If there is one truth that carries us into 2022, it’s that our work has become more complex.

On one hand, complexity kills. It complicates, confuses, and slows progress.

On the other hand, solving complexity creates value. High value.

Two easy examples:

1. We sift through thousands of product options from hundreds of suppliers to curate a perfect collection of products for our clients. That’s a complex task you simplify daily that has an immediate ROI.
   
2. Or, your client wants to gift 1,000 employees with a jacket for Christmas. You launch a pop-up shop —which eliminates countless emails/orders and turns them into simple e-comm transactions creating a fast response— and delivers real ROI.
   Complexity can be both friend and foe.
   
   Complexity is foe when it slows us down. Or makes us look unsophisticated. Or behind-the-times.
   
   Complexity is a friend when we harness it to create impact (i.e., value).
   
   Here are 5 smart tools you can use to either automate or eliminate complexity, help you perform feats above your ability, and deliver insanely high value to your customers.

(I) TO SOPHISTICATE DESIGN SIMPLY: USE CANVA

Canva fills a gap badly needed in our business: It allows anyone to create beautiful graphics seamlessly. Canva puts the power of professional design in the hands of an amateur. Just as Slack makes internal communication immediate and easy for all, Canva makes design “simple and for everyone.”

In the promo industry, commonsku customers are using Canva to close that gap between designer and designed projects. It solves the problem of both communication and creation: reducing the dozens of back-and-forths with a designer and allowing anyone to simply design a project themselves, quicker.

Teams are now accustomed to using Canva as they are Slack, no longer relegating simpler design projects to designers. Distributors are using Canva for a multitude of purposes: client marketing, their own marketing (including social media marketing), building elegant artwork and storefronts for shops, and more.

Why your team loves it: No more dozens of emailed misunderstandings between client and designer. No more waiting on designers. And it answers the question many still face: “Where can I find a designer?”
Why clients love it: Clients are far more sophisticated today and expect great design, it’s no longer optional.
Pro tip: If you don’t have anyone up-to-speed on Canva, get someone on it quickly and if you do, have them do a quick overview for you and your team about how dead-simple it is to use. You’ll find that the more people know how to use it, the fewer bottlenecks you’ll create with those on your team “who know how to use canva.”

(II) TO STREAMLINE COMPLICATED SALES TAX COMPLIANCE: USE AVALARA

There are over 11,0000 sales tax jurisdictions in the US. That means, if you sell goods across the US, that’s 11,000 tax possibilities to consider.

And even if you only had to worry about state taxes (and not county taxes or city taxes), 45 states now have economic nexus, which means, at a certain threshold, they can impose sales tax obligations on out-of-state sellers based on your level of economic activity.

It’s a given that if you are drop-shipping into multiple states on a regular basis, you need an intermediary (like Avalara) to simplify the mind-boggling tax codes. And even if you don’t move a healthy volume across state lines, given how flat the world is becoming (i.e., you are gaining more and more clients across state lines), the likelihood is high that you will someday need that intermediary which is why it’s important to integrate now.

Avalara streamlines thousands of tax codes, from state codes to product codes. One example: Even in our industry, clothing has a different tax requirement than mugs. Avalara allows you to simplify the thousands of product tax codes down to five or six categories making it easier for you and your team to comply. What’s that peace of mind worth to you?

Our recent integration with Avalara allows you to streamline compliance and makes it dead simple to connect your commonsku account while simplifying your sales tax problems for good.
Why clients love it: Clients want the confidence that they are working with pros who have their back. Having a resource like Avalara in play solidifies your role as an expert in commerce. And clients never, ever want to hear about tax problems.

Why your team loves it: I mean, simplifying taxes? Enough said.

Pro-tip: Whether you think you need it or not (if you think you do, you likely do) get educated on it now because the sales tax game is changing fast.


(III) TO UP YOUR E-COMMERCE GAME EASILY: USE SHOPS

Canva enables design. Avalara untangles taxes. Slack simplifies communication. Shops amp e-commerce sales.

Once upon a time (not that long ago actually) building a shop either took you hours and hours of self-tutoring (through tools like Shopify) or, hiring a professional technologist to build a solution.

No more.

Today, shops are one of the fastest-growing features we’ve ever released for one reason: Anyone can build one and do so in minutes. Even among the most skilled and sophisticated company store pros, shops co-exist alongside enterprise store options as a more elegant and approachable alternative for their sales team and their clients.

In a recent panel interview at skucamp, I asked Dale Denham, PPAI’s new President, and CEO, “What’s the future of e-commerce for our industry?” and without hesitation, Dale responded with one word: “Shops.”

Why clients love shops: A fast, elegant solution to solve a problem and deliver real ROE (return on experience).
Why your team loves shops: A fast, elegant solution that makes them look good to their clients. And makes them hella money too.
Pro-Tip: Like the Canva advice above, everyone should know how to build a shop. Share best practices among your team members and make everyone a “shop expert.”

(IV) TO WIN YOUR CLIENT’S HEART: USE PORTALS

Question for you: How much of your time with clients is spent back-and-forth on logistical order details? 50%? 70%

Let’s pretend it’s only 30%.

30% is still one-third of your selling time. Or perhaps a formula we can appreciate: Your sales could be 30% higher if you spent more of your time solving problems (presenting ideas/solutions) to your clients, rather than relaying order information.

Even before our current supply chain conundrum, we spent far too much time harassing our clients with details about projects in-play. And most of our back-and-forth with clients is triggered through email. Email. Which is quickly becoming a word that sounds like faxes.

Now that your client has become Slack-i-fied, email feels slow. Outdated. Painful.

Clients today require full transparency but demand fewer interruptions. Which is a real challenge for those of us caught in the middle of a supply chain crisis when our only communication portal is email. One simple solve for this flies under the radar: a client portal.

A client portal allows your client to view all projects in one place. They can see all active orders (and the status on each order), all shops you have running, previous orders, and more. Moreover, clients can spark a project through the “start a project” button or simply place a reorder, saving you (and the client) an epic pile of emails.

Why do clients love it: Because they hate email. And they love transparency.
Why your team loves it: Frees them to become more than messengers. Frees them to focus on what they are good at: sales and creation.
Pro-tip: As you activate portals for each of your clients, be sure and have a meeting with them to overview the experience. Not only are you training your clients to use it (and prevent email hell) but you’re also validating their investment in you: A smart, modernized professional who builds value.

(V) TO FORESEE THE FUTURE: USE ANALYTICS

Picture yourself in the cockpit of a jet airplane. But not just any jet airplane. A Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, one of the fastest jets on earth. How fast? The Boeing 737, the commercial jet you commonly fly on, achieves speeds up to 588 MPH. The Blackbird is four times faster: 2,100 MPH.

Flying at mach speeds and at great heights requires an intense amount of real-time data for a pilot: engine data, atmospheric conditions, attitude indicator, horizon indicator, airspeed, altimeter, and more. But what the data computes is mere information. But vital information that, for a pilot, becomes the most important tool in their toolbelt: situational awareness.

Detailed navigation and analytics don’t simply tell the pilot where he’s been (past tense) but it gives the pilot a 360-degree view of the world around them at the moment (real-time). It measures current conditions and metrics at a glance and gives the pilot a broad and far-reaching outlook, all within a narrow scope.

It enables the pilot to make lightning-quick decisions, see further, and fly faster than ever before.

Today, business is moving at record-breaking speeds but most business leaders are flying in the dark. Lack of real-time info leads to poor situational awareness. And poor visibility leads to ineffective coaching. And weak coaching reflects poor leadership.

At commonsku, we just released a brand new navigation, dashboard, and analytics that is not only designed to help you fly faster and further but also refines all this data by role, which means your reps can get real-time metrics on the numbers that matter most. It helps both salespeople and leaders make better decisions on the fly (sorry, couldn’t resist). Check it out here.

Why clients love it: Clients love analytics. Though these analytics are largely for you and your team, clients benefit because they get your focused attention simply because you are more aware. And sharing your client’s analytics (their total sales, growth, etc.) in your quarterly review with a client helps affirm all your hard work and provides perspective.

Why your team loves it: Just like you, they value visibility and honestly: self-management and autonomy. No more prodding people to understand their own numbers, their impact, or the state of their sales, it’s all upfront and visible.

Pro-tip: As you start using analytics, share with each other how you are using it to inform your decision-making. Make analytics reviews an important part of your weekly coaching huddles. And most importantly, be sure everyone uses analytics to self-manage and become captains of their own destiny.


CLIENTS & SALESPEOPLE LOVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS MADE SIMPLE

The best salespeople love complexity. They hate how complexity overcomplicates their lives and slows things down, but they love how complexity can make them look smart to their client and create an insane amount of value.

And ultimately, complex problem solving creates incredibly high retention rates. If you can increase retention rates by only 5%, you can increase your profit between 25%-95%.*


Let me say it another way: If you have a $5 million company with healthy margins, and you increase your retention rate by 5%, you can add $500,000 to your bottom line.

Plus, “When sales(people) understand and leverage technology to improve customer insights from both the human and non-human interactions within the sales cycle, the overall lifetime value of the customer increases through better customer relationship transparency.” (Forester)

The bottom line: Today’s tools should build transparency and trust between you and your client and make you and your team faster, smarter, and insanely profitable.

*Resource: Bain & Company: “Across a wide range of businesses, customers generate increasing profits each year they stay with a company … for example, a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit. Why? Return customers tend to buy more from a company over time. As they do, your operating costs to serve them decline. What’s more, return customers refer others to your company. And theyíll often pay a premium to continue to do business with you rather than switch to a competitor with whom they’re neither familiar with nor comfortable.”

Here are some additional blog resources to help you manage your team: