7 Things Chemical Sales Managers Can Do to Lean into Digital

Industry-specific digital initiatives continue to grow at a rapid rate, whether in the form of CRM software, sales tools, or networking platforms. 

While companies remain hard pressed to stay ahead of the curve, there are steps you can take to educate yourself and improve your performance amidst this ever-evolving landscape.

Below are practical tips and tricks to leaning into digital initiatives on an individual and company-wide basis. With just a few small changes, you can improve your sales performance, grow your company's online presence, and expand your relationships with customers. 

1. Track your sales goals and activities.

The research is clear: consistent, quality sales activity generates new business. Tracking productivity is one of the best ways to drive it. Managers committed to continuous growth can repurpose the digital tools at their disposal to create personal habit trackers that improve performance and productivity. Start by identifying sales metrics to quantify your sales activity. Then, use your dashboard or CRM to create a visual display to track and illustrate progress toward your goals.

2. Use social media to develop meaningful relationships.

Social media is a vital customer engagement tool in any company's arsenal. Most B2B firms, however, struggle to utilize it to its potential. You can take the following simple measures to align with customers and maximize your company's social media presence:

• Develop a personal engagement plan around your customers' top-of-mind issues. Curate a mix of original and third-party content to generate interest among your customer base and initiate online conversations. 
• Continue conversations to engage potential customers. Conversation leads to conversion, as followers are potential customers. Go beyond simply catering to your audience's content needs by following up on inbound messages and comments. 

Need help getting started? Check out this podcast from Mandy McEwan, who employs the above-stated tactics to help B2B sales teams best harness LinkedIn.

3. Subscribe to a sales podcast.

In the last decade, tech companies have pioneered B2B sales tactics, and we have an opportunity to learn from them. As best practices evolve, staying up-to-date on the latest thinking is imperative to establishing your company as a key player in the market. Following a sales podcast is a simple yet effective way to gain fresh insight into industry trends. 

Read this blog post of 24 Sales Podcasts Every Rep Should Listen To. This is a useful starting point for tuning in to industry innovators and staying on the leading edge of B2B sales tactics.

4. Increase your productivity by exploiting your CRM.

Although maintaining your company's CRM may feel tedious and time-consuming, you can use this tool to your advantage if you embrace the technology. Here are three ways to use your CRM to streamline daily tasks and optimize your workflow:

• Use dictation to enter customer notes
• Scan business cards to add prospective customer information
• Create standard templates for email communications 

If you need access to more tools to take these steps, take the initiative, research solutions, and propose upgrading your company's technology platform.

5. Volunteer your accounts for pilots projects.

Be the first to volunteer when marketing or sales teams roll out new digital techniques. These opportunities present a chance for you to harness additional resources and familiarize yourself with emerging technology.

6. Build a community centered around CRM and digital tactics.

With digital initiatives advancing at a blinding pace, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by technology integration. Drawing on the experience and expertise of colleagues is one way to combat technology overload. 

Tap into your professional community and coordinate a regular event for discussing best practices around digital tactics. Share common challenges and brainstorm practical ways to implement shared strategies. 

7. Closely track and document your customer journey.

Be sure to share your findings along the way with your digital team. This will provide you and your team with the data necessary to design effective digital tactics. Below are three ways in which this will increase conversions:

• Break Barriers. Digital tactics will be geared toward addressing barriers in the selling process. Pinpointing where your customers get lost will give you important clues on where to focus digital efforts to maximize conversion.
• Reach Difficult to Access Contacts. Digital tactics can be used to reach non-traditional contacts, so building a list of contacts you would like to access is important intel.
• Capture Best Practices. Record every time you develop a tool, deliver insight, or customize a piece of collateral for a customer. With this information, digital tools can be designed to automate your best practices and distribute them across sales teams.

These are a just a few things that will accelerate your personal results and productivity today, and which will put you in the forefront of changes that digitalization brings to B2B sales.