Your sales team works hard to find new prospects, develop relationships, teach people about your services and products, and ultimately, to close sales. As their leader, you support them with training, materials, one-on-one meetings, goals and follow-up, and more. But are you providing your sales team with the one asset that can make a huge difference in their success? That asset is a great website, and it can do incredible things for your sales team.

Before we get to the biggest three benefits of having a great website your sales team can use, let’s look at the top three excuses for not having a great website:

• Our customers don’t look for us online.
• We can’t sell our products and services on the Internet.
• We don’t have the people or resources to update content

First of all, most people look for product information online before they ever pick up the phone to ask for recommendations from colleagues or to call a company and ask for prices. If they don’t find you online, they might not find you at all.

Even if you don’t sell your products and services over the Internet, a great website with a frequently updated blog can educate, inform, and persuade prospects to put their trust in you and your products.

Finally, it doesn’t take a new full-time person or lots of extra work on your part to keep content updated on your website. With a good system and a reliable schedule, you can keep your website up-to-date and informative.

As you can see, these excuses don’t seem valid enough to miss out on the fantastic benefits of having a professional, useful website that your sales team can use to generate leads, teach prospects, and make sales. Still unconvinced? Check out these benefits:

Generate More Leads

As you know, leads are the bread and butter of your company and the most-needed resource for your sales team. With a stellar website, you can generate more leads than ever before. What makes a stellar website that has the ability to attract interested customers?

• Strong SEO that will boost your website to the top of search engine results
• Contact information or interest forms on every single page
• Up-to-date industry news that helps others to see you as industry experts
• Regular, informative content that provides helpful information

Spread Your Influence Through Social Media

Without a great website, you miss out on the incredible possibilities of social media. Just think a moment about the power of social media. If each of your sales team members shares your latest blog post on social media, you’ve reached a potentially huge audience. But it doesn’t end there. If your blog post is interesting to some of those people who learn about it through your sales team members, it will get forwarded and posted again, sending it on to people you don’t know and have never met. Who knows how far your influence can go?

With a powerful website, social media can spread your influence, and this influence can help you with recruiting, branding, prospecting, and an increase in sales.

Improve Your Reputation

Like it or not, your website makes a big first impression. What kind of impression will it offer? Does it say that you’re disorganized (Website Currently Under Construction), behind schedule (last blog entry dated three years ago), or operating on a tight budget (poor web design)?

A professional, up-to-date website can do a lot for your image and reputation as a company. Pay attention to the following details to improve your website, and therefore, to improve your image:

• Proofread everything
• Use consistent styling
• Include fresh, modern images
• Address interesting, timely topics
• Provide accurate contact information
• Respond to comments

A great website has the power to generate more leads, spread your influence through social media, and improve your reputation. Each of these benefits can be huge assets to your sales team.