Internal Social Network: How to Increase Sales Operational Efficiency

Making sales is hard! But it doesn’t need to be when you have an internal social network for support to bank on. What’s that you ask? It’s the secret sauce to all kinds of amazing sales strategies that companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Siemens use daily. In a nutshell, it is creating a sales support network in your organization and creating lasting operational efficiency.

If you are wondering how this happens without disrupting workflow, we understand! So, here is a breakdown of the best policies for creating internal social networks for salespersons along with benefits and real-life examples:

Short on time? Don’t waste your visit here, check out our video short on internal social networks right here:

Get People Analytics

Key Takeaways:

• People analytics help identify how to create communications networks in companies.

• They help identify the best communicators, collaborators, and changemakers.

• They are crucial for optimizing internal social networks and understanding proficiency pathways.

A common problem when establishing internal social networks for sales teams is the question of how to establish channels. You can opt for the standard method of ab lib and by individual ability and it works fine. However, capitalizing on your best salespersons and their interactions with technical staff is not good enough. Using people analytics, you can understand who the best communicators are and then model your support structure on the basis of their approach. This gives managers a tactical advantage in setting up their internal social networks and enhances means of communication optimization.

Real-life Example

Google has a very strong working culture that focuses on collaboration and supports employee activities with interactions. It has a robust best practices and recommendations process that enables salespersons to work effectively. They also enjoy higher morale, better problem-solving, and increased sales performance. Here’s a quote from a culture study on Google that exemplifies this,

In this instance, the strategy is to attain competitive advantages over the competition. The collaborative culture is yet another organizational way of life. This culture presents a decentralized workforce with integrated units working together to find solutions to problems or failures.

 

 

Encourage Internal Communications

Key Takeaways:

• Encourage internal communications by putting the right sales support up for teams.

• Ensure sales communications are verified, authentic, and validated by the right managerial oversight.

• Instill accountability to ensure oversight is minimized and instill better collaboration turnarounds.

Interactions between teams via internal social networks for sales funnel validation are crucial because they help create a strong selling rapport within a company. Salespersons who find a strong support network are also likely to reach out to find more information. For this, managers should encourage internal communication and create channels for easy access using people science. In particular, using Organizational Network Analytics enables salespersons to work more actively with technical experts and deliver more nuanced insights to sales targets.

Real Life Example

HubSpot has created a “help first” culture which encourages where sales team members are encouraged to mentor and assist each other. They leverage their internal social networks via tools like Slack to share tips, strategies, and resources. The result from this is that Hubspot makes great teamwork look easy, develops awesome strategies for driving sales, and hires more sales personnel on average.

Build Information Support Networks

Key Takeaways:

• Using people analytics enables managers to develop strong internal information support structures.

• Salespersons with advanced rapport with technical workers may develop more nuanced sales approaches.

• Sales managers benefit from creating a regulated and updated sales pitch deck with insights from technical workers.

Information repositories for sales products are often out of date and need better insights to sell products. Companies that invest in sales-technical worker interactions tend to also build information networks that create lasting relay channels for info.

Since companies are likely to evolve their products ongoingly creating these channels helps in developing sales pitch decks and keep them on par with the current sales of product release. Plus, internal social networks create more opportunities for cross-team collaboration and increase operational efficiency. Here is an HBR article detailing why internal support networks enable better sales strategies:

The salesperson comes up with a solution for the prospect, but rarely on his own. Success here depends on the seller’s ability to identify where the components of the solution reside in his own organization—and on his skill at mobilizing and coordinating these resources.

Real Life Example

Microsoft has a lot of sales teams and it fosters inter-team as well as intra-team collaboration. They keep close working and peripheral people in the loop with frequent meetings and media posted on online platforms. Sales teams have reported higher satisfaction and better performance as they can leverage the collective experience and knowledge of their peers, leading to more effective sales approaches.

Create Collaboration Programs & Rewards

Key Takeaways:

• Recognizing collaboration between sales and dev teams helps encourage more interactions.

• Enabling salespersons to grow with supporters encourages more nuanced sales tactics.

• Salespersons with strong internal networks may evolve into managerial roles with recognition

Once established, collaboration programs must receive support from managers to function well. Using a collaboration recognition process via internal social networks helps in fostering greater interactions and better results. The obvious here is establishing a recognition program to support collaboration. Some examples are joint performance awards, incentives, and career growth options. These cover up an often overlooked element of sales-based cross-department collaboration. As mentioned in this article by UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business,

“Our research reveals a blind spot in our sales training focus up to this point and a gap in the opportunities we may have overlooked to become more successful with customers. I think our research reveals some problems that firms should be aware of and some areas that need to be addressed because it’s eating up variance in sales performance.”

Companies that choose to foster collaboration across departments and silos stand to gain better traction in sales and increase overall operational efficiency. Further, they may find more integrative networks developing especially if they use people science to make communications easier. They must also promote the best changemakers to create high-volume communications and greater collaborations.

Real Life Example

Cisco’s P2P platform called “SalesConnect,” enables employees to post success stories, and strategies, and offer internal support. This helps them create robust internal social networks that helps salespersons and others in many particular, it is useful in creating company culture and enables breaking soils for better inter-working among departments. This in turn is a strong indicator of organizational health and creates sustained operational efficiency increase.

Develop Dynamic Internal Sales Relationships

Key Takeaways:

• Sophisticated sales operations may rely on better communications from dev and technical support teams.

• Dynamic support teams may help support sales through regular updates and on-call info relay.

• Salespersons and technical managers may come up with innovative strategies based on insights

Internal social network structures enable operational efficiency increase by leveraging more than just info. They leverage human relations and may create entirely new network pathways for communication and collaboration. This is crucial for building not just cross-team collaboration but also enhancing overall employee engagement organically. Dynamic teams not only offer people science benefits at their peak but also innovative collaboration. Mid-line changemakers between sales and technical teams may identify rising talent and boost them to perform better and take on more responsibilities.

Real Life Example

Salesforce has been using an internal social network called Salesforce Chatter for some time now. Its key benefits are enhanced collaboration, communication, and information sharing and this offers salespersons the chance to significantly increase their effectiveness and productivity.

 

Are You Ready to Take Your Internal Social Networks to Next-Level Sales Support for Operational Efficiency?

Sales teams benefit a lot from having the right kind of social network within their company to deliver results. Companies that do implement this approach will likely see a considerable increase in lead qualification and conversion thanks to detailed insights on products and case-specific solutions to client needs. Implementing these networks with people science offers even further benefits by identifying changemakers and super connectors who can turn your organization into a culture-fit fastmover. For this, you need an employee engagement and knowledge-sharing tool like LEAD bot.

LEAD bot is a team engagement platform for big businesses and MNCs on Slack and Teams. It is an all-in-one team development software with features like virtual coffee chats, buddy programs, birthday celebrations & work anniversary celebrations, new hire onboarding programs, and Pulse Surveys.

LEAD bot also offers cutting-edge Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) for large-scale organizations. C-suite execs and mid-level managers benefit greatly in their decision-making from ONA and use its highly actionable insights for building strong connections across their workforce. This enables far more forward-leaning talent development and generates greater organizational interconnectedness! Foster better organizational health, talent development, employee retention, and overall performance with this simple app!

LEAD.bot is a product of LEAD.app and we also LEAD.bot’s sister app Sunrize which showcases workplace attendance by graphs right on Slack! Book a demo now!