timely and steady engagement with prospects and customers. Automation frees sales teams from routine interactions. 

Call recording helps ensure reps and customers meet the company's standards and best practices. This helps managers find areas where representatives excel. It also shows where they may need training or support. 

Schedule calls automatically 

Gone are the days of emailing prospects back and forth to schedule an appropriate meeting time. Instead, there are many meeting scheduling tools, like Calendly. Prospects can pick an available time in their calendar. 

Simply send your calendar link to your prospect, and they’ll see a page where they can choose an appropriate date and time. Once they select a time, both parties will automatically receive a calendar invite. 

You can customize your booking page. You can ask them questions such as their company size and what they hope to gain from the call. Gathering more information can help you prepare. 

Make it as easy as possible for prospects to say yes. 

Automate proposal and document creation

Most sales reps spend a lot of time creating proposals. This requires pasting info from their emails, notes, or other sources. Perhaps, they need to draft specifically agreed upon-terms. 

Many proposal tools offer drag-and-drop functionality. It lets you streamline the process and make proposals quickly. Many of these tools provide analytics, such as when they’ve opened the proposals and how long they spent reviewing them. 

Tools like Panda Doc let you create proposals, quotes, and contracts. Prospects can easily e-sign these documents. They even integrate with CRMs, which can pull the information from the contact details. 

Create lead rotation triggers 

Every business must contact their leads quickly, especially once they’ve filled out a lead form on your website. Leads look at your pricing, product features, case studies, and other parts of your website. They are likely interested in what you offer. 

Contacting them promptly ensures that you remain top of mind so that they move on to another competitor. 

Most CRM tools let you set up a trigger. It automatically distributes leads based on a round-robin or specific criteria like geography. 

Here’s how it works. A prospect lands on your website and has filled out a “Request a Quote” or “Book a Demo” form. A new lead is automatically created into your CRM software. This triggers notification and assignment of the lead to a sales rep. 

Create a lead scoring system 

Not all leads are created equal. Some are better than others. 

It’s vital not to waste time trying to convince prospects that aren’t ready to buy from you. As business owners, it’s important to understand that each prospect has a different timetable. It’s important to respect their customer journey. 

Lead scoring is a numerical system that determines the likelihood a prospect is ready to buy. 

The beauty of lead scoring is that you can determine your criteria for what makes a prospect qualified. For example, it could be firmographics like the company size, job title and location that make them a qualified lead. Or, if they book a call, visit your pricing page, or respond to your email, that may be another qualified lead. 

Identify ways that your prospects can earn or lose points. You can set triggers to notify a sales rep when a lead scores crosses a target threshold.

Wrap Up

Sales automation greatly boosts productivity. It does this by cutting time on administrative tasks and maximizing selling time. With only 34% of a salesperson’s time typically dedicated to selling, even a slight increase can substantially boost revenue. 

Before embarking on an automation initiative, it’s critical to define your sales process. Only then can you begin to automate tasks that are manual, routine, and time consuming. These tasks include data entry, email management, outreach, meeting scheduling, workflows, and more.

Your sales team will get valuable time back so that they can put towards building relationships and closing deals.

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