Every company needs a highly skilled and effective sales force. These are the men and women are the ones who cultivate relationships like Oprah, accept rejection with a counter offer, and show you the money. Incidentally, these are also the people who should almost never be in your office! Simple statistics show that greater success is found through finding more prospects and spending more time with those customer you already have. Salesmen are the quintessential road warriors.
Mobile employees need specialized resources that would be a luxury for regular office workers. Technologies have evolved over the past couple of years that allow a mobile workforce to smartly work from any location and easily connect back to the main office when needed. Luckily the cost of providing these tools is constantly diminishing.
Below are the first 5 essential tools for the mobile sales force.
- Smartphones
Don’t stifle your sales force with lame call/text only phones! There are just too many uses for good smartphones. The potential time saved and increased productivity are worth the expenditure. If the cost are truly prohibitive, consider shifting the cost savings to other categories such as netbooks for laptops. Another cost saving strategy could be reimbursing employees for plans for their personal accounts since “corporate” wireless accounts seem to have ridiculous pricing structures. The real problem is that by choosing which smartphone works best for you, you are also directly choosing the wireless carrier (unless you are willing to pay a lot of money for an unlocked phone or crack the software).Recommendations:
From the shear size of available applications and user reviews I would rank smartphones of best to worst as follows: iPhone, Android platform (HTC Eris or Motorola Droid), and Blackberry. The verdict is still out on the Google Nexus One, but it could be a serious competitor in the small business market to rival Blackberry due to tight integration with Google Apps. - Laptop or Netbook
There really isn’t much of a need for most professional sales people to have a high end laptop computer. Smartphones and tablets, in the near future, might even negate the need for either device but most sales people will find a need for a full sized keyboard, larger screen, and ability to run dedicated software apps. Today the price and portability of netbooks that still run Windows OS are far more attractive. The overall performance of netbooks will probably not affect the average user who uses e-mail, surfs the web, video conferences, and uses Office. If you find the need for screamin’ performance, then consider the smaller, lighter varieties of laptops.Recommendations:
Netbooks: Dell or Asus netbooks seem to consistently get favorable reviews.
Laptops: MacBook Air or Dell Latitude Z. - Portable Projector
Most businesses may not realize that video projectors have been hit by Moore’s Law just like other electronics. This means they have gotten better, smaller, and cheaper. Projectors that can easily be carried around can be purchased for under $1,000. Pocket projectors, a new fit-in-your-pocket category, may be even better with prices starting as low as $300.Recommendations:
Dell carries a line of portable projectors including M109S pocket version. - Mobile Hotspots
Smartphones carry the bulk of most communication needs, but sales people will at some point need a dedicated wireless Internet connection that the smartphone just cannot handle. In these cases, the most versatile devices mobile hotspots - pocket sized devices that work with your chosen wireless carrier to provide high speed Internet connections to any device. Not all wireless carriers offer this service, but most of the major carriers like Verizon and Sprint do. Unfortunately, the network with the iPhone monopoly does not seem to offer a mobile hotspot service.Recommendation:
None. You are locked in by the carrier you have chosen for your wireless service unless you want to maintain multiple accounts and bills. - Remote Business Systems (email, mis/quote, crm – salesforce.com, project management)
Take inventory of your business systems that are critical for your remote sales force. Now see if there are alternatives or upgrades to these systems that would put these in “the cloud.” This simply means that the software would be accessible via the Internet through a computer or smartphone. An example would be using Google Apps instead of Microsoft Office or Salesforce.com instead of your current customer relationship management software. For printers, one area to evaluate is your eCommerce and management information systems (MIS) that your salesmen can use to request products, quotes, and even order on behalf of the customer.Recommendations:
Check with your industry supplier. Many MIS vendors offer integrating storefront/ecommerce solutions. Currently only two MIS products on the market offer mobile applications (both for iPhones): EFI’s ePace and Hiflex. An alternative would be to open up the MIS system remotely through a secure VPN or HTTPS connection if possible.
The next five will be posted in the next post.
