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By Etien D’Hollander

Most companies would be shocked to know how unproductive their sales force is.

From a positive stand point what a huge opportunity awaits those companies that focus on improving sales force productivity: increasing the quantity and improving the quality of every sales call.

In a recent study by Front Row Sales Solutions Inc., it was revealed that 76% of sales reps work less than a 5 hour day.

Just think what an extra sales call per day by each rep would do for your company – that is 220 more sales calls per rep per year. If an average sale is $1,000 that’s $22,000 in incremental revenue per rep!

Productivity comes from holding sales reps accountable to a full productive day and by providing them with the sales tools that they need in order to accomplish this.

Front Row Sales Solutions Inc. has created a unique reporting system allowing the sales reps to report the results of every sales call in less than 30 seconds by means of a short coded text message. When the message is received at Front Row Solutions, we identify the sales rep, date and time stamp the message, identify the account that was called on, decipher the code and translate the key information from the code into custom reports for sales managers and management to review. This entire process takes about 5 seconds.

Companies have spent millions of dollars on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems with the belief that these systems would result in a dramatic increase in revenue.

Unfortunately these systems have not been able to deliver on this promise. These companies do not have to abandon their existing program. Our Sales Productivity System (SPS) can be used as a standalone system or integrated with an existing one and deliver on that promise.

“I was amazed that the system gave us all the activity details, allowing us to know what was happening in real time. Our top sales people need to see 300-400 businesses per year, and the bottom line was that our Sales People were in front of more people giving us better sales results.” Gary Campbell, President CanWest Directories.

We’ve Revolutionized Field Sales Call Reporting!

Front Row Sales Solutions Delivers

1. Front Row Sales Solutions have produced a 10% + increase in business sales

2. We deliver a 10 to 50% increase in Sales Rep. activity

3. Our Systems enable Sales Reps. to report all daily calls in less than 5 minutes

4. The Front Row System captures and routes sales reports to managers in 5 seconds

5. Real time field sales metrics makes management more effective

6. Front Row Systems enables more accountability & productivity in your sales force

7. Sales Rep. compliance is over 95%!

How it Works As a Salesperson completes a sales call with a customer she simply “thumbs” in a few simple key pad stokes into her cell phone, blackberry or laptop and presses send. That’s all. Report done! It only took one minute! Now she’s on to the next call and more new customer engagements.

No long sales reports! More sales calls! More money for the Salesperson!

Benefits to Salesperson;

-More time with customers

-More calls

-More revenue

-Less time in office

-Helpful Mapping Apps.

-Quick Sales Reporting

-Quick Sales Training

Benefits to Sales Manager;

-Real time sales territory reports

-Real time Analysis by territory or team total

-Multiple sales, time, product tracking tools

-Amazing budgeting tools Great GIS (Geographical Systems) overlays

-Proven results in Canada, U.S.A, Europe & Australia

-Proven Results to top and bottom line

“Dedicated to Increasing Sales… Everywhere!”

3495 Laird Rd, Unit 6, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, L5L 5S5

sales@frontrow-solutions.com • 877-820-3360

www.frontrow-solutions.com

Front Row Solutions’ value proposition is simply: To increase our customers sales force productivity and revenue with an ROI of less than 2 weeks. So if this tweaks your interest, read on…..

 Background

With the proliferation and commoditization of CRMs, the big question is still, “Why do so many of these sophisticated, complex, and often expensive pieces of software NOT produce the expected increases in sales  (and have no associated ROI)?”

This conundrum has bred a 2nd wave of what I call “Anti CRMs” which have the specific objective of increasing Sales Effectiveness, and Results. Hence the term, Sales Performance Improvement Systems, or SPIS for short, for only those systems that can show increases in Results…

Albeit still technology based, sometimes SPIS are very simple. So Front Row Solutions has a web based Sales Activity Reporting & Management System that is extremely simple & fast to use, and which has produced rapid increases in sales for its customers by focusing on a single, very critical aspect of selling: calling on Customers and Prospects.

Sound silly… Well consider this, when I conducted a sales force survey for a $6 billion technology company, one of my most dramatic findings was that the average sales person spent less than 18% of their time talking with customers or prospects. Without going into where they spent the other 82%, by just focusing on raising this percentage to 25%, guess what, sales increased significantly, more than 50%…without any major investment in sophisticated training programs or complex CRMs!
 
So here is proof that Front Row’s Solution really achieves increases in sales for and with their customers….

 3 Customer Feedbacks

From a Salesman: ” For the last 10 years I’ve been wasting an hour and a half per day putting ******** into my CRM system to keep my bosses happy. Now I use Front Row Solutions with its texting system so all my reporting is done in less than 5 minutes per day and I have tools that actually help me.”
Bob Pallante, Sales Representative, Lynx Medical Products

From a Sales Manager: “Front Row’s system gives hard data on calls, which leads to increased productivity via better time management, resulting in a significant increase in sales productivity.

Our new Sales Reps are productive in much less time, and there are many features that they like, eg: personal notes re: customers. It’s easy to spot problems such as sales reps calling 5 times on same buyer without a sale,  and we also need fewer sales managers, eg: 1 manager now has 25 Reps.

In short, this system call help anyone in a Sales Call Driven Business.”

Geno Reddick, Sales Manager, PDC Inc.

From a President: “I was amazed that the system gave us all the activity details, allowing us to know what was happening in real time (versus reports from last week). Also Front Row did a good job of avoiding the Big Brother Syndrome by securing the buy In from our sales force during the implementation phase.

Our top sales people need to see 300-400 businesses per year, and the bottom line was that our Sales People were in front of more people, giving us better Sales Results.” Gary Campbell, President, Canwest Directories.

Front Row Solution’s Solution
So let’s take a look at how and why Front Row are able to achieve increases in sales for and with their customers….

Imagine the change in revenue and profit in your company if every sales person made just one extra sales call per day?  Here’s the maths….. 

• 1 call x 220 work days per year. 
• That gives 220 additional sales calls per person, per year.
•  If your close ratio is 1:10 that’s 22 more sales per rep per year. 
• If your average sale is $1,000 that is $22,000 in additional revenue.  
• If your sales reps could also improve the quality of their sales call and improve their close ratio to 1:5
• And if they could increase their average sale to $1,500 (44 x $1,500)
• Each sales rep would bring in an additional revenue of $66,000 per year.  

Well imagine no more!  Front Row Solutions, has addressed this challenge by simply focusing on how to increase the quantity and quality of every sales call by creating a revolutionary system incorporating the text messaging capability of the standard cell phone. 

After every sales call, the sales person sends a short-coded text message to the Front Row servers.  This text message is 10-15 key strokes long and takes less than 30 seconds to send.  Once the message hits the Front Row servers, within 3 seconds they:

• Identify the sender
• Date and time stamp the message
• Decipher the code
• Provide the management team with real-time sales metrics. 

The immediate result of this is an increase in sales rep activity. 

What’s in it for the sales reps…Well how about increased sales + the sales rep gets a number of personal productivity tools such as:

• Sales reporting in less than 5 minutes per day,
• Automatic follow-up reminders to their cell phone,
• Prospecting population of Outlook calendar,
• Route planning, and note retrieval by cell phone, to name a few.
• Access to training videos and articles which they can use to address personal weaknesses or training needs.  

All the above enhance the sales rep’s buy-in, compliance level (which stand at an amazing 95%), and improves their personal performance. 

With the Front Row System, management can identify the strengths and weaknesses of every sales rep and provide custom training programs or coaching.  It can be used as a standalone system or integrated into your CRM System to bring real time information, sales force, productivity, training and sales rep insights. Again, this can dramatically improve sales rep buy in and compliance.

How and why Front Row increases Sales?

The result is a sales force with increased quantity and quality of sales calls on customers and prospects, resulting in an ROI in a matter of days.

Conclusions

Complex, expensive, latest technology, “do everything for everyone” CRMs are not necessarily more effective in terms of increased sales results.

Above all, you need to know and fix the right obstacles to sales effectiveness. So if Sales Activity, ie: more & better time in front of Customers and Prospects is your problem, Front Row Solutions can help you!

With offices in the US and Canada, you can see more about this exciting company at: www.frontrow-solutions.com.

Peter Michie, PERFORMAX

“All of our new features were designed to further optimize Sales Reps’ time, providing an efficient and mobile sales tracking and reporting solution, stated Tom Tolbert, President.    Reps will directly benefit by being able to make additional sales calls and generating more revenue with less time spent in an office reporting on client status.  The Outlook sync feature and our new Mobile Browser will lead to a direct uptick in sales and management productivity.  Sales management will love our new Reporting functions, enabling greater insight  into their team’s performance”

Front Row’s new Mobile Browser provides a feature rich interface for mobile devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry and the Android, enabling sales representatives and management to access vital client data and sales performance data on the go.

Previously, Front Row’s calendar features were only viewable and interfaced within Front Row’s back office.  With the new synch capability to Microsoft Outlook, sales representatives can now access their entire daily and weekly Front Row scheduled activities via the most widely used email client in the world.

Sales management will also benefit from Front Row’s recently expanded and improved Analytic Reporting Module.

About Front Row Solutions
Front Row Solutions offers an innovative SMS Text Message- based platform for sales representatives to report daily sales activity in less than 5 minutes per day. This provides both the sales person and management with invaluable business intelligence which translates to optimizing individual accounts as well as entire sales campaigns. Front Row Solutions provides an extensive array of canvass management tools for salespeople including mapping and routing tools, account management tools, advanced charting, analytics and more.

We think we found a way to add a view out the front windshield to your sales management car. We recently looked at the unique Sales Productivity & Accountability Management system from Front Row Solutions which provides “real time” sales results information. Their software provides both management and sales reps with an instantaneous overview of sales performance.

We recently talked with Tom Tolbert, the President of Front Row Solutions and a 16 year Yellow Page Industry veteran with experience in sales management at the District, Regional, and VP Sales levels at several industry leading publishers about their new system. Before becoming the leader of Front Row, Tom successfully managed hundreds of sales canvasses in his career as well as having extensive experience in all facets of the publishing business. Tom used that experience in new canvass rollouts, prototype and pure pay for performance directories to shape a truly leading edge product.

YPT: How long has this system been around??
Tolbert: The system was developed in 2007, and our first customer went live in early 2008. As a brief overview, it provides Key Performance Indicators on your company’s Sales Activities delivered seamlessly via a web-based interface to your desktop via Front Row’s Management Dashboard and has the ability for multiple drill-down levels to really get as deep into the data as you would like.

YPT: Who’s most excited about this product concept??
Tolbert: Probably front line managers because now they have a way to dig through all of the data minutia they get to figure out who’s working and who isn’t and who needs additional training, support, or development. For senior management which in bigger organizations is often a couple of layers removed from the actual reps, they now have a real time, feel for what’s going on in any market, on any team with any rep, at any given point of the day. It also provides a unique way for those senior managers to reach out and touch a rep with a positive message when they have just made a sale. Some senior level managers in larger organizations may not have a chance to interact directly with a rep more than a couple of times a year. With this system they can provide quick feedback across the organization. And we all know how high performing reps like that adulation.

YPT: How does it work??
Tolbert: When the rep leaves an advertisers location following a sales call, using their mobile phone they send a short text message which describes the type of call, results of the sale, and how much money was involved. That information is collected and aggregated by rep, by manager, or in any combination the company wants.
Because of the real time entry it is also gives the manager an idea of where the rep is physically located.

YPT: Does rep need any special equipment?
Tolbert: Not really. As long as the rep has a mobile phone that has SMS/text (Short Messaging Service) or WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) access to the Internet to send short messages. SMS allows for short messages (up to 136 characters) to and from mobile phones and computer systems.
That’s the big difference with our system as a rep can spend less than 5 minutes a day to handle all of their daily reporting by sending a short message in 10 seconds or less after each sales call.

What requirements are there for publishers?
Tolbert: None to speak of. We can interface with all of the formal publishing platforms. We do have a formal relationship with DIAD so we are fully integrated. But we have customers that use Bookman, Yellow Magic, and others.

YPT: Isn’t this going to make reps feel like they are being micromanaged?
Tolbert: In today’s results driven sales environment where many of the reps are on straight commission or high commissioned pay programs, they are expected and incented to produce results. This system affords the reps a higher degree of direct management transparency, and doesn’t necessarily require them to come in to the office every day to report results. So in the long run it gives them more time to sell. Most importantly though, it’s all about increasing sales productivity. If an organization has 100 sales people, we believe the publisher will see 100 more sales calls a day from that team at a minimum. Because it removes so much of the normal results reporting, we think it allows reps to make one more call a day, and still get home in plenty of time to have dinner with their family.

For managers, it will obviously prevent a lower performer rep from hiding. It drives accountability, identifies and rewards the top performers. Managers generally know already where the rep is working and what types of accounts they are selling to in a typical day. It also highlights those reps that are true performers because it demonstrates to management that the results they are delivering and allows them to receive that timely kudos for the results they bring.

YPT: Isn’t this big brother watching?
Tolbert: It may be viewed that way by some, but as one VP of Sales noted the only people afraid of the police usually have some reason to be. While at Names & Numbers where I had reps spread across 10 states and 65 markets, each rep had to fax a daily sales report to Kansas where the information was entered and compiled for distribution to managers later that evening. By comparison, this process is so much easier for reps and managers, removes the issue of any bad rep handwriting, and doesn’t require any fax or computer access. Now after each sales call, the reps completes the activity card questions, and essentially their daily reporting is done. In addition the manager gets the information now instead of at the end of the day or week.

It is important that everyone understands that all the system does is provide data. It is still up to the manager to decide how to use that information in managing their team.

YPT: Can managers also get the dashboard summaries on their cell phones if they are out in the field with reps?
Tolbert: Yes. It does work best on the new smart phones, but we have launched a new mobile browser that condenses some of the dashboard information for managers. That way they can see real time sales and productivity data at any given moment.

YPT: What are the biggest concerns you get from publishers when they first look at this system?
Tolbert: One is a false belief that “we already have a system that does that” and it is usually a very time intensive, rep dependent reporting process which assumes that the reps are taking the time to report at the end of day and remembering what happened on each call. There is no comparison between the information received from this real time, data rich process vs. those older processes.

The other concern is one that usually just requires some education, and that is this system will run off our top reps because they don’t want to be micromanaged. But we have found that with nearly all of our clients, once the top reps see how easy this is, how it does provide the confirmation of their results, and that they are able to get much more feedback from their manager and senior management, they typically love it. It also has many productivity tools in it for the rep like assignment management and mapping features. The lower performing reps are the ones that don’t like it and for most organizations, can actually result in what should be viewed as positive attrition.

YPT: What types of publishers have signed up for this system?
Tolbert: It has been a wide range of different sized publishers such as Valley, Names & Numbers, PDC, Hanson and Best Publications to name just a few. We also have newspaper publisher clients, clients in medical sales, plumbing supply service, elevator repair service and even a heavy equipment Case International dealer. Anyone that has an outside sales force is a potential candidate for this system.

YPT: What size organization does this system work for??
Tolbert: Our smallest client has just 3 sales reps, and we go up to ones that have several hundred reps. But even in the larger organizations of several hundred, they are still configured in teams of 8 to 10 reps that a manager needs real time data on to make informed decisions in order to meet company goals. In a smaller company, if one of those reps decides to slack off for Just a day it can really have a huge impact on that team, that manager, and even the company’s overall results.

About Front-Row Solutions:

Front Row Solutions provides real time sale force management systems and sales rep productivity tools designed to enhance sales performance. The analytics collected will truly affect your bottom line sales results.

For more information you can see a video of our product at: http://www.frontrow-solutions.com/video-lightbox/homepage-vid.php, or for a personalized demo contact Tom Tolbert at, 505-699-3320 or via email at tom@frontrow-solutions.com.