It’s been a long few years (to say the least), but mobile sales are back.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, “Travel spending in April exceeded 2019 levels for the first time since the start of the pandemic.” They also reported an “accelerating return of business travel” (source).
With reps back out in the field — or in the field for the first time — they need user-friendly tools they can quickly adapt to in order to provide the same (or even better) standard of service they give customers from their desks.
For organizations that have many employees that work remotely or are constantly on the move, mobile sales enablement platforms have become the go-to technology.
Below are some of the main benefits of mobile sales enablement platforms for field reps as well as features to look out for when choosing a solution.
Mobile sales enablement: Access anytime, anywhere
When considering mobile sales enablement platforms, be sure to look for mobile-first platforms. Mobile-first sales enablement tools have the key differentiator of providing access to collateral, collaboration tools, and learning — anytime, anywhere. The two main indicators of a mobile-first platform are:
- Designed and optimized for mobile (tablets, smartphones, etc.)
- Full offline capabilities
A sales enablement mobile app functions as a central hub, providing easy access to critical collateral and tools salespeople need to do their jobs.
In addition to mobile-first features, these are some other important aspects to consider when evaluating your options.
Get a personalized demo of Bigtincan’s mobile-first sales enablement solution.
Sales content management
With increased competition and heightened buyer power, sales content management has become one of the most critical pieces of the sales enablement equation and plays a crucial role in the success of any mobile sales enablement strategy.
An effective mobile sales enablement app stores, optimizes, and organizes sales content to ensure sales teams can access these materials quickly and efficiently while on the go.
For example, let’s say a buyer is inquiring about a product a salesperson is unfamiliar with. Instead of saying “I’ll send you follow-up materials,” the seller can easily pull up relevant content on the spot. That way, momentum doesn’t come to a halt and the buyer gets more value from the interaction.
For members on your team that spend a lot of time traveling, this is especially important as the downtime they usually would experience while in transit can be converted into productive tasks such as meeting prep and training.
Digital resources can also replace physical ones like heavy manuals or catalogs, which lightens the load for both the seller and the buyer.
Real-time updates and version control
It’s best practice to frequently update and improve on your sales collateral over time. However, version control can be a nightmare if done manually. This provides the opportunity for salespeople to share outdated content with customers, which can lead to branding, messaging, and compliance issues.
With advanced mobile sales enablement platforms, when a new version of a file is published, the older version is automatically removed ensuring salespeople always have the most up to date content on all of their devices.
Another common issue organizations face is underutilization of sales collateral. Marketing teams tend to churn out new content that their sales team doesn’t even know exists.
Mobile enablement platforms allow content creators to notify sellers that new content is available via push notifications and social media like feeds within the platform.
This is a great way to inform your sellers out in the field of new content and increase your content utilization rate.
Branding and compliance
Compliance tends to be a major pain point and obstacle to alignment between sales and marketing teams. When a seller can’t find what they’re looking for, they tend to take matters into their own hands and create their own content. As a result, the content often doesn’t properly align with your organization’s branding or messaging, and for heavily regulated industries, it is non-compliant.
Beyond making content easy to find, mobile sales enablement software enables sales and marketing to collaborate on content so it aligns with what they need and resonates with your target buyers. To stay compliant, some mobile platforms allow admins to place restrictions on content such as whether it is shareable, downloadable, or watermarked.
More advanced platforms have content creation and editing capabilities that allow sellers to edit and personalize content from a template. Admins can place non-editable zones in these templates to make sure that key branding and messaging sections of the document are not altered.
Communication and collaboration
A strong sales team needs to have the flexibility to easily communicate and access content, data, and other relevant information wherever they are.
Mobile platforms provide the ability for sellers to stay connected with their teams while on the move. Utilizing mobile device features such as chat, audio/video calls, and social features such as push notifications, likes, and comments, sellers are able to collaborate on content, provide feedback, ask team members questions, and much more.
Mobile sales training and coaching
Mobile sales enablement platforms can also enhance your sales training and coaching programs.
At the basic level, mobile sales enablement platforms provide easy access to training and coaching materials while on the go. However, more advanced platforms include a built-in, modern learning management system (LMS), giving sales managers the opportunity to create assignments for sellers to complete on their own time, at their own speed, wherever they may be. This helps sales managers stay in touch with field reps and keep them up to speed on any updates.
With the advanced audio and video capabilities of modern mobile devices, field sellers can also record themselves practicing their pitch in an assigned scenario and receive detailed feedback from their coach or an AI tool — all from their car or hotel room.
Sellers can take short, just-in-time microlearning sessions for quick brush ups on product knowledge or messaging right before meeting with a client.
Mobile sales training and coaching also eliminates the need for in-person coaching sessions, which helps reduce additional travel costs and the time sellers spend away from active selling.
Learn more benefits and approaches to sales coaching in The Business Case and Playbook for Data-Driven Sales Coaching
Customer engagement
To increase loyalty, satisfaction, and profitability, organizations need to give their teams the right content and communication tools to properly engage with their customers.
Organizing your presentations and client materials in a single sales enablement mobile app allows you to put dynamic, compelling presentation-ready content in the right hands at the right time — and ultimately, enable more effective sales engagement, resulting in a paying customer.
Advanced mobile sales enablement solutions allow your sales teams to pull together approved, up-to-date pieces of collateral on-the-fly so they always have presentation-ready content for every selling scenario. This helps minimize bespoke content that isn’t compliant while setting up your team for greater success.
With more advanced platforms, sellers are also able to follow up with supplemental content, and track that journey with the customer for deeper insights. These consistent, one-on-one interactions with clients help position your salespeople as trusted advisors, and ultimately, strengthens customer relationships.
Mobile sales enablement platform integrations
Part of creating a seamless selling experience is offering ample integration options. Integrations do not only allow you to leverage your current software investments, but they also enhance the functionality of the tools salespeople are already familiar with and help to streamline their day-to-day workflow, cut down on training time, and boost productivity.
For Mobile sales enablement software, common integrations include cloud-based content repositories, CRM, marketing automation software, and LMS.
Want to learn more about mobile sales enablement? Get a personalized demo of Bigtincan to see how you can ensure the success of your field sellers.
