Not only is there a shortage in the sales talent pipeline, but a large portion of veteran sales talent is deciding now is a good time to retire. 

The disruption has many facets, including people choosing to take voluntary redundancy and early retirement after the impact of the pandemic. The latest ONS Study indicates that while some economic recovery drove up demand for workers by the end of 2021, the movement of workers into redundancy, including voluntary redundancies and retirement nearly doubled for those aged 55 years and over, compared with the previous year.

COVID-related issues, health issues, childcare challenges and disinterest in going back to work have kept able individuals from entering the workforce.

Another factor is the low numbers of applications and lack of qualified or experienced applicants. Data from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) indicates that over 50% of businesses are reporting a shortage of workers that said they were unable to meet demands.

With conditions such as these, it’s no wonder sales teams are wondering how to meet the opportunity for growth. Instead, they are now facing a talent crisis and therefore any potential growth opportunities could be missed.

Such a talent deficit doesn’t mean you should put a hold on growth. There is sales technology that delivers actionable insights, supports automation, optimises sales opportunities and improves efficiency, all without disrupting current productivity, but instead by enhancing it.

While you search for the next great team members, your existing salespeople can optimise their efforts, serving even more customers – better. That same technology will help you usher in new hires faster and more efficiently.

What’s wrong with “how you’ve always done it”?  

Spreadsheets and manual processes mean salespeople tediously sort through data to find anything valuable to target the right customers with the right talking points and products. This is inefficient and wastes time.

Then, by the time salespeople identify opportunities and risks, the data has changed and maybe irrelevant. For instance, a customer at risk of churn may have moved on to a new supplier before the salesperson even identified the red flag.

As labour shortages endure, your staff will be forced to choose between spending time on administrative tasks and manual data collection or helping customers. Each salesperson gets a substantial power up when you introduce better sales technology into the equation.

Power Up Your Existing Sales Team 

With labour shortages, it’s all about increasing productivity per person. Sales productivity isn’t a simple science – but it becomes even harder if you’re doing all the work by hand, using automation to power up your existing sales team.

The Power of Time

Time saved from using sales technology and automation is remarkable. Consider the potential if your finance and sales teams got that time back to dedicate to revenue-building activities, customer relationship building and sales.

The Power of Insight

The right technology can identify the most promising prospects from the data, identifying who a salesperson should call next and what to sell them based on behaviour, segment and other factors. Priority-based selling means salespeople will spend less time on low-quality leads and each call will be more meaningful.

The Power of Oversight

Technology can also help short-staffed teams keep a pulse on the entire customer base. Salespeople can only nurture customer relationships one at a time. Technology can catch and flag key indicators of risk and opportunity in the customer data, alerting your teams.

Supercharge your sales teams today with a free demo from sales-i  https://www.sales-i.com/book-demo