4 Mistakes Every Remote Sales Team Manager Must Avoid

In-house sales team management grows tedious as a company grows in size. To tap into expanding territories and take care of them, sales reps also need to be increased. Thanks to the advanced digital technology, remote team management has become possible today, unlike around a decade ago.

However, there is still a tremendous difference between managing an in-house team and managing a remote team. As a remote sales team manager, you must keep your sales team ‘united.’

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Although every team manager has their own ‘way’ of management, there are a few common mistakes every remote team manager must avoid.

• Not Checking In Regularly

An ideal manager always understands how valuable it is to check in with their team members regularly. So, ensure to follow up on your team members regularly without being ‘bossy’ all the time.

Set a daily goal for your team at the beginning itself so that they know their goals for the day and plan their actions accordingly.

Further, ensure to collect timely feedback from your remote team to stay abreast of their progress. Collecting timely feedback will help get a clear picture of the level of progress of the team’s sales efforts. Accordingly, you can think of strategies to make those efforts more sales-driven. Make them feel that you are a ‘resource’ besides being the boss and are always there to lend them a helping hand as and when needed. Use the same gentle tone to give your feedback on the entire team’s progress and every individual’s as well. While giving feedback on an individual’s performance, understand that every individual has a different potential, and assess accordingly.

• Wrong Choice of Sales Tools

Remote sales team management may require you to use various sales tools. See to it that you choose the right sales tools that fit your purpose. Or else, your sales performance may go down.

For example, there are a number of mapping tools like Dynamics 365 Map integration or MS Maps tool available that let you create and assign territories to team members right from within the CRM. Moreover, a Dynamics 365 Field Mapping tool or any other mapping tool can enable the creation and sharing of optimized routes with teams to save time and effort.

Similarly, calendar integration tools can let you manage all tasks, activities, etc. from within CRM, eliminating the need for a separate calendar and saving energy.

So, while picking a mapping tool like Dynamics 365 Map Integration or calendar integration, check and be assured that it has all the features you need.

• Being ‘Over’ Casual

At the end of the day, you are the team manager and have to get your team to achieve targets! Therefore, always keep a fine line between ‘professionalism’ and ‘casualism’ to prevent your authority from dampening.

While a little flexibility or casualism can keep them motivated at times, too much of it can backfire. Therefore, be authoritative and clear in your tone while assigning tasks and conveying the targets they have to achieve. Don’t let your ‘casual’ behavior get in the way of your team’s focus and goal-oriented approach.

• Depending ‘Excessively; On Sales Management Tools

While mapping tools like Dynamics 365 Field Mapping tool or various other sales management tools can be highly helpful, they are still tools - not humans.

Don’t let them overtake your own instincts, intellect, and inherent decision-making ability. Remember - tools are to help humans, not dominate them.

Conclusion

Remote sales team management can be challenging. But by avoiding a few common mistakes discussed above, you can effectively manage your remote teams and achieve efficiency.

Summary: Read the post to know how you can manage your remote sales teams effectively by avoiding a few common mistakes and achieve targets easily and speedily.

Mr. Maulik Shah is the founder & CEO of AppJetty, a digital software products store specializing in extensions, plugins and apps for host of software platforms like Magento, WordPress, SugarCRM, SuiteCRM, Odoo, Dynamics CRM, etc.