How many browser tabs do you have open right now?
If you’re like most sales leaders and reps, the answer is “a lot.” Let’s start with Salesforce.com, LinkedIn and a bunch of client websites. You’re also probably running a bunch of productivity apps—word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations. And that’s just on your computer. On your phone, you may have emails, calendars, and GPS, in addition to phones and voicemails.
At what point do productivity tools make us less productive?
Tawheed Kader, in this Inc. Magazine blog, lists out some of the chores that cut selling time down to 33% of a sales week. A lot of the time sinks, he notes, can be fixed without throwing more technology at it.
Take setting up meetings. Reps have to check their own calendars and maybe their colleagues’… all while emailing back and forth with a prospect who may be doing the same. It can take more time to set a meeting than you schedule for it. Better to assign that task to an admin.
Another killer of sales productivity is interruption. Studies show that a five-minute interruption can cost an hour in productivity. Make a list of the 10 questions reps ask most often, along with the answers. Reps don’t have to break their concentration to ask, “which email template should I use?” And managers don’t have to break theirs to answer. Everybody gets more done.
None of this is to say there isn’t a role for technology. There’s no reason, for instance, that a 100K rep has to compile a list of email addresses for contacts in a large account. Especially when machines can do it faster and better.
Machines, today, can also update Salesforce.com faster and better than most reps. The Economist reports that 71% of sales reps say they spend too much time doing data entry. Yet, businesses and sales departments always seem to need more and better data from Salesforce.
If you use Rollio, however, Salesforce updating becomes a conversation. Reps talk to Rollio like they talk to a human assistant and Rollio updates the fields in Salesforce for them. Rollio’s been shown to reduce Salesforce updating time by 50%, even as it increases the quantity and accuracy of data captured.
Rollio’s also been shown to cut the Salesforce learning curve and drive 25% faster adoption. Which also improves the ROI of your Salesforce.com investment.
Not bad for a cloud-based solution that can be running in a few weeks, with minimal time and effort from your IT department. Click here for a demo and see how Rollio can make your productivity tools more productive, and make Salesforce.com more of the management and productivity tool it’s supposed to be.
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