Holidays can be an excellent time for your team to make new sales and get new clients. As the New Year approaches, many companies look for new opportunities to lower costs or change their product offerings.
Technology is a great way to increase holiday and New Year sales even more through various web applications and software. Such tools can equip your team to work from anywhere and easily communicate with clients and potential clients, making your team more efficient at crushing sales goals.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are a crucial part of a sales team. Fortunately, there have never been options for online spreadsheet sharing and learning how to utilize those programs better, be it Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
If you’re in the field, you’ll need easy access to your spreadsheets. Most spreadsheet services are available on desktop and most mobile app stores. These programs are often free and provide cloud storage, meaning anyone on your staff can access them at any time, location, and device.
VPNs
A virtual private network (VPN) is an essential tool for any business that stores data online. For sales teams, VPNs can keep your clients’ contact information secure and prevent your team members’ devices from being compromised in the case of a hack.
Invest in a useful VPN tool, such as NordVPN, to keep your files secure no matter which device or location your team members are at. This is especially crucial if you have your employees do cold visits or work remotely.
Email and Text Campaigns
Many apps and web services let you create and send sales inquiries in bulk at a click of the button. These programs will often have functions such as creating a list of clients you can email, auto-call, or text in a single go.
Some common apps include Knak and Sendinblue. These tools can help your team create mass email campaigns by creating email lists and BCC-ing those lists in an email.
Virtual Meetings
Virtual meetings are a crucial part of the sales process, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if you’re on a tight budget, you can find various free apps or come with programs that many businesses already subscribe to.
Be sure your staff has access to Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, or other services. This is especially crucial as more meetings happen remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Phone Number Validator
Cold-calling leads is already a less than desirable task for many salespeople. Calling phone numbers after phone numbers just to hear: “The number you are calling has been disconnected. Please hang up and try again,” over and over again only adds to the frustration and inefficiencies.
Thankfully, some technologies can prevent this and save your staff time while cold-calling potential leads. Try adding an API for phone number validation into all of your website’s contact forms. The API runs in real-time by attempting to connect to the number entered, and the form will not submit successfully without a working phone number. This will prevent a disconnected phone number from ever reaching your sales team.
Shareable Calendars
Make sure you have a shareable calendar so clients and potential clients can keep track of your availability. This will help them when trying to set up an appointment with you. Many of these apps or services allow you to integrate or share calendars with other team members.
Gmail and Outlook offer shareable calendars. Apple, Doodle, and Asana do as well. Many of these services are free and user-friendly. That means your team can quickly adapt to the new tool and share it with clients to streamline communications.
Electronic Signatures
If you make sales remotely, apps that support or store electronic signatures safely are crucial. Many clients will want to renew contracts or sign a new one remotely, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. While this is an easy service to offer, you’ll want to ensure that your electronically signed documents and stored digital signatures are safe.
If your office doesn’t have a paid version of Adobe Acrobat, try a service like HelloSign, PandaDoc, or DocuSign. Some of these programs are free but note that the free versions won’t offer as many safety features as premium ones.
Increase Seasonal Sales
The turn of the year is often a great time to be in sales, as many companies are looking to finalize their proposed budgets and vendors for the New Year. Your team can use various apps and programs to help better communicate internally and with clients. These tools, many of which are free, are a great way to increase holiday sales for little to no added cost.
