Time is a valuable asset. It can’t be re-created. When the moment passes, it passes forever. Every second that a salesperson isn’t spending on productive sales activity represents an opportunity that is lost forever.
Many sales organizations are struggling with having their sales teams allocate their time spent at work in the most productive fashion. According to data from the CMO Council, over 40% of a sales rep’s time is spent creating presentations and customizing messages. This translates to 5.2 months of lost productivity per year. While there’s certainly a need for sales reps to spend some time creating presentations, customizing existing messages is something that shouldn’t be a major use of time. Sales, particularly at the local level, should receive the basic messages from corporate marketing. If local sales is doing what corporate marketing should be doing, that is an inefficient allocation of resources. Additionally, 40% of marketing assets are never used by sales teams because they can’t find them, are in the wrong format, or are too difficult to customize, according to IDC data. Once again, if a marketing asset is not used by sales, it should never be created. The alignment between sales and marketing teams throughout the organization is critical, and that’s why a Marketing Asset Management system is a benefit. Sales teams can easily locate materials and a permission based digital asset management component allows for customization where necessary.
The Corporate Executive Board’s Sales Executive Council has noted that over 53% of leading companies cite that field sales and local interactions have the greatest impact on buying decisions and loyalty. Sales people should be focusing upon their local interactions and build rapport with local prospects. The more time that field sales reps are spending with those who have the potential to either become new customers or deepen their existing customer relationship, it is better for the organization as a whole.
According to a Distribion customer analysis, companies that leverage a Distributed Marketing Platform reduce time assembling/customizing marketing collateral by 25%. This adds 3.25 months of sales rep productivity per year. What could your sales reps do with an additional 3.25 months of productively spent time? The answer you’ll have will likely impact your bottom line positively. If you’d like to develop a full-fledged answer to this question, contact us today!