How to Effectively Manage a Remote Sales Team

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many companies to rapidly shift to remote work. While challenging at first, many businesses found that remote work actually has several advantages. As a result, remote work is here to stay for the long haul.

This is especially true for sales teams. With the rise of digital tools and communication platforms, sales reps can connect with prospects and close deals from anywhere. Studies show that remote sales teams can be just as productive, if not more so, than traditional in-office teams.

However, managing a dispersed sales team does come with unique challenges. Sales is very much driven by personal relationships and collaboration. Replicating that virtually takes intention and the right framework.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about managing a high-performing remote sales team.

The Benefits of Remote Sales Teams

Before diving into the management tactics, let’s look at why remote sales teams are gaining popularity in the first place. Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Increased Productivity

Multiple studies have found that remote employees tend to be more productive than their in-office counterparts. According to one Stanford study, remote workers were 13% more productive on average.

Why the productivity boost? A few reasons:

• Less time commuting means more time working
• Flexible schedules align with individual work styles
• Fewer distractions and interruptions

The increase holds true specifically for salespeople as well. SaaS company Close found that their remote sales reps scheduled 30% more calls per day and had 20% more conversations with qualified leads.

2. Lower Costs

Remote teams allow businesses to save money on real estate and overhead costs. No need to lease, furnish, or maintain a large central office space. These savings can then be invested into more sales staff, tools, or marketing budgets – directly driving revenue.

3. Global Talent Pool

With remote work, you are no longer limited to candidates who live near your office. This drastically widens your talent pool.

You can build an all-star sales team composed of the best reps across states, time zones, or even continents. This diversity also allows you to better understand and sell to global markets.

4. Increased Employee Satisfaction

Surveys show that the option to work remotely results in higher job satisfaction. Your team has flexibility to adjust their schedules, work from anywhere, and skip tedious commutes.

Happy and satisfied reps ultimately translate into higher sales performance. Turnover is lower as well, saving your team time and resources it would take to continually hire and train new salespeople.

In summary, remote sales teams lead to lower costs, expanded talent pools, increased productivity, and more satisfied employees.

Now let’s look at how you can realize those benefits by effectively managing widespread sales crews.

The Challenges of Managing Remote Teams

Transitioning to remote work is not without its headaches. It can take much more intention, structure, and oversight to manage reps who are dispersed across states or time zones.

Some of the biggest struggles managers face include:

1. Lack of Face-to-Face Interaction

No casual water cooler chats. No popping by someone’s desk to ask a quick question. No face-to-face meetings to read body language or pick up on social cues.

2. Communication Gaps

Without seeing each other every day, communication gaps can develop between managers and reps. Important messages get lost. Questions go unanswered. Misalignments build up over time.

3. Decreased Collaboration

Brainstorming together. Tag-teaming a difficult client. Celebrating wins as a team. This kind of real-time collaboration is harder across distances.

4. Distractions at Home

Kids, pets, chores – it‘s tough for some sales reps to replicate focused office energy when working from their kitchen table.

5. Limited Training

It’s more challenging for managers to directly mentor reps and monitor progress with remote onboarding or product training.

6. Lack of Accountability

When reps work asynchronously across distances, it can be difficult for managers to confirm they are staying on track each day. Without accountability, activity can drop off.

If not proactively addressed, these pitfalls can completely counter the intended benefits of remote teams outlined earlier. So what’s the solution?

You need to implement frameworks that recreate structure, visibility, and cohesion virtually. With the right management tactics, you can minimize the cons while taking full advantage of expanded talent pools and increased efficiency.

How to Manage a Remote Sales Team Effectively

Managing remote teams requires using tools and tactics specifically designed for distributed collaboration. Simply copying old management habits won’t translate.

Here are seven keys to effectively managing a dispersed sales operation:

1. Overcommunicate Expectations

With remote workers, clear expectations around goals and responsibilities become even more critical. Make sure every team member understands:

• Activity metrics they should hit each week
• Key benchmarks for closing deals
• Required meetings and check-ins
• Communication protocols

Document expectations thoroughly in: employee handbooks, sales playbooks, RIAC charts (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed), commission plans, etc. Revisit frequently during 1-on-1s as well.

With visibility limited, you need crystal clear guidelines on what success looks like. When documented properly, your team has transparency around priorities so they can self-manage – even from afar.

2. Pick Collaborative Software

The right remote work tools can either make or break distributed teams. Carefully assess what apps best suit salesteam needs across a few categories:

Communication

• Slack/Teams: Instant messaging improves informal collaboration
• Zoom/Hangouts: Video conferences build personal connections
• Chorus.ai: Call recording software with searchable transcripts and conversation analytics

Productivity & Tasks Management

• Salesforce: Central CRM to track all prospect interactions and pipeline data
• Outreach/SalesLoft: Sequences timely sales cadences and outreach
• Pipedrive: Visual pipeline management
• Asana/Trello: Lists of individual and team projects & tasks

Performance Tracking

• Gong: Records sales calls to analyze rep performance
• People.ai: Activity tracking to confirm reps are prospecting as expected
• Salesforce reporting: Dashboards with vital team metrics and benchmarks

The right stack enables transparency, structured workflows, and ongoing improvement. Take time to thoroughly test options before rolling out new platforms. Ease adoption by aligning tool expertise to specific admins on the team.

3. Maintain Visibility

When managing remote workers, you lose the ability to glance around the office taking stock. That makes intentionally tracking productivity and progress vital.

• Look at notes: Require sales reps to submit thorough notes on each call and prospective deal into your CRM. Review deal updates before check-ins.
• Review transcripts/call analysis: Use call recording platforms to confirm reps have effective discovery conversations that uncover budgets and timelines.
• Check productivity data: Use sales engagement platforms to monitor outbound emails, cold calls, demos scheduled week over week. Remote reps should share calendars so managers understand upcoming meetings.
• Conduct spot checks: Randomly join calls/demos to audit quality live when needed. Hear rep’s tonality and speaking points firsthand.

Frequent monitoring ensures you catch any prospecting gaps early before pipelines drop. Data also helps accurately reward your top performers.

4. Set Up Recurring 1-on-1s

Weekly or bi-weekly video check-ins allow managers to coach reps like they would in-person. Cover recent deals, strategies that are working well, challenges reps face, and goals for the upcoming weeks.

1-on-1s shouldn’t just be about hitting metrics. Foster personal connections by asking about family, pets, hobbies, or vacation plans. This builds rapport that keeps remote teams bonded.

Managers should also share positive feedback and recognition during 1-on-1s. This could be praise for a creative sales methodology that led to a closed deal or thanks for supporting a colleague. A pat on the back keeps remote reps motivated.

5. Host Engaging Team Meetings

Don’t let remote staff meetings become drab recaps of spreadsheets reports. Instead, focus them around themes engaging for sales pros:

• Skill building: Review call recordings together providing peer feedback around objection handling or discovery questions. Break into virtual breakout rooms to workshop improvements.
• Motivation: Feature a top-performing rep each week who presents tactics, tools, and mindsets they leverage to hit goals. Let them share personal success stories.
• Morale: Play trivia games testing product knowledge. Award prizes or funny certificates highlighting positive team traits reps embody.

Leave time for open questions and brainstorms. Use video conferencing features like digital whiteboards to collaborate visually on ideas in real-time.

6. Promote Social Connections

Water cooler culture and hallway chatter still matter – even remotely. Provide outlets for personal interactions to foster camaraderie:

• Virtual coffee breaks – No work talk allowed!
• Team chat channels for social banter, GIFs, or friendly debates
• Group games like virtual poker nights, Xbox tournaments, or team step challenges
• Coworking stipends – Reimburse local cowork spaces for in-person collaboration

These connections help remote workers feel less isolated which directly translates to higher engagement and happiness.

7. Analyze Data to Continuously Improve

Treat sales data as guideposts to shape better processes and training over time rather than just criticisms of rep performance.

Look for trends around:

• Conversion rates at each deal stage
• Sales cycles for closed won deals
• Activity metrics and win rates
• Adoption rates acrossSales tools

Then build frameworks addressing weak spots:

• Improve discovery effectiveness if early pipeline drop-off is high
• Add templates guiding follow-up timing if sales cycles are too long
• Change commission structures incentivizing desired activities
• Host office hour demos answering platform questions

Ongoing iterations endorsed by leadership keep remote teams progressing.

Real-World Examples

Let’s look at how top companies manage award-winning remote sales crews:

InVision

The digital design platform is 100% distributed across 27 countries. To keep its reps united, InVision heavily promotes camaraderie and connections through:

• Annual global summits for face-time
• Random virtual coffee chats
• Coworking space stipends
• Team bonding events like cook-offs or photo contests

During the pandemic, they also send care packages and handwritten notes to help reps feel supported both personally and professionally.

Zapier

Known for their written, asynchronous communication, Zapier’s remote framework is founded on documentation. They have 50+ different spaces clearly outlining:

• Company values
• Team norms
• Individual roles
• Processes map for fixing problems

With so much transparency, Zapier’s distributed team can rapidly solve issues even spans apart. Their shared drive has over 100k comments as collaboration cornersstone.

Drift

The conversational marketing platform designs extremely engaging all-hands meetings celebrating rep successes. Their weekly virtual “Show & Tells” feature stand-out employees via:

• Shout outs recognizing impressive stats or deals
• Highlighted humorous customer stories
• Genius idea presentations with Q&As

Show & Tells get 80%+ staff attendance keeping the distributed team feeling united through shared wins.

Key Takeaways

Managing distributed sales crews allows your business to reduce costs and attract top global talent – while increasing productivity. But without intentional management frameworks for visibility and collaboration, remote teams can flounder.

To lead record-breaking remote reps, focus on:

• Overcommunicating goals and expectations
• Equipping them with an integrated software stack
• Maintaining visibility into remote rep activity
• Scheduling consistent one-on-one check-ins
• Building community during creative team meetings
• Analyzing data to address issues as they emerge

With the right foundation fueling accountability, support, and success…the sky is the limit for your dispersed sales team!