The whole truth about the work-life balance in the life of a salesperson. A myth or a new standard?

Daria Olech

2023-01-25

What is behind the work-life balance idea? Do sales teams follow this trend? Should employees draw the line between their job and private life, or maybe try to combine all important spheres? Is it possible to find time for your family and hobbies if you work in a sales position? How about new technologies in sales and marketing teams? Are sales enablement tools useful? You will find the answers in our article.

What does work-life balance mean?

Your day is full of meetings and urgent tasks and you don’t have time to eat your lunch. You still think about potential customers. How to gain more leads, or if your sales skills and sales experience are enough. How many phone calls do you have to make? Did you send the right message to your customers? Does it all sound familiar to you?

If it does, it’s time to slow down. You can’t work that hard, and sales shouldn’t dominate your life.

You are a good example of an overworked person whose productivity reached the highest point. Maybe you should read more about how to maintain the balance between your job and private life.

What happens if there is no harmony between your private life and a sales job

The lack of balance in everyday life and being focused only on responsibilities in a company can be detrimental to your health. It can cause stress, general fatigue, affect your mood in a negative way, or relationships with clients.

If you work hard all day and think about how to increase the productivity of your sales team, you can miss the most important thing – your lower level of energy, which can lead to serious consequences in the future.

We have been learning new things throughout our lifetime. It is narural for sales reps to want to use their whole potential for customer retention, and affect the entire sales process.

On the other hand, if they tighten the screws on them, it can have negative consequences such as total chaos in their sales job and private life.

Moreover, relaxed salespeople who are interested in doing extra activities after work, rarely seek a new job. What is more, if they aren’t snowed under with work, they can work even more effectively. The data presented in the rest part of this article will show you more.

What is the origin of the harmony between private life and a job?

Probably you have heard about how you can properly manage your time. However, the idea of work-life balance isn’t a new concept. It has been a topic of intense discussions for decades.

The idea appeared in the 70s and 80s in the XX century in Great Britain. It was observed in many businesses that people who had too many duties suffered from job burnout.

Working overtime doesn’t have to be combined with effectiveness. What is more, being overworked means a lower level of creativity. The tired employee is not able to focus on main responsibilities and expects something more from life.

It was believed that it was better for the entrepreneurs and their financial results to take care of good working conditions.

However, the reality has been different since that time.

The balance between work and daily living all over the world

People all over the world work overtime to achieve success. They create new solutions, broaden their knowledge, and come up with new technological tools, just to develop their career. But in which countries do they maintain the balance between work and private life?

According to the recent findings of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), presented in the “Better Life Index for 2020”, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands are the countries with the best work-life balance.

On the other hand, there are also countries with the worst results in this field. This report mentions Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Turkey, and Japan. So, the United States and the United Kingdom performed poorly – they took the 13th and 14th positions out of all 38 OECD member countries (including Russia, Brazil, and South Africa).

The expectations and the reality if you work in a sales team

Maybe the right solution is to combine these spheres – your job and free time. Is it even possible to draw the line between them in the modern world?

There are plenty of employees, for example, salespeople, who have a task-based working system. Some of them can work remotely, they just have to do their job, and sell a product or service.

The sales skills that are important

It becomes obvious that it is more difficult not to work overtime if customers want to meet after regular hours of work. It is easier for salespeople, if they like their job, and treat it as an essential element of their daily routine. Moreover, they are eager to gain more sales experience.

In this situation it’s not a painful duty – they know their assets: communication skills, the ability to sell a given product or service, determination, and are aware of the value of customer relationship management. (A good hiring manager should perceive such character traits in advance while building a sales team).

Moreover, the work of sales reps is more effective if the company that they work for owns sales enablement and appropriate CRM tools. If salespeople have the modern CRM system, where all important business data are on one platform, they can focus more on customer relationships and sales performance.

They work more effectively and have more time for their families, hobbies, or other activities in their leisure time. It is possible because the company provides them with sales enablement tools.

How do companies take care of sales and marketing teams, and their well-being?

Every company has to think about the organization of work in a way that is good for people. It doesn’t matter if it deals with sales management, marketing, or another field.

The balance between the time spent in a job and leisure time is even regulated by the law, for example, the European Parliament passed the Work-life Balance Directive which regulates access to family leaves and flexible working hours.

What can be done in practice?

Entrepreneurs running their own business know that sales reps who have frequent contacts with customers, need to be encouraged to perform their sales job effectively.

What is more, they want to avoid job burnout among sales representatives. What do they do to improve their sales organization and working condition.

• They offer flexible working hours – sales reps can have a task-based working system, and meet with customers at a time convenient for them. Selling is a process that doesn’t have to be conducted from the office. They can connect to the CRM platform from their homes or any other place.
• Salespeople can have extra days off, especially if they are devoted workers, and drive revenue all the time. Some companies introduce a shorter workday.

• Sometimes a company provides sales reps with extra money for holidays.
• Some businesses organize nurseries or kindergartens near their headquarters.
• Employers offer places for mothers breastfeeding babies.
• Companies invest in a good training program for salespeople to preserve the good quality of service, and to encourage them to develop their sales skills or communication skills.
• Businesses are more open to new technologies that can accelerate and improve the work of an individual and the sales organization. The CRM systems that support contact management, or sales management, are important parts of the sales enablement strategy.

Why is it important for companies to take care of the work-life balance in the lives of people working in sales and marketing departments?

Firstly, it is not easy for a hiring manager to find an experienced person who is good for a sales position. Hiring somebody who doesn’t have any sales experience means the implementation of an intensive training program.

It is wiser to take care of a sales team that has already been in a company. People know sales enablement tools and can create personalized content, or offers. Moreover, they have vast knowledge about the sales organization and know how to deal with customer retention. Satisfied customers mean repeat customers.

A new employee without any previous sales experience can be a precious and determined salesperson. On the other hand, may not know the important information about the successful sales process. Not to mention gaining new leads, talking to clients, and selling over the phone.

Secondly, when it comes to potential candidates for sales reps, the image of a company also matters. Sales and marketing departments who take care of their salespeople are able to find new workers faster. Employers who think about working conditions in sales teams are more likely to be recommended by sales reps.

The profits, efficient sales management, and maintaining the work-life balance

Thirdly, if you think about the advantages of the well-being of your sales reps, you will know that it can be profitable. The Polish Economic Institute reported in 2021 that a shorter workday with the same salary can lead to an increase in the financial results of a company that wants to conduct this kind of experiment.

The following companies implemented the shorter workday: Perpetual Guardian (New Zealand), Toyota (Sweden), and Microsoft (Japan). It turned out that the 6-hour workday can increase productivity by 14%, and the revenue rose by 25%.

Furthermore, the Polish Economic Institute informed that: “Most of the experiments in both private and public sector, affected positively the quality of lives of workers. They were less stressed, rarely went on sick leaves, and were satisfied with combining their career with leisure time”.

Is the harmony between career and leisure time a myth in a sales team?

As we have said, workers who have free time after work are more efficient. It’s not always possible to draw the line between many activities and careers. Sometimes the sales experience isn’t enough to do all the tasks faster. How can they manage all the duties, and think about effective selling? What can be done to make the sales job easier? If you don’t know, ask them these critical questions.

Think about the prospects for your business. Maybe you should provide sales with modern technological solutions such as sales enablement tools.

Think about the everyday work of sales reps. How much time do they devote to meetings with customers, searching for the right documents and folders to prepare an offer tailored to the clients’ needs?

Do they use the modern CRM system? Do they have access to the most important data via automation? What do they need to sell more effectively? Is the customer service as good as you think?

All the questions above are relevant and need to be considered. It’s time to face the truth and be critical of the solutions present in your company. What does your sales experience tell you to do? Do you know what sales enablement tools are? If you run your own business, you should think about how they can influence the sales process.

What is the best happy medium?

If you have been running your own business, and you sell products or services to customers for many years, maybe you need to look at a sales process with a critical eye. You can think that if you have extensive sales experience, know the importance of good relationships with customers, and appreciate the role of marketing, you know to achieve success.

Imagine your serious competitor. What if this entrepreneur owns sales enablement tools? It leads to better and faster customer service, quicker data implementation, and acceleration of the sales process. Do you want to be left behind?

Take a closer look at the sales enablement which can lead to the success of your business.

One of the sales enablement apps that is worth your attention is the app from Salesbook. It helps to automate and simplify routine activities in sales departments, e.g. typing data, or making reports.

Thanks to automation, sales reps don’t have to do manual work and can focus on good relationships with customers, or just relax at weekends instead of working.

Automation in Salesbook

Automation in Salesbook is a good sales enablement solution that leads to the higher effectiveness of salespeople. It helps them to manage customers, ordinary and critical tasks, and meetings. Thanks to Salesbook, they can connect with the CRM system in your company, and always have important data. It supports them regardless of their sales experience.

This sales enablement tool can be divided into several elements:

Automated offer

Thanks to the CPQ, the Configure Price Quote system, sales reps don’t have to take plenty of unnecessary documents for meetings with customers, and to take notes. A salesperson can just use the app and upload the most important marketing materials. The next step relies on using the Calculator in order to analyze the client’s needs. After a while, the salesperson has an automated and personalized offer. The meeting isn’t prolonged because of the sales enablement tool.

Automated report

Do you know that even 30% of salespeople devote an hour a day doing manual work and typing data into the CRM system? If a sales rep uses Salesbook, the data are put automatically into the CRM system. Then, the sales manager has to download the needed reports. It can be a report about the number of successful meetings, their process, or the values of sales. If you use this sales enablement tool in your business, you save time up to 65%.

Automated follow-up e-mails

This function not only makes the work of sales reps easier. It allows you to have control over the sales process. An employee doesn’t waste time preparing notes with summaries and the customer has the most recent information after the meeting.

Are you interested in the automation of sales processes and developing your sales enablement strategy?

Get to know the sales enablement tool from Salesbook and try the free demo.