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Expert Answers to Biz Questions
Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.
4 Safety Tips for Your Mobile Sales Team
When you own a small business, sales is always one of your key points of focus. Because you lack the resources that larger competitors have available at their disposal, you may have to be more strategic and conscientious about how you manage even the most basic tasks.
One detail you have to be particularly careful with is keeping your sales team safe when they’re out of the office and on the road.
Four Helpful Safety Tips
When your employees are in the office, they don’t face an array of safety risks. But as soon as you send your salespeople out into the world, they may encounter a myriad of uncontrollable circumstances and situations that could place their safety at risk.
For example, did you know that somewhere in the United States, there’s a car crash every six seconds? This adds up to more than 5 million wrecks a year -- which injure millions and kill thousands more.
By and large, American roads are safe, but there’s always a risk that something may go wrong. And should a problem arise, most likely you’ll face some of the responsibility in the end.
Keeping this in mind, here are four helpful safety tips for managing your mobile sales team.
1. Encourage and Assist Salespeople to Improve Driving Skills
Your sales members obviously know how to drive -- they have operator’s licenses and have probably been driving for years -- but you need to make sure they have the proper skills to avoid unnecessary risks on the road.
It’s smart to encourage your workers to take a defensive driving course every few years. Most of the information will simply be a refresher, but there could also be new bits of advice they ought to know in order to stay safe.
2. Implement a Driver Safety Program
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers should implement formal driver safety programs to keep their workers safe on the road.
“Your program should work to keep the driver and those with whom he/she shares the road safe. And, if necessary, the program must work to change driver attitudes, improve behavior, and increase skills to build a ‘be safe’ culture,” OSHA advises.
“By instructing your employees in basic safe driving practices and then rewarding safety-conscious behavior, you can help your employees and their families avoid tragedy.”
3. Use Telematics to Track Fleet Cars
If you have lots of salespeople and a fleet of company cars, you might consider investing in telematics technology. “Telematics not only gives you mechanical information that detail the state of your vehicles which allows you to correct any issues, but it also gives you insights on bad driving behaviors,” Assured Telematics explains.
“For instance, you can compare the difference between the actual driving speed and the posted speed limit, where you can see whether or not a driver has the habit of over-speeding. You can also be alerted to harsh braking incidents and be notified when an accident occurs.”
The only possible challenge you’ll have to deal with is privacy -- especially if your salespeople use their personal vehicles. Some individuals might not be comfortable with the installation of technology that tracks their every move.
4. Ensure Proper Lines of Communication
One of the worst situations is when a salesperson is on the road and but not able to get in touch with the office. Given all the smartphones and similar technology available today, this is extremely rare … but it does happen.
Always make sure you have multiple lines of communication available, so you can get in touch with your salespeople at any given moment (and vice versa).
Put Your Employees First
It’s so easy to focus only on the bottom line. As a business owner, you spend your time crunching numbers, reviewing your budget, and finding ways to save money so you can increase profitability.
But the irony is that too much focus on that bottom line will actually hurt your ability to achieve your financial goals. The key to growing the bottom line is to put your employees first.
When you care for all of their needs -- including their personal safety -- you show them you care about them as people (not just money-making units of labor). And this is one of the basics that make small businesses successful.
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