Month: September 2022

How effective is your sales pipeline management?

According to a 2021 study 64% of business admitted that their sales pipeline management was ineffective.

I personally thought it would be a lot higher as of all the businesses I help performance manage and coach there are only two I would identify as effective in this area.

And it confuses me as to why businesses do not take it more seriously!

 

Why is pipeline management so important?

If a sales process was a living organism the sales pipeline would be its beating heart.

An effective sales pipeline allows CEOs and CFOs to forecast monthly and quarterly earnings, manufacturing businesses can rely on its accuracy to procure raw materials, business owners can predict when to scale up or down, and it can even measure market trends.

The sales pipeline, this beating heart is constantly filled with prospects.

Consider for a moment that the prospects are the blood and one thing we all know is that the heart pumps the blood, it is constantly on the move.

If it is not there is a problem,

Any slowing down will result in a change to blood pressure and if there is a blockage, a clot, things can get serious quickly.

And this is the root of most businesses issues when it comes to their sales pipelines, they are clotted.

Clotted with stalled deals and prospects who are not going anywhere.

They are a slow-moving toxin that poisons the businesses sales pipeline to the point that it is, for the most part, useless.

Businesses ignore sales pipeline management at their peril.

 

How do you keep your pipeline moving?

• First hold your sales team accountable for their own sales pipeline and monitor it with them monthly
• Tracking the larger deals individually and setting an expectation, based on length of sale metrics how fast each prospect moves.
• Train your team to identify and remove bad leads quickly. It is all part of the client selection criteria.
• Every business will have prospects that are WOFTAMS (Waste of freaking time and money). Identify them early and move them on.
• If deals stall or go dark (ghosting is a real thing these days) invite your client to tell you NO, that they are not interested, it is amazing how often this re-engages customers.

I have an email template I use for exactly this purpose; send me an email and I will share it with you.

martin.eade@thesalesstrategist.com.au

 

The benefits of a CRM in sales pipeline management

With so many alternatives available to businesses at various investment levels there is no excuse for any business, even a start-up not to have a CRM.

I do not endorse one CRM over the other but a few I see in regular range from Salesforce and Hubspot to active campaign, Pipedrive and Odoo.

When I first started in sales computers were only just starting to be used and in the late 80s, they were the days of rolodex, tracking your leads manually by cards (I had this massive manual filing system supplemented with notes) and eventually started using a computer programme called Lotus 123.

The fact is today with the amount of leads being generated there is NO WAY any company can manually track leads without losing or forgetting them but more importantly, there is no transparency in the daily, weekly and monthly activities of your sales team.

A great CRM helps you manage your business and your team.

 

Take sales pipeline management seriously

I work with a large number of businesses in their sales pipeline strategy, from start ups to billion dollar multi-nationals. No one is immune from a clotted pipeline so the secret is taking action, sometimes drastic action to get things moving again.

If you would like to talk sales pipeline management just click the link below

Book a strategy call with Martin

 

A CRM will help measure your sales conversion rate – read the blog here https://thesalesstrategist.com.au/lead-conversion-rate/

 

Does your team possess this sales superpower ?

If you are competing at a chosen sport, about to deliver a speech, perform surgery, or attend a job interview one thing has a major impact on your performance.

Self-belief, a prize frame mindset, it is a sales superpower.

Does your team have it?

A successful sportsperson thinks they are going to win

An engaging speaker knows they are going to crush it.

A skilled surgeon believes the most difficult operation is achievable.

An outstanding applicant knows they are the best person for the job

Most of us would be exposed every day to at least one post, email, conversation, or program that mentions the power of mindset.

Yet in sales, the largest single profession on the planet, self-belief is lacking across the board from sales novice to thirty-year veteran.

This sales superpower is one thing every one of us has the ability to change and the one thing that will improve the performance of anyone who sells for a living.

And there are over a billion of us!

 

 

WHY IS THIS SKILLSET LACKING?

 

This is an interesting question that I have thought about as I have witnessed it in every business I performance manage and coach from single person solopreneurs to billion-dollar multinationals.

Firstly, we have the young who have just joined the workforce, and in my experience anyone under the age of around 25 falls into this category.

They have been told what to do all their lives, by parents, teachers, university lecturers, they have likely had a few poor buying experiences and have a less than positive outlook on sales.

Companies give their team some basic training and set them loose.

They are timid, shy, not confident, don’t want to appear arrogant and fear rejection.

Then we have those entering the sales profession from another role or at a more mature age and by and large they have the same issues as listed above but let’s throw in the fear of failure, the pressure and expectation of performance and some basic training if any.

They are uncertain, lack authority and expertise

And then we have the experienced salespeople, and they can range in experience from 5 years to many decades.

They have been in the hustle and bustle of sales for many years, and it is relentless.

Sales is not for the fainthearted, KPIS, budgets, cold calls, reporting, the constant monthly pressure of bring in the revenue for the business they work for.

And over time the prizing mindset, their sales superpower has been eroded without them knowing.

 

SELLING IS A CONTACT SPORT!

The thing about sportspeople is every time they enter the arena to compete, they have worked on their mindset, they have visualized victory, they have imagined success and have prepared through constant training so every time they turn up, they are at their peak.

Sales is a contact sport.

Constant training both in technique and the mind is essential.

It is a rare breed that have a successful career in sales as you always lose more than you win

You are always having to make cold calls, to handle rejection, to navigate through sales slumps.

That is why constantly providing your sales team, novice or professional with an awareness and training on the mindset of prizing is so important.

 

JUST IMAGINE

In every new facilitation I conduct I give myself a superpower and transport my attendees into the body of a super successful entrepreneur.

I ask everyone to imagine how the way they sell, the way they enter a conversation would change if they were Elon Musk?

(If you are not an Elon fan, think Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Opera Winfrey, Gina Reinhardt)

The answer is A LOT

And then I ask ‘So why are you not being Elon right now? You have the ability; it is just a choice”

And for the next 90 minutes we embark on a journey into the prize frame mindset.

If you want to change the sales game in your business work with your team on self-belief, on the prize frame mindset

https://thesalesstrategist.com.au/what-is-the-prize-frame/

 

 

Want to talk about a mindset facilitation for your team?

Book a strategy call with Martin