These days, we expect our technology to fit in the palm of our hand, so why should sales tools be any different? Being able to access your sales tools wherever and whenever you need to is a huge benefit to all salespeople, and especially those out in the field. Mobile sales tools enable you to:
- Keep up with sales admin
- Identify and qualify prospects
- Contact customers
- Keep a record of communications
- Design and deliver presentations
- Shorten the sales cycle and increase sales…
…all from your mobile device.
With so many great sales tools available — which accelerate sales and enable your team to achieve their goals — management and sales team leaders must weigh up the following:
- Which tools offer the best ROI
- Its integration with existing or other new sales tools
- Its ease of use
- Its compatibility with the organisation’s overarching sales process
Most companies, including small businesses, use an average of three sales technology tools or solutions at any one time. Below are three of the most commonly used types of sales tools and their benefits:
| Sales Tool | Benefits |
| Smart Contact Management |
|
| Customer Relationship Management (CRM) |
|
| Sales Content Management |
|
Are Mobile Sales Tools the New Kids on the Block?
Mobile sales tools are part of the shift towards sales enablement practices. But what is sales enablement? Put simply, it’s the tools, training and content that helps salespeople effectively do their jobs.
Back in the early 2000s, no one was using the term “sales enablement”, however, the concept already existed. Companies have always pushed to improve sales team performance and productivity by enabling them to share more valuable information during meetings with prospects and existing clients. The difference now, though, compared to 20 years ago, is that the role of the salesperson in the buying and selling process has changed.
Customers reach out to salespeople at a later stage in the game and come to the conversation much better informed, thanks to masses of content available online. In this case, salespeople have to do more to win sales and prove their value, especially over a competitor. This is where mobile sales solutions, like content management tools, play a vital role.
A content management tool enables your sales team to do the following:
- Easily access sales and marketing collateral on mobile devices
- Share resources with customers, either in person or by email
- Create sales presentations that align with the brand image using marketing-approved content
- Increase confidence by knowing that all the information they need is in the palm of their hand
- Stop worrying that material is not compliant with industry regulations
- Feed back to marketing teams and departments
- Abolish the use of bulky, printed collateral.
All of these features demonstrate that a mobile content management and sales presentation tool is not only more convenient, but also more friendly to the environment.
What Are Some of the Features of a Good Content Management Mobile Sales Tool?
The best mobile sales tool will have the following features:
- User-friendly
- Easy to integrate
- Admin control over content (usually held by marketing)
- Ability to customise the software to your brand
- Reports and analysis functions to help management understand how salespeople use content
- Cloud storage
- Flawless mobile functionality and access
From a technical perspective, what features does a mobile sales tool need in order to maximise your productivity and ROI? The following table is based on an industry-leading multi-platform mobile sales enablement and presentation software.
| Feature | Description |
| Ability to view content sets | Users should be able to access the beautiful content sets you create for them directly on their mobile devices. Cloud access will allow your team to view your files online, requiring nothing more than a network connection to download and view them. |
| Offline usage | A mobile sales tool should work perfectly with or without a network connection. Content can be downloaded to mobile devices while online, meaning it can be referred to when it’s needed. You’ll never be without that crucial presentation or deal-clinching proposal again. |
| Device tethering | Tethering allows you to connect multiple devices to a single master device and control each one. This is useful for small group presentations where everyone has their own tablet and multiple shareholders or key decision makers need to be involved. |
| Support for main resource types | A good sales app should support a range of common formats, including Microsoft Office documents and spreadsheets, PDFs, PowerPoint files and videos. |
| Content markup | You should be able to draw directly onto slides, PDFs or videos to increase engagement with local or remote viewers. |
| Analytics support | Analytics allows you to identify which content is the most popular and effective (and the least!) This is vital for establishing what works, so that your team can continue to develop better presentations. |
| Email and Sharelist | You need to be able to easily email resources that your client is interested in. Your sales tool should be flexible enough to allow you to either send one at a time or build a Sharelist during the presentation, which you can send to all interested parties at the same time. |
| User ratings/feedback | You’re wasting valuable time, money and other resources producing content that isn’t effective. A rating system allows you to benefit from feedback and use insights to develop new materials that work. |
| Encrypted storage | Data security is vital. To ensure your files stay secure, choose a sales tool that uses secure encryption methods, such as AES-256, to protect data downloaded to a device. |
| Session storage | There may be times when you need to go back over materials and resources you discussed in your presentation. Instead of trying to remember what you covered, session storage saves details of anything accessed during the presentation. |
If you are looking to empower and enable your salespeople when they meet a prospect or client, make sure you find a sales content management tool that has the above features.
Remember that a mobile sales tool, as with any other software, cannot give you results if you lack the right personnel, strong leadership and proper training. However, with all of this in place, a mobile sales tool becomes an invaluable piece of software for your business.
