Remote Sales: Leveraging Technology to Stay Connected and Effective

The shift to remote work has only hastened in the past years, and sales teams are one of many reeling from this new reality. What was initially perceived to be just a stop-gap measure for sales organizations during the uncertain times of COVID-19, remote sales have since morphed into just another "new normal," as it is prevalent and likely here to stay. Sales teams were able to adapt quickly, thanks to technology serving as a facilitator for this new norm and the ability to maintain productivity and a strong client relationship while working from anywhere.

Below, we look at the fundamentals of remote sales and how tech can be leveraged to streamline processes so that employees can remain productive and stay connected when face-to-face meetings are no longer an option.

The Future of the Remote Sales Landscape

Remote, virtual, and inside sales mean following the entire sale process without even going to the customer or prospect. Sales are just sales, and at their core, it no longer makes any difference, but the way the tools sell has changed quite a lot over the decades. A job that once involved a lot of travel and in-person meetings has become a position entirely dependent on digital platforms, the cloud, and virtual collaboration software.

The important thing for sales teams will be to adapt quickly to challenges such as engaging prospects in an increasingly virtual world, managing a distributed workforce, and establishing rapport without the luxury of face-to-face meetings. The sales funnel has changed, and buyers are doing more research and decision-making online. This means sales professionals must change how they sell to align with what today's customers expect from digital channels.

Top Remote Sales Core Technologies

Winning or losing in remote sales depends entirely on how well you use technology. Sales teams must have a cocktail of communication, collaboration, and sales enablement tools. Several different technologies fall into the following categories:

1. The External Services: Communication and Video Conferencing Platforms

Keeping in touch with clients and your team in real time is essential to a successful salesperson working away from the company office. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are vital parts of this, where sales reps do demos, host internal sales meetings, etc.

Video calls are the closest way to replicate a face-to-face meeting. They enable sellers to get a better cadence of client reactions (albeit digitally) and build that personal relationship.

Screen sharing also improves product demos. Sales reps can walk clients through layouts, demonstrations, and live software or service walkthroughs.

The backgrounds and presentation tools in these platforms give us that polished, professional setting no matter what the actual backdrop of a salesperson might be.

Additionally, such platforms typically include functionality around call recording, transcription, and analytics so that sales teams can review interactions to identify areas for improvement and fine-tune their strategies over time.

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software

What is the fundamental foundation of remote sales operations? CRM tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho give sales teams control over their relationships with prospects and customers, manage interactions, and automate necessary tasks.

Lead management is among the most commonly used CRM functions for sales reps. This allows an on-the-road sales force to manage and prioritize leads, track where a prospect is in the sales funnel, and ensure that follow-ups occur promptly.

Automation: New CRMs such as Insightly and Freshsales can automate your sales process, from sending follow-up emails to scheduling meetings to tracking every interaction that moves a sale forward.

CRMs and Data analytics: CRMs provide sales managers with sophisticated reporting and analytics functionalities that help them track their performance metrics, spot bottlenecks in the sales process, and optimize strategies based on data-driven insights.

CRMs aggregate all client interactions by syncing with other software, such as email marketing platforms and social media. This gives remote sales teams valuable insight into where they need to modify their approach per the individual client to improve their conversion rate.

3. Sales Enablement Platforms

Sales enablement platforms deliver the content, tools, and resources your sales team needs to engage with customers effectively. Platforms like Seismic, Highspot, and Showpad regularly update being shared by remote sales reps with buyers at every stage of the buying journey.

Content Hub: Sales enablement platforms act as a single source of truth where marketing and sales teams can save and retrieve all relevant sales collateral, from product brochures to case studies.

Personalization: Reps can easily access the content they need for a specific Industry or pain point, increasing engagement and building trust.

Learning and onboarding: Continuous learning is essential for remote teams, and many sales enablement platforms provide onboarding tools to help new reps ramp up quickly, give ongoing education for managers, and track employees' progress to ensure consistent knowledge is shared across distributed teams.

They integrate with CRM systems and measure content usage and effectiveness, helping sales teams tweak their messaging based on what resonates most with their audience.

4. Tools for Collaborating and Managing Across Projects.

Regarding challenges for remote sales teams, keeping true to the overall company goals and with marketing teams and other sales colleagues can be difficult. Sales teams can work even miles apart using collaboration tools (Slack, Asana, Trello) together efficiently.

Real-time messaging: Slack and other platforms allow you to communicate instantly with team members, which can help support quick decision-making and collaboration.

Task management: Asana and Trello help make tasks and deadlines, as well as who owns which tasks, visible for better organization and accountability.

Cross-functional collaboration: Teams must collaborate across teams (e.g., with Marketing, Product Development, and Customer Support) to solve customer needs while other departments develop Tailored solutions for customers.

5. AI-Powered Sales Tools

In remote sales, AI is becoming increasingly dynamic, and it could automate specific tasks or provide insights to make the decision-making process more manageable.

Lead Scoring/Prioritization: Using vast amounts of data, machine learning can determine which leads are most likely to turn into deals so sales reps know where to spend their time.

For instance, AI can analyze a prospect's online behavior and social media activity or their interactions with their company and then build personalized email or social media outreach that is more likely to produce engagement.

Sales forecasting: AI-powered platforms use historical data and trends to make more accurate forecasts, enabling sales leaders to allocate resources appropriately and decide on the best strategy.

How Remote Salespeople Can Stay Connected and Become More Productive

However, making the best use of technology is not the only half done. Sales teams must rely on productivity, relationship building, and agility to be successful in an era when a lot of sales are happening remotely. Here are some tips and suggestions on how to be connected and productive together:

1. Set Regular Communication Cadence

Communication between team members is crucial, especially for remote teams. Implementing weekly or bi-weekly check-ins creates team synergy, where insights, challenges, and wins are shared.

The company's staff can hold daily stand-ups or short check-ins to help keep them on a short-term track and mitigate against blockers.

Sales teams hold weekly strategy meetings to assess their progress, evaluate their sales performance, and strategize ways to improve.

Regular touchpoints from your people team create a virtual work environment that includes all our teams, regardless of service and location.

2. Building Relationships Is What It Boils Down To

Building relationships is even more critical in a virtual sales environment. Proactive selling, however, will establish friendship and trust, enabling your sales professional to sell substantially more products.

Related: Encouraging engagement with a personalized touch is mandatory through email, social media, and Video Calls. While better automation tools can reduce this number, a little human touch goes further.

Consistent check-ins: Make sure to schedule routine follow-ups with clients so prospects of a sale may not be present but nurture the business relationship.

Thought leadership: Consistently sharing insights on the industry, best practices in the market space, or related content helps position you as a trusted advisor rather than an order taker.

Building relationships in the virtual world is more challenging, but when done right, they can become as powerful as sitting in a room with someone.

3. Adopt a Data-Driven Approach

Remote sales teams have a lot of data at their disposal, and generating insightful commands from the massive amount of data leads them to success. Test the data. Sales professionals should utilize data.

These could include conversion rates and how long clients decide on different stages in the sales funnel. By determining these key performance metrics, sales reps can better tweak their strategies.

Your work often allows you to refine outreach tactics, observing how and why some forms of communication or content resonate better with prospects. This enables sales teams to adjust their approach to meet clients' expectations.

Predict performance. Armed with a wealth of CRM data, sales leaders will have the insights they need to pinpoint where their business is heading next and can respond accordingly in terms of resource planning, etc.

This approach brings greater clarity and informs better decisions and accountability to remote sales.

4. Top 8 Unspoken Rules of Successful Developers — Part I Cover Image

At first, flexibility is excellent in remote work, but it can be hard to deal with the fact that you never completely switch off. Sales groups should acquire positive work-life balance practices to avoid burnout and develop more vital long-term productivity.

Maintain work/life boundaries by giving set office hours and following through so that you are not "always on" to clients or co-workers.

Scheduled breaks: Prompt team members to take mini-breaks throughout the day to rejuvenate and maintain productivity.

Sales Team: Sales leaders must follow a supportive methodology. Resources or check-ins should be given to ensure your team members feel connected and supported. This also includes mental health support.

Given the risks of isolation and overwork in a remote sales environment, well-being is critical to maintaining productivity.

The Future of Remote Sales

The future of remote sales looks promising as technology advances rapidly. With businesses further investing in sophisticated tools, salesforces can work from anywhere and honestly use AI, automation, and data analytics to create efficiencies and engage customers deeply.

But that's not half the problem; it's just technology alone. Sales teams must continue to focus on human interaction and trust and deepen personal relationships with their customers to remain distinct from a competitive global market. The buying world may be fast becoming virtual, yet success in sales still hinges on the human touch.

Hi, I am Sam Momani, the founder and CEO of LinkedDNA. 

With over two decades of experience as a top 1% rainmaker sales performer in sales, specializing in target account penetration and expansion, I've had the privilege of collaborating with over 50 of the largest technology companies worldwide, including Microsoft, Oracle, HPE, and Intel, along with their distributors, channels, and alliances.

I employ a proven process to cut operational costs, drive revenue, and ensure every sales rep has opportunities. We unlock new revenue streams and propel valuable clients towards even greater success.

LinkedDNA is the most comprehensive Done-For-You digital sales prospecting and marketing demand generation service, modeled on over twenty years of sales success working with thousands of technology companies. I invite you to learn more about LinkedDNA.