A recent empirical study of remote workers showed that there were four positive factors that helped drive up the performance of these workers - frequent and effective communication, work life balance, maintaining employee interest and productivity, and finally providing or reimbursing the cost of technology and collaboration platforms.
According to this study, businesses can become more adaptable by encouraging independent thought and action while facilitating this through better technology, and a balanced work approach.
Clear Goal Setting
One of the key challenges that a lot of SDRs face is not knowing what their goals are. Sure, while businesses do communicate KPIs in terms of revenue targets and incentives, this may not be enough to drive better performance.
This challenge is exacerbated for remote sales teams that do not have their team to run up to with questions. This can make the job extra lonely and challenging.
What works instead is by guiding sales teams with clear information on what products to push, and when. Also, by offering clear communication on what strategies work, and what don’t work, businesses can back up their goals with data - this helps SDRs rationalize the targets better which helps them perform their tasks more successfully.
Effective Communication Tools and Cadence
When you deal with a remote sales team, you need to make sure that they do not feel out of sight. Regular check-ins are an absolutely important factor that helps keep your team motivated and performing.
To do this, you will need effective tools that can ensure quick and efficient communication at every step of the way.
Collaboration tools like Slack allow for regular standups with your sales teams. You may also want to sign up with email automation tools like GetResponse that can alert your teams when their prospects convert or move down the sales funnel.
In addition to this, make use of unified CRM tools to keep track of how each of your sales team members are performing, and what they could do to improve their conversion.
Regular Training and Enablement
How do you train your workforce when they are remote? Modern learning management systems offer the right tools to provide continuous training to your workforce regardless of what part of the world they are located in.
Most of their training tools are asynchronous allowing the learners to engage at their own pace and schedule.
By providing constant learning support, you keep your SDRs updated on the latest industry trends and product related development. This provides them with all the talking points necessary to engage their audiences and build a more solid pipeline.
These training workshops could further be repackaged into webinars or workshops over platforms like LinkedIn Events to drive new signups and leads for your business.
Build A Culture Of Employee Engagement
While several studies have underlined the productivity increase from remote work, it also needs to be acknowledged that fully-remote organizations suffer from a lack of cohesiveness and culture at the organization. This stems from poor work engagement - some studies note that over 70% of workers feel disengaged.
Investing in employee engagement programs can help drive more active employees who also care about workplace culture. These are not overnight measures, but instead need to be backed for several months to show decisive results.
A report published by Gallup found that companies in the top quartile of employee engagement are 17% more profitable, 17% more productive, and experience nearly 60% less turnover. By focusing on a culture that drives employee engagement, you are building an atmosphere necessary for your SDRs to thrive and perform.
Set Up Performance Tracking and Feedback Systems
As humans, we are wired to seek consistency and patterns in things we do. While it is a good thing to follow processes, this can also lead to SDRs falling in a rut without innovating or analyzing their performance.
A performance tracking system is thus an important component of remote sales operations. Giving your sales team a real-time overview of how their funnel is performing. It also helps them benchmark their performance against their peers to work out strategies that are working for them, and against them.
In addition to this, also invest in robust feedback systems to help sales teams gather feedback on their processes both internally as well as from their customers. This forces individuals to get out of their comfort zone to unlearn certain aspects of their work processes, and keep innovating.
When innovating becomes part of the workflow, SDRs are more likely to try out new processes, and this offers a greater chance of getting things right.
Having said that, it is important to back all of this up with solid incentive systems. Bonuses and commissions that incentivize sales are important to keep your sales teams’ motivation and momentum going. For a remote team setup, you could also talk to your EOR company to identify suitable tax-friendly incentives that are popular and sought after in your SDR’s home country.
Invest in AI
It’s the age of AI, and if your remote sales team is not actively using AI, they are falling behind already. There are several AI-based tools helping organizations execute sales tasks more efficiently with the help of AI.
Your SDRs can now use AI for lead scoring, prioritization, sales forecasting, smart CRM updates, and also execute personalized outreach at scale. In addition to this, sales teams can also deploy AI as virtual sales coaches, copilots, and managers to offer insightful and personalized details regarding their sales activities.
Another less obvious way to use AI is by bringing down the turnaround time in managing stakeholders. Do you want to send a product mockup to a client? You could use AI to edit images, remove background, or even build a sales plan document from scratch.
Waiting for your creative team to work on this fix could take days, if not hours, to get them ready.
Wrapping up
Helping your remote sales team perform well is not about micromanaging them or relying solely on tools. Instead, it is about building a supportive and structured results-driven environment. By setting clear goals, enabling active communication, and investing in ongoing training, along with leveraging AI tools to support the modern workplace, you eliminate friction and create the exact conditions necessary for high performance, across time zones.
