Monthly Archives: October 2021

Game-based learning, Game-based Learning Infographics, Gamification, Micro-learning, Mobile Learning

Ways That Actually Work To Engage Consumers During The Festive Season

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Want to increase both sales and engagement during the festive season? I got you! Here are 5 effective ways that work to engage your consumers.  

The festive season is everyone’s favourite and that time of the year where brands record a rapid sales growth of more than 7.5%, even during the pandemic. For this sales rate, you need to create a strategy and organise your content schedule ahead of time to engage your customers effectively.

Do you want to know what strategy will engage your consumers for the upcoming festive season? Yes, you are reading the right page. QuoDeck has every solution for that.  

Try to plan and create your content to ensure that you’ll be able to give your audience engaging content on a consistent schedule throughout the festive season. You’ll also get the best results for your marketing as the festive sales season approaches.

Here is a list of 5 creative tips to engage with your consumers by embracing content for the festive season of 2021:- 

Use Engaging Push Notifications

Push notifications can provide a great experience and amaze users with useful content regardless of the device or browser being used.

Over the holiday season, your audience will be sensitive to content that helps them reach their goals. Use push notifications to notify users on their phone or desktop site that discounts, suggestions, or other resources are available to them.

Well-written and frequent messages on your website will result in higher engagement. Do you know how push notifications can boost app engagement by 88%?

Using push notifications to improve consumer experience by informing your consumers about shipping and discounts on pages they’re browsing would make festive shopping more attractive.

Create Giveaways

Isn’t the festive season the ideal time to host a giveaway? It highlights the spirit of the season, builds enthusiasm for the chance to win a great gift, and increases social media buzz for your brand.

Use e-newsletters, blog posts, and social media to announce the giveaway to your consumers. For example, you can create an email list by asking people to sign up to enter the game. Having people follow you on social media to join the giveaway will grow your social media following.

Add Festive Spirit To Your Online Community 

Do you realize that your brand image is dependent on how your consumers perceive you? With advertising, graphics, and other marketing strategies, you may influence how your brand is seen online, but engagement defines your brand image.

Establishing an online community is one of the most successful ways of generating meaningful and long-term engagement. It takes time, but it is well worth the investment.

Having a passionate group of interested people in your online community will always show your effective marketing and boost engagement during festive times.

Offer Festive Discounts People Can’t Refuse

What time will be excellent for great discounts than the festive season? Most of the country will be shopping for themselves or their dear ones. So now is a perfect time to offer discounts on products, services, or even delivery to increase engagement and sales.

Use your online community, such as websites, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to update your customers about discounts, essential for engagement and sales generation. 

Create A 12-Days Drip Campaign

After the giveaway, you may put up an email drip strategy with 12 days of engaging content.

A 12-days email marketing campaign in which you draft emails in advance and schedule them to publish whenever the criteria are met. You might develop a set of 12 creative emails showcasing your brand offers which will appear in your consumer’s inbox daily throughout the festive shopping season. 

Exclusive discounts, free content, tutorials, and gift vouchers, an offer such as this can help you quickly grow an email list. If you organise beforehand to share it with your community, you may experience increased engagement and conversion rates.

Conclusion

Isn’t maybe the first time in history we’re implementing a festive marketing strategy to engage consumers in the middle of a pandemic? Yes, you heard me right, businesses need to continue to market well and offer information that will assist consumers in making wiser buying decisions and building engagement with their brands.

We’ve got you covered with the above-mentioned influential tips to engage with your consumers. In 2021, use these guaranteed strategies to boost engagement rates during the festive season.

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Corporate Learning and Development, e-Learning, Employee-Training, Mobile Learning, Online Learning, sales enablement

Here are the best methods for Employee Performance Evaluation

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Looking for the best evaluation methods to rate and scale your employees? Well, here are a few best methods for employee performance evaluation.

Do your employees give their best performance? Do they meet the deadlines and excel in everything assigned to them? But with all this, are they really climbing up the success ladder?

To find your answers to the above questions, you need data analysis to evaluate their performance. You need a clear framework to collect, select, and interpret data on your employees. Performance evaluation methods can differ based on companies and their needs. You may even need a mix of two or three methods to have a better understanding of the employee. Dive right in and find out the best techniques to review employee performance. 

Methods of Employee Performance Evaluation

There are three critical elements for evaluation:

  • The work one does: both qualitative and quantitative
  • The time taken
  • The actual contribution of the employee

Evaluation includes strengths, weaknesses, talents, skills, qualitative and quantitative data. 

The company can come up with the best training methods based on the results. Quodeck is your destination for evaluation aid. Here are some methods you can implement:

Management by objective (MBO)

The company sets particular objectives for all the employees. At the end of the deadline, the outcomes can assess the employee’s performance. The management tracks every employee’s progress and corrects it at any point.

MBO cannot be very precise as external factors are not considered. This can backfire on the employees’ outcomes and eventually get a low grade on the scorecard. A sales quota is the best example of MBO.

Critical incident method

The critical incident method is quite famous in customer-service-oriented jobs. This method allows managers to get overall feedback on an employee from other employees, customers, and higher management. The feedback gives a clear picture of how the employee handled a crisis and issue during their service.

This method encourages managers to observe certain events to judge the employee’s reaction. It can be positive or negative and also give clear input on their situational skills. The feedback also aids the company in coming up with better methods of training for the employees.

Rating scale

Many organizations use this method. The list or the questionnaire contains specific questions based on behaviors, traits, skills, or others. The employees are made to rate on a scale of 5 or 10. This method can be biased as employees favor each other most of the time.

Either way, the rating scale helps to monitor all the employees on the same categories and elements. This method is also efficient when employees have to rate new implementations or employer’s practices. The rating can also be Likert scales.

Continuous feedback

Feedback is an ongoing process of growing. A company needs to take continuous feedback to establish new methods, rules, and better targets. It is designed to take place at regular intervals where employees get to write and give feedback on their team members and managers on their teams. It is a two-way process that helps everyone to grow together.

Continuous feedback helps allow managers or team members to take charge whenever one needs help or is underperforming. This intervention will help prevent the situation from going out of hand. This method assists the company in grooming its employees according to their needs.

360-degree feedback

360-degree feedback appraisal method provides a chance for all the employees to give their opinions and feedback. Here,  every employee gets a rating from their colleagues, superiors, peers, customers, and management. The employee is evaluated from all sides: 360-degree feedback.

Under this system, a questionnaire is created by the HR department. It contains questions on all aspects. It can be teamwork, adaptability, leadership qualities, goal orientation, motivation levels, and strengths. Relevant people are made to fill the questionnaire anonymously. The feedback helps the employee to grow. It gives a clear insight into how others perceive them and their work.

Self-evaluation

Self-evaluation is a vital process for both employee and company growth. This method offers an opportunity for employees to play an active role in their evaluation process. It helps establish better communication between the staff and management. The employees can test their strengths, weaknesses and abilities, and skills and work on them.

Conclusion

Employee performance evaluation is vital. It helps both the company and employees to grow together. They give a clear insight on how well the staff is working and where they are lacking. Performance evaluation also helps to recognize talents and provide appraisals.

Corporate Learning and Development, Corporate Learning Best Practices, e-Learning, eLearning Develpment Best Practices, Employee-Training, Learning Management System, Online Learning

The Best Ways to Improve Employee Learning and Employee Training

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Looking to establish suitable training methods? Trying to teach new skills? Well, here are the best ways to improve employee learning and training in a company.

Every company has its own set of requirements and rules that help it climb up the success ladder. And the best way to go up is with proper foundation and establishment among the employees. This is only possible with a precise regimen of employee learning and training.

Training programs help them improve their skills and stay ahead in the corporate world. With this attitude, you would be able to take your company to the next level. It is the best place to invest. Dive right in and find out the best ways to boost employee learning through training. 

Best ways to improve employee learning and training

Training and learning programs play an essential role in shaping an employee according to the company’s needs. The programs give a clear picture of what the team expects from them and how they can reach the goals without any errors. Quodeck can aid you in finding the best training and development methods. But here are a few ways to improve your employee learning and training programs:

Offer professional training

Every organization runs on different priorities. What better way than to learn from older colleagues? Professional training is the best way to teach employees new ideas, the company’s methods, and objectives. It can also imbibe all the procedures and projects the company works on.

With professional help, the employees can clear their doubts, learn critical information, and even grow as a team. Professional training will guide you about the precise way to grow a company. Besides that, it helps to find your employees’ true potential and recognize the crowd’s best talent.

Emphasize soft skills

What’s the point of having excellent knowledge when you cannot share or help others? What’s the point of thinking of a great idea if you cannot voice it out? Soft skills are often neglected in many companies, but they help build strong bonds and help people and the company grow together.

Soft skills include having healthy communications, table etiquette, ability to collaborate, and work in harmony with other employees. It helps them to create a unique personality and contribute better to the company.

Occasional training programs

Every employee needs to learn to grow. The company can hold occasional training programs for all the employees. They can get on good terms, break some ice, and learn new things from each other. 

With evolving technology and competition, there is always something new to work on. So regular training programs will keep the employees up to date and equipped with new knowledge. 

These training programs can also help older employees come to good terms with younger employees. The programs also involve games and tasks to build strong bonds.

Cross department collaboration

Employee learning can also happen when an employee works in all departments. Moving across the departments will train the employee according to the company’s methods. The diversification will increase the exchange of knowledge and help employees find their passion.

At the same time, it can increase good bonding between the departments, leading to better productivity. For example, marketing teams can consult and have healthy discussions with the sales team before making a market campaign and work in one direction.

Develop managers into personal coaches

Managers play an important role in the employees’ life in the company. They guide, help, control, and assign tasks to all their employees. That way, managers have a clear picture of employees’ strengths, weaknesses, and what motivates them.

Making managers a personal coach will help them groom the employees and hone their skills in the right direction. They can even assign tasks according to their potential. They can test their employees with quick questions or assignments to prepare them better. Having regular conversations with employees will also help establish strong bonds.

Employee development is same as personal development

Personal health and development play an essential role in their growth as an employee. Positive minds and healthy bodies can contribute better to the company. They can become eager to learn new things and stay active in the workplace. You can have an in-house therapist or an approachable HR. They can help employees talk about everything that’s troubling them.

Conclusion

Employees are the foundation of any company. Thus making their well-being an essential thing. Employee training is an ongoing process as the industry is evolving and growing. It helps them set their career on the right path and helps the company climb up the success ladder.  

Corporate Learning and Development, e-Learning, Employee-Training, Learning Management System, Micro-learning, Mobile Learning, Online Learning, QuoDeck

7 Tips for Employee Learning and Development: Expert Tips on How to Train Your Employees

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What do you need to run a successful business? You can be anyone, from an entrepreneur to an influencer. But whenever you are online, you need something to grab attention. Of course, your content does that for you. But is that all? Can’t you just do better than now? Yes, we all can. 

The main goal of any online business is to keep your audience active. It ensures their coming back to your platform and making some purchase. But, it is a job better said than done. So, are you looking for a tool that allows you to stay active with your audience? Look no more. Here is the list of must-have tools for any online business. 

Tools To Help You Better Your Online Presence

  1. Social Media Tools

Social media presence is now the most important thing for any individual or brand. To make it clear, here is a statistic that highlights the importance of social media presence for brands. 71% of people who have had a good experience with a brand on social media are more likely to recommend that brand to their friends and families. 

And how do you improve this social media presence? Well, being active on your accounts does not always help. Of course, you can go from one platform to another and check each engagement differently. 

Or, you can simply use social media tools for better engagement. Tools like Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and Google Alerts are some social media analytics and monitoring platforms to name. 

These platforms get to observe everything happening on social media related to your brand. For example, you will get to see all the comments on your different platforms in one place. It helps in replying and connecting with your audience easily. 

And faster connection means a better experience. Using social media tools is way more effective and allows you to stay engaged with your audience. 

  1. Content Discovery Tools

You have to keep up with your competitors as well. Otherwise, you will see your audience going away to them. So, good competitor research is always important. But is it always possible to keep track of all your competitors manually? Most of the time, no. 

So, the easiest way is to run a competitor research tool. These tools run a quick research on the given keywords and find you all related content on the web. You can use Buzzsumo for that purpose. This tool is a must-have for anyone running online content for their business. 

  1. Marketing Automation Tool

Marketing is a crucial thing to engage with your audience. However, digital marketing is more than that. You need to take care of a lot of things- from your customer’s journey to their reactions. So, a content marketing tool can be the most helpful in this case. 

As a content marketing automation tool, you can consider using Hubspot. Hubspot lets you keep track of your marketing journey and helps you target your audience. Targeting is crucial and when you pass the stage, engaging with your audience becomes easier!

  1. Live Chat Software

Have you noticed those pop-up messages you get when you visit certain websites? These are live chat support or chatbots. These chatbots are very much helpful in increasing your audience engagement. So, how do these work? 

For live chat software, you can use ProProfs Chat. When someone has visited your blog or website, this chatbot keeps track of that. Now, after a certain time, if the person does not take any action on your site, a voice or chat pops up to grab their attention. By doing that, your audience feels like there is someone to help.

  1. Interactive Content Tool

Interactive content is the future of content marketing. While an average blog post takes around 3.5 hours to complete, interactive content is easy to design and more engaging. In addition, people here get to interact, which increases the ROI. So, modern marketers focus more on interactive content.

Amplayfy is an interactive content creator tool. Here you can create a variety of content, from quizzes to polls and surveys within minutes. These help you keep your audience engaged and increase the conversion rate. Interactive content is also helpful for influencer marketing. So make sure you try it out as soon as possible. 

Conclusion

Engaging your audience with your content is a very crucial thing to boost your online growth. And if you are serious about your online presence, you get to know every possible way to crack that. These are the best tools that you can use to stay active with your audience. We hope this discussion was helpful. We will see you with the next topic right here!

Sales, sales enablement, sales training

7 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Sales Enablement Platform

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Is your sales department not faring well enough? There are many reasons why you need a sales enablement platform.

Sales enablement is basically giving your sales team everything it needs to drive good business. Traditionally, sales professionals put an overwhelming amount of pressure on achieving a target or bringing in a certain number of clients. Companies that drive sales through this pressure tactic are likely to fumble at some point. This happens because teams are focused on converting just about anyone rather than working on quality leads for long-term business.

While many brands think their existing strategies are good enough, here are 7 reasons why your company needs to take the plunge to incorporate a sales enablement platform:

  1. Your revenue is stagnant

One of the first reasons for thinking about opting for a sales enablement platform is if your revenue is either stagnant or not growing as expected. For any organization, there are updated goals for sales revenue and the number of clients acquired in every quarter. If you see your sales reps struggling to keep up with this consistently, a sales enablement platform can be the additional boost that can sort this out! 

  1. Sales machinery isn’t bringing in leads

A sales-enabled platform is one that provides all kinds of resources for an overall improvement in sales. A significant reason for considering this is when your existing sales machinery is failing to deliver leads. If marketing or other channels are bringing in the majority of your leads and not sales, there’s a problem! Your sales funnel can be boosted with some custom sales enablement initiatives for your business.

  1. Your sales process is broken

Number 3 is if you don’t really have a fixed sales process or are unsure of what’s wrong. This is a common occurrence with many organizations and a popular reason for enforcing sales enablement strategies. You can analyze your broken sales process with AI predictions, accurate data forecasts, and analytics. Tools for this aspect of sales enablement can help identify the problem areas. 

  1. The turnaround time to close deals is too much

A valid reason why you need sales enablement is also to do with your conversion and retention time spent on customers. It is an issue if you’re spending too much time on a single client or compromising client retention due to failed follow-ups. It’s high time that administrative and scheduling elements are automated for your sales funnel, and yours is converted into a sales-enabled organization!

  1. Sales tools are outdated and wasteful

Some companies get sales tools on board and never look back at them! It is not enough to have CRM software or team management tools if they are not working any longer for your team. With time, all these tools require upgrading and a performance check. The benefit of using a sales enablement platform in tandem is to always remain in check with what is working for you and what is not!

  1. Your competitors are outperforming in a similar zone!

A big reason for employing sales enablement is to be at par or have an edge over your competitors. If your competition is outperforming you with similar resources, you are most likely not deploying yours too well. A sales enablement tool can be the contextual guide to drive strategic sales growth. Designed primarily to support sales, these platforms can take care of multiple aspects, from training and management to even active customer engagement.

  1. Sales reps are underperforming consistently

At the end of the day, you can clearly gauge the ground-level performance of your sales reps. You might see a consistent underperformance or lack of proper workflow. The absence of a sales-specific competitive and intelligent platform could be the reason. Platforms like Salshood, Highspot, Seismic, and HubSpot Sales Hub are potent tools. These can empower them with features to boost their performance! Thus, instead of thinking of the reasons to use sales enablement, there are no reasons why you shouldn’t! 

Conclusion 

Sales enablement is the way to go for businesses that want to stay in the game in the longer run. Forcing sales or pressuring employees into delivering is redundant. Try enabling them with platforms that can streamline their efforts. Quodeck is one such gamification-driven e-learning platform. It can be used effectively for training, learning, analytics, and improved interactivity. Try it out to build your custom sales training platform and help your employees learn in a stimulating environment!

Corporate Learning Best Practices, Employee-Training, Mobile Learning, Online Learning, QuoDeck, Sales, sales enablement

What you need to know about sales enablement: 3 crucial steps for success

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 Sales Enablement can change the growth story of your company boosting revenue by at least 20%. Here’s what you need to know. 

Sales enablement has been an integral part of growing companies, especially in the latter half of the decade. Organisations have been subscribing heavily to the concept of an enablement team purely because of its conversion potential.  

Even though the idea is almost a buzzword nowadays, it’s still widely misunderstood. There’s a lack of clarity on what sales enablement actually is and how it impacts the overall KPIs. And believe it or not, this murky distinction hurts the potential that sales enablement could have. 

We’ll be clearing the fog and shedding some light on what sales enablement in reality is & why it is an absolute necessity in today’s conversion-focused business environment. 

How to define sales enablement? 

Sales Enablement is a term loosely used in the context of an overlap between VP of sales & sales manager, which is somewhat true but not entirely. 

By definition, it is a strategic placement that focuses on increasing the numbers and productivity of sales teams by providing tools, content, and resources across the buyer’s journey. 

Of course, this is an immensely broad definition of sales enablement, presented just to give you an outline. It’s way more nuanced than this. Here’s what sales enablement teams do on an average day: 

A day in the life of a sales enablement team

The role of Sales Enablement would be different for every organization. But the purpose is more or less identical. In most organizations, Sales Enablement bridges the gap between Marketing & Sales by: 

  1. Crafting sales assets & trainings
  2. Leading new hire onboarding and continuous learning of the sales reps
  3. Heading the evaluation of the reps’ product & user knowledge 
  4. Paving the way for cross-functional communication
  5. Managing all the sales tools & resources
  6. Creating reports measuring sales enablement impact

Who heads the sales enablement team? 

Now that’s a bit tricky because this is not a traditional function. So it can be very contextual. The head of sales runs almost 40-50% of the functions, the rest being accountable to any of the executives from the management or marketing depending upon the organization’s needs. 

You must have a fair idea by now of what to expect while building a sales enablement team. So let’s move on to the meat of the matter – does sales enablement actually impact the bottom line, or is it just another frivolous corporate jargon? 

What makes sales enablement so crucial (and an absolute must-have in 2021)

In plain numbers, organizations have witnessed up to 15% more success in closing deals. 

Companies like Ringcentral, a business communications SaaS, saw a massive revenue run rate of $775M. The stock shot up to $126 from $22 in about two years of the sales enablement settling in. 

Other than that, some companies have also experienced stronger customer relationships & higher quota attainment. 

Here are three direct practical benefits of sales enablement

Maximum Sales Potential at each touchpoint 

An essential part of sales enablement is sales readiness. It’s the strategic orientation preparing reps with all the armor they require before going ahead and making a sale. The resources can be anything, from the intricate details of the product to the competitive positioning.

Usually, if done right, clients end up having memorable experiences even if the sale doesn’t go through. It’s potentially a candidate for word-of-mouth. 

The process includes some strategic activities like: 

  • Onboarding
  • Sales coaching
  • Materials for consistent & updated knowledge 
  • Reinforcement 

Engaged Salesmen are Productive Salesmen

The main goal of any Sales Enablement team is to aid sales reps in closing better. Subsequently, it also plays a crucial role in keeping them better engaged & equipped. 

There was a report by SiriusDecisions that mentioned high-performing organizations having high rates of early enablement adoption, as compared to the low-performing ones. 

Better pre-qualified leads, Increased conversions

Sales teams always complain about the quality of marketing qualified leads. According to Market Sherpa, most sales teams report that only 27% of b2b leads passed from marketing to sales are actually really qualified. 

With transparent & consumer-centric resources answering all the generic questions ideal buyers have – the tedious part is cut in half. Now, salespeople have to cater to prospects that are pre-educated. This saves a lot of time & effort, leading to better conversion rates.

Best practices include: 

  • Working in sync with the sales team to prepare the resources 
  • Focusing more on the present-day immediate buyers’ needs than long-term traditional pieces

Moreover, your salespeople are allowed to focus on the meat of their job, i.e., selling, and the tedious parts of their job is taken away. This has a minimal but effective impact on the conversion rates. 

These were the top three benefits that having a sales enablement team can incur. Here we conclude this edition on sales enablement. 

Final Words

Conclusively, Sales Enablement is an efficient sync between the marketing and sales departments. It’s an absolute must-have in today’s tech-oriented times where the scope of marketing & sales has changed. They are codependent more than ever but still can’t function appropriately in sync with each other. That’s why you can’t miss out on sales enablement. 

Corporate Learning and Development, Corporate Learning Best Practices, Employee-Training, Gamification, L&D professionals, Sales, sales enablement

The Top 5 Ways to Transform Your Sales Team into a Sales-Enabled Organization

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Wondering why your team is lagging behind in sales? Here are some tips to transform yours into a sales-enabled company!

The sales team of any organization is a crucial driving force for good business. While standard sales strategies are used by a majority of organizations, the sales aspects are often undermined with more focus on enhancing your brand identity and other peripheral aspects.

For a business, at the end of the day, sales stand to be the most important. Even if you’re a brand that believes in making an impact or looking at the larger picture, you really can’t keep your vision going without having the basic funds for it. Many businesses fall to their ends due to the lack of a prompt sales team.

But the question is – how to make your company a sales-enabled one at large? Here are the top 5 ways with which you can transform yours into a sales-enabled organization:

  1. Modernize with CRM and collaboration tools

As much as you’d think your sales reps can handle it all, making their lives easier with some modern sales elements is always a good idea. Sales-friendly CRM systems can help to manage quality leads and target relevant consumers. Interactive and collaboration tools for your sales team can also do wonders for an effectively managed sales funnel. 

  1. Automate administrative and mundane tasks

Do everything you can to ensure your reps are focusing on sales and not mundane paperwork or other administrative tasks that could be managed digitally. If you’re still doing things the old-fashioned pen-to-paper way, it’s time to upgrade. Incorporate apps and devices into your workspace for digital signatures, cross-platform networking, and centrally updated data. In fact, handling mundane things electronically ensures not only saved time but improved security, privacy, and authenticity of data! 

  1. Use gamification strategies to encourage competition amongst reps

The sales playing field has traditionally been a competitive one. Who can finish their targets first? Who can get that promotion? How about easing the pressure-based competition and gamifying the competition between reps. Quodeck is a one-of-a-kind SaaS tool that allows you to create a gamified interactive interface that can be the next big thing to keep your sales reps engaged and on their toes. 

  1. Invest more in sales training and enablement

The businesses that experience a dip at the earliest are those that don’t train their reps well. You can’t expect your employees to deliver if you don’t provide them with the best training and set of resources to close the most number of deals! It is high time to invest in more effective sales training strategies, new technologies, and sales-enablement platforms for your business. 

  1. Analyze data to optimize strategy

Last but not least, fine-tuning your strategy as per your prior performances will truly make an impact. Insights from performance data can greatly transform your sales team and fine-tune their responses for client conversions. Classify and recognize aspects that are working and figure out strategies that are not working. You’d be blown away by how much data can reveal about your organization’s performance! Employ effective data analytics tools to reap the benefits of this. 

Conclusion

A few steps in the right direction can change your existing team into one with a little more perspective on sales. Assess your organization and shortlist what would work for you to boost up the potential of your sales department. Jump into these top options and find out what works for your business!