3 Ways to Supercharge Your Team’s Sales Productivity (B2B)

How to rethink sales productivity for your team and reduce wasted time.

The question often asked in sales is, “How can I increase my team’s sales productivity?” But we believe the real question should be, “Where are my team and I wasting time?”

At its core, sales productivity is about eliminating wasted time so your team can close more deals. Stop wasting time on tasks that aren’t going to close the deal. Even though certain tools (e.g., AI-generated sales emails) can save your team seconds or minutes, focus instead on the “big picture” time-saving activity: building trusted relationships with current and potential customers.

Here are three actionable tips based on efficient relationship-building to help your sales team work smarter and improve sales productivity.

1. Focus on customer retention.

Chasing new leads consumes time, energy, and money. Continue to build trust with current clients to retain or increase their business and secure referrals.

As account managers, retaining a client’s easier and more productive than finding a new one. This tip might sound self-explanatory, but avoidable customer churn costs U.S. businesses $136 billion a year. 

The effort pays off. According to BIA Advisory Services, repeat customers spend 67% more than new customers. A single happy customer can also yield nine referrals.

Here are a few actionable strategies to build trust and help retain customers:

• Solve their problems. More on this below but research the client’s specific struggles. Come up with solutions that go beyond your product or service. When a customer firmly feels they can trust your team to solve their problems, THAT is productivity.

• Practice active listening. Too often, sales reps spend too much time talking about themselves vs. listening to a client. Listen to the underlying problems or opportunities by asking questions.

• Takes exquisite notes. As your reps listen, ensure that they’re also recording client answers. Reps should review these notes before every client call to show they’ve committed details to memory.

A bonus retention strategy is to write thank you notes and birthday cards. Old-fashioned? Time-consuming? Maybe, but your reps will differentiate themselves from the competition, which only sends emails. One company found that sending handwritten notes resulted in a 50% better retention rate.

2. Proactively solve customer problems.

Complete upfront research to understand the potential customers and what types of problems you can solve for them. This generates repeat business, referrals, and less work for your team.

Here’s how:

• Research the customer and company. Dig into the background and problems of both the decision-maker and the overall company. Perhaps the decision-maker is new to their position and the company is rebranding.

• Make a list of potential problems. The decision-maker might be struggling to learn more about the company’s technical industry. Or maybe the company is having difficulty perfecting its rebrand messaging. Write down all potential struggles.

• Recommend solutions. The solution doesn’t have to be your product or service. It also doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, offer a resource, such as a link to a specific website for a decision-maker or a list of marketing firms specializing in rebranding campaigns.

We recommend using AI tools to make your team’s problem-solving research more efficient. AI tools significantly reduce the time required for research and information gathering. Information, such as LinkedIn details and recent news articles, is pulled and organized (hint: Forge’s AI capabilities generate this info and ensure everything is also in one place).

Even saving five minutes researching each prospect can yield tremendous results when multiplied by a high-volume sales strategy.

As Arthur Sheldon once said, “True salesmanship is the science of service. Grasp that thought firmly and never let go!”

3. Train in active listening.

Active listening is the most powerful way to build relationships and trust with potential clients. Active listening allows the other person to do all the talking. They then feel obligated to you for letting them speak.

This strategy has become a lost art, especially for junior sales reps not trained in interpersonal skills. In fact, nearly 30% of Gen Z employees have received no training to improve their communications.

Here are ways to improve active listening skills:

• Maintain eye contact. Follow the 50/70 eye contact rule. While speaking, maintain eye contact for 50% of the time. While listening, maintain 70% of the time.

• Frame things as questions. Ask open-ended questions, smart questions, and good follow-up questions. For example, you might ask, “What do you mean by “efficiency” in this context?”

• Avoid interrupting. Sales reps are notorious for interjecting themselves into conversations – even if the prospect is mid-sentence. Listen with the need to understand, not the need to respond.

This tactic can be especially effective in undifferentiated industries like private wealth management. Listening and remembering specific details helps your team stand out with high-value clients.

Empower leaders and sales teams to win together.

Sales productivity comes down to efficiently building genuine client relationships. Higher numbers flow from the trust built with customers.

Our mission at Forge is to make sales productivity easier. Other platforms can help you save seconds or minutes on tasks (e.g., generating AI sales emails or making it easier to connect Database A with Platform B), but Forge combines AI and psychology so your team can build the trust-based relationships you need to achieve your goals. Try it today →