Month: January 2023

Are you tired of manually tracking leads and sales and inventory? Do you wish there was a way to streamline the process and make it more efficient? Well, have no fear because a sales portal is here!

Okay, that reads more like a late night TV ad than a practical combination of processes and software, but it really is true. A sales portal is a digital platform that allows businesses to manage their sales process in one central location. Think of it as a one-stop-shop for all things sales. From tracking leads and managing customer information to creating quotes and tracking inventory, a sales portal can do it all.

But why does your business need one? Well, for starters, it can save you a ton of time and energy. No more manually inputting customer information or searching through endless spreadsheets to find that one lead you need. Everything is easily accessible and organized in one place. A sales portal can increase sales by making it much more straight forward for customers to purchase from you. With features such as online quotes and secure payment processing, the buying process is made simple and seamless.

All of those benefits aside, one of the most practical reasons that your B2B business needs a sales portal is to stay competitive! The more seamless the sale, the more value you provide to customers, otherwise they look elsewhere.

Okay, so you’re sold on the idea of a sales portal, but how do you know if your business actually needs one?

You’re going to start by taking a look at your current sales process. Are you manually tracking leads and customer information? Are you spending hours creating quotes and processing payments? Are you creating sales orders, and then manually updating that sale information into an inventory count spreadsheet? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then it’s probably time to incorporate a sales portal.

Second, it’s already been mentioned that a portal keeps you competitive, but have you been keeping an eye on that competition? Are your competitors using a sales portal and you’re not? How easy is it for your target prospect to purchase from the competition? Do you have  products that should be standouts winners but no one can find them?  

Lastly, if you’re finding it hard to retain customers, then a sales portal could be the solution. With features such as customer relationship management and automated follow-up processes, a sales portal can help you keep your customers coming back for more.

You’ve determined that your business needs a sales portal, now what? 

Here are features you should be looking for in your B2B Sales Portal

First and foremost, a sales portal should have a lead tracking feature. This allows you to easily track and manage leads, so you never miss an opportunity again and can quickly track their history.

Next up, a customer relationship management feature. This is like a digital rolodex for your customers, keeping all their information in one place and making it easy for you to keep in touch, without relying on scratch pads or buried emails.

Quoting and invoicing are also key features of a sales portal. With the ability to create and send quotes and invoices online, you can streamline the sales process and make it more efficient. When a prospect appears, ready to buy, do not delay the sale, make it frictionless.

Remember how you had to update inventory levels at the end of the day, or after each sale orders, and sometimes you would forget? A proper B2B Sales Portal updates in real time, which also provides immediate insight to stock levels so there is no surprises or stockouts.

And last but almost most important, secure payment processing. This feature allows customers to make payments online, making it easy for them to purchase from you and for you to get paid.

There can be plenty of additional features, but don’t let the plethora of features overwhelm you, just remember that a good sales portal should have lead tracking, customer relationship management, quoting and invoicing, real time inventory updates, and secure payment processing. And if it doesn’t have all of that, well, it’s like starting a business and hoping people will just show up.

You’ve got your sales portal all picked out, now what?

You have caught the vision and you’re ready to roll, but you’re missing one key component to this whole plan, and that’s implementing it. Unfortunately, no matter how good the portal, it’s not as easy as just plug and play.

Before anything is integrated, you’ll want to set up a plan. This includes determining who will be responsible for managing the portal, what processes need to be put in place, and how you will train your team to use it.

Next, it’s time to get your hands dirty and start inputting all of your customer and lead information. This step is a critical investment of time, but the long term gain of efficiency and tracking pays big dividends.

Once all the information is in, it’s time to test, test, test. Make sure everything is working correctly and that your team is comfortable using it.

And lastly, don’t forget to keep it updated. A sales portal is a living, breathing thing and it needs to be taken care of.

So, don’t think that just because you have a sales portal, your job is done. It’s like having a new puppy, it takes work, but the end result is worth it. And who knows, with a sales portal by your side, you might just become the top dog in your industry.

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The Takeaway

A B2B Sales Portal is a digital platform that allows businesses to manage their sales process in one central location. It can save you a ton of time and energy, increase sales, keep proper inventory count, and make it easier for customers to purchase from you. The portal can provide the edge to winning out the competition and make your services and products stand out.

We’ve covered how to determine if your business needs a sales portal, the key features that a sales portal should have, the steps to take when implementing a sales portal and tips for ensuring a successful implementation.

Remember, a good sales portal should have lead tracking, customer relationship management, quoting and invoicing, integrate with your inventory system, and provide secure payment processing. 

Implementing a sales portal takes work, but the end result far outweighs the costs and effort.

 

You’re in the final rounds of decision making for your business’ inventory software, you see the value, internal stakeholders see the value, you pull the trigger. There’s excitement about what the future holds, how the solution will save time and money, even your finance department is smiling and they don’t usually do that. Now comes the hard part, implementing it without bringing your company to a halt.

• How will you integrate this software into your daily operations?
• Do we start using it in one department or all of them?
• Who is going to train our employees?

Skipping inventory software onboarding may seem like a cost-saving measure, but in reality it often leads to inefficiencies in your inventory management. These inefficiencies can lead to lost revenue and increased expenses, such as increased labor costs and lost sales due to stockouts. When employees are not properly trained on the software, they may not be using it to its fullest potential or make properly trained decisions. As the expression goes, a dull blade is more dangerous than a sharp one.

Here’s 3 Vital Benefits that Inventory Training can provide your business

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DATA SETUP

Your business can never reach maximum success with poor data, you will always lack essential information to make your key business decisions. For an inventory based business, this data starts with accurate inventory data. Without proper onboarding, the software may not be configured correctly, resulting in inaccurate inventory counts, stock levels, and organization, which will have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line.

 

For example, if the software is not configured correctly, workers will not properly track items or materials, processes will be confused, and end results can be stockouts or unaccounted orders, which can result in lost sales and a decrease in customer satisfaction. Customers may become frustrated if they are unable to purchase the products they need, and may take their business elsewhere. Additionally, inaccurate inventory data can also lead to overstocking, which can result in additional storage costs and potential waste.

Lack of accurate inventory data impacts your company’s ability to make informed business decisions, identifying trends and patterns in the inventory, which affects the ability to predict demand, forecast future sales and make decisions on purchasing, stocking and pricing.

Want to know what’s worse than not meeting supply demands? Not meeting mandatory regulations. For example, industries like healthcare, food and beverage, or retail, accurate inventory data is essential for compliance with regulations related to product traceability, expiration dates and safety. Inventory Software Provides essential tools for recording and maintaining necessary information that you need for these regulations, but if the software is not properly set up or maintained you’re going to have a fines and penalties headache down the road.

SCALABILITY

Did you want to grow your business? Then your current process needs the ability to scale up without losing what made it successful in the first place. When a company decides to skip the inventory software onboarding process, they may not fully understand the capabilities of the software or how to properly configure it. It doesn’t mean the solution won’t work, but it’s not operating at full effectiveness, and as your company grows, that underperforming process will become an unintentional standard.

For example, if the software is not configured correctly, your company may handle regular order levels just fine, until the “big one” comes in. You landed the big client, or blew up on social media, etc, but now you face a deluge of orders and your process cannot keep pace. Similarly, if the software is not set up to handle multiple locations, it may not be able to accurately track inventory across different warehouses or retail stores. Without the ability to scale the software to meet your company’s boom times, you may be forced to finally invest in proper training, but the result is additional costs of downtime, lost revenue, and customer impression.

Another vital aspect of scalability is the ability to integrate with other systems. Many inventory management software have the capability to integrate with other business systems such as accounting software, e-commerce platforms, and shipping and logistics systems. Without proper onboarding, your company may not understand how to take advantage of these integrations, resulting in manual data entry and likely human error.

Without the ability to scale, your company becomes limited in its resources to expand into new markets or introduce new product lines. Without a system that can handle the increased complexity and volume, you may struggle to keep up with demand and miss out on big growth opportunities.

EMPLOYEE TRAINING

One of the most substantial hidden costs of forgoing inventory software onboarding is a lack of employee productivity. Without the proper training, your employees will not know how to use the software effectively; this includes lost time, lost items, and more errors, all of which can have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. 

If employees don’t understand how to use the software, or how it can speed up their own day, they will rely on what they did before. They don’t understand the value because they don’t understand the software. There may even be frustration with the software, leading to a high turnover rate and the need to constantly train new employees. This can create an additional burden on the company, as it will need to spend time and resources training new employees.

This lack of employee productivity impacts the company’s ability to grow and expand. If employees are struggling to use the software effectively, it can make it more difficult for the company to keep up with demand and may miss out on potential growth opportunities. Employee onboarding is vital in your business’ inventory management.

Get Schooled

When planning for your inventory software purchase, remember the solution itself is a tool, but it is how you implement that tool across your entire company which dictates the success of that software. The more your departments and employees understand the process, workflows, and even data points that are made possible because of the inventory management solution, the more opportunities you have to grow.

 

Inventory is the lifeblood of Route Sales. if you don’t have what your customer needs, when they need it, you are diminishing your own revenue opportunity and customer satisfaction. This article will serve as an overview of inventory software that can help route sales agents maximize their success and efficiency, while also providing insight to uses and benefits.

Benefits of Inventory Software for Route Sales

Keeping track of customer purchases and inventory levels is easier when route sales use  inventory software, because it streamlines the ordering process. A Salesperson who pays attention has a sense of customer needs and inventory on hand, but inventory software allows sales representatives to quickly review each customer’s data, their profile, order history, item inventory levels, and typically provides alerts when stock dips below a set threshold.

What about when it’s time for ordering? Inventory software for route sales can further automate the ordering process to re-stocking items, automate the billing process, and automate customer updates via email, all while ensuring that your customer’s items and materials are delivered in a timely manner.

These inventory software automations cut out all the small tasks that eat minutes and eventually hours from your day. Streamlining your sales process for you and your customers provides more time for lead follow-ups, new connections, improves both your revenue potential and, most importantly, your customer satisfaction. 

Understanding Inventory Software Use for Route Sales

The basic purpose of an inventory management system is simple: it keeps track.

It keeps track of sales orders. It keeps track of invoices. It keeps track of inventory. But for route sales, the key information to track is accurate stock levels while having a readily available tool to monitor and update it. Dynamic inventory management software paired with proper integrations ensure accurate inventory data, delivered to a handheld device. It’s a dynamic system to match the dynamic nature of a sales route.

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Consider some scenarios that are all too common in your day-to-day route:  

1. You acquire a new customer from a previous route salesperson who had a history of providing minimum effort. There is no customer profile or records. From your own research you have a good understanding of the company and meet them to make introductions. This frustrated customer gets straight to the point and wants to know how you plan to accommodate them. 
2.  You are chatting with a long-time customer who is worried about staying competitive in the current market, and they ask for your help in knowing some of the new products or solutions that you might provide, and how quickly they can be shipped.
3.  In the middle of your route you meet a new potential client and they’re interested in showing you their process and might consider replacing their previous provider if you can provide a self-service portal.
4. Customer wants item D as soon as possible. You think you have it back at the warehouse, but you’re not certain, and everyone is out to lunch.

In each one of these situations above, an inventory management solution paired with a route sales integration can tackle the needs of the agent.

1.  You explain to the understandably frustrated customer how you will create a customer profile, track their order history, and monitor item levels if any reorders are needed. 
2.  With the customer’s profile in your route sales integration, you can glimpse into their order overview, offer potential insight, while also showing in real time exactly how much of each item you have on hand and how quickly it can arrive at their facility.
3. In your customer portal integration, you can show off a portal built specifically for their needs, providing all the items that they carry and allow them to order at will. You can also mention that you as their sales representative are able to track and monitor these levels to ensure they have all materials that they need.
4. You’re not worried about who’s out to lunch back at the warehouse because you have every piece of inventory information in the palm of your hands. Item levels update in real time, and you can see that item D is indeed available, and create an order for that customer on the spot.

While the purpose of an inventory solution is simple, its ability to create value is game changing.

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Additional Business Benefits

Auto-Orders. Besides being able to track sales and inventory levels in real time, inventory software also makes it possible to prevent overstock and understock situations by ensuring accurate stock management. Yes, there are manual methods of managing inventory, from spreadsheet to scratch marks in a notebook, but in order to prevent overstocks and stockouts, a digital solution is required. Inventory Management Software provides tools like Auto Purchase Orders to keep items and materials at the level you customize for your company.

Customer Insights. In addition to tracking all things inventory, dynamic inventory software also provides reporting capabilities that allow for a deeper insight into customer preferences, as well as providing forecasting needs for their future, which in turn benefits your businesses well-being. 

Reports. Data is the means of fueling our business decisions, but raw data does not immediately provide correlations.With an inventory management system, businesses can generate reports for the metrics that matter most and find opportunities to modify offerings, provide dynamic pricing to help maximize profit, and even reduce wasted spend.

Performance. Maximizing data efficiency and inventory tracking cuts out the human errors that eat away at hours in the week and money spent on returns or even scrap all together. even small changes across the board can compile a difference that saves total company time increases total profit and provides communication across departments so that all team members can be on the same page.

Hit the Road

A route salesperson is only as good as the information that they have on hand. if you know nothing about your customer it’ll be hard to understand their needs. If you don’t know a client’s process, associated costs, and materials needed, you limit the opportunity to find additional item or service potential; you’re not providing them full value. If you flat out do not know what you have on-hand, how long shipping will take, or even what their own purchase trends say about them, then you have an opportunity for improvement with Inventory Management Software and Route Sales Integrations. Simple tools, big results.