The holiday season is upon us, wholesalers and distributors are ready to end their year full of cheer!
But the Grinchiness of inflation affecting the entire supply change and possible supply shortages and recession, are real downers.
But don’t worry.
Let’s Cindy Lou Who this season by taking positive actions toward the greater good. For you, this means creating a better and healthier business.
Orders in Seconds has created an easy 5 step guide to doubling your sales orders and creating greater efficiency to bring in the New Year with a bang.
Attention Wholesale Distributors: 5 Ways to Double Your Sales Orders this Holiday Season
1. Start Planning Sales Routes in Advance
When it comes to sales territory planning, which consists of planning and managing sales routes, it can really make or break your sales goals. If you’re simply sending out your sales reps and trying to cover the most ground, you are fishing without bait and hoping to get a fish (in the case of a sales rep, a sales order). Hoping will not get sales but preparedness and strategy will.
A simple strategy can be to develop sales routes for your sales reps, so they spend less time behind the wheel, allowing more time to be in front of customers.
Use our Sales Territory Report Template to get started with route planning.
Help your team target specific regions, opportunities and customers, align your sales reps with prospects and empower realistic goals, leaving room to strategize and focus on selling.
2. Get GPS Tracking
Tracking sales reps in the field is more about understanding sales activities and customer behavior than micro-managing or having to track your rep’s every move.
Automate by using a mobile order taking app with GPS tracking, that will assist with store visit visibility. Eliminate human errors with mileage and gas tracking, identify loyal customers and provide sales rep accountability.
The goal is to understand your sales team’s performance or inefficiencies and insight into customer behavior to reveal opportunities or weaknesses.
3. Get KPI Reporting
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reporting provides management and outside sales reps with a direct view of sales quotas (orders, revenue, sales etc..) and if they are being met, daily, weekly or monthly. This is vital for ensuring sales teams are progressing toward their sales goals and identifying areas of improvement.
Many outside sales reps provide management with an end-of-day report, written out manually which can be very time-consuming. Time that can be better spent selling. Automate by using a mobile order taking app that includes KPI reporting as part of its features. See example below.
Automated end-of-day reports provide visibility into a rep’s progress towards meeting his weekly or monthly KPIs, including store visits, sales quotas, revenue target, order/invoice volume and size, assigned store, payments collected etc.
4. Train Your Sales Rep in Understanding the B2B Sales Process
If sales reps don’t have a clear understanding of your B2B sales process, it creates longer buying cycles, killing efficiency and potentially a sale. Knowing what needs to be done at each stage of the sales process is a huge advantage over other reps winging it in the field.
According to a recent World-Class Sales Practices study, only slightly more than half of sales representatives (53%) are meeting or exceeding their quotas. Help your sales reps meet their quotes by defining a clear B2B sales process.
Start by listing the steps it takes for a sales rep to move a prospect from a lead to a closed customer. Remember, if reps are not trained to deal with no’s or building relationships, no matter what technology you have, you will still be met with inefficiency in the field.
5. Use Order Taking Mobile Technology
If your field sales reps don’t have or use an order taking mobile app that frees up their time to strategize selling, prospecting or building client relationships, they are at a severe disadvantage.
According to McKinsey and Company, leading companies are adopting automation as a key driver of cost efficiency and increased sales, so what are you waiting for?
Order taking mobile apps include a number of features that automate manual business tasks that are time consuming for sales reps, such as order processings, customer and product information sharing, route management, customer management, KPI reporting and more.
Most importantly, it simplifies selling, which means sales reps sell more using a mobile app. It also provides management with more visibility into the sales process and access to data for day-to-day business decisions.
Wholesale Distributors Owners and Managers: What are your next steps?
Let’s sleigh this end of year!
If you’re interested in learning more about automating your order taking process and fulfillment, Orders in Seconds (OIS) is here to help!
OIS has more than 15 years experience helping wholesale distributors and CPG brands scale their business with mobile solutions.
Download our free ebook called “Quick Start Guide for B2B Wholesale Distributor: 5 Step Guide to Maximizing Store Visits & Doubling Your Sales Orders” to learn more about creating greater efficiency and maximizing sales for your inventory business.
Final Thoughts
If the Grinch could change and save Christmas, your inventory business can create greater efficiencies and scale into the New Year. Cheers to you!
Happy Holidays!
