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Whether your sales team is selling office supplies, software as a service, or anything else, manage your sales processes more effectively using this free template.
Whether your sales team is selling office supplies, software as a service, or anything else, manage your sales processes more effectively with this template.
Sales managers with companies of just about any size have one primary focus with their sales team: to move the needle forward with potential customers into a closed deal. Whether the sales team is selling office products, software as a service (SaaS) or anything else, the sales process steps are ultimately the same. As sales reps build up potential customers in their sales pipeline, the inevitable question of how to move prospects towards closing the sales cycle remains.
Going from initial contact to closed business can be challenging for your sales team. For a few sales reps, it’s almost second nature to skillfully move through the sales cycle. They can snag prospects almost effortlessly, identifying their needs and value as a customer rapidly, artfully closing deals. Other sales reps get bogged down in the process, moving slowly or missing opportunities with prospects. They may close deals slowly or not at all. But for most sales managers, a rep who can glide through the sales process easier, not missing key components or losing track of customers without a structured guideline, is few and far between. Most sales managers know that a well-trained salesperson will need to follow an effective, organized sales process workflow to end up with quality customers and sales that will be beneficial for both businesses. Let’s look at what a sales process workflow is, the stages of a sales cycle and best practices on managing a sales pipeline that will all lead to creating an effective and productive sales cycle for every company.
The visual connection of a pipeline is a perfect analogy for the sales process. The pipeline is effectively the pathway that must be traveled from one place to another, passing by every last twist and turn on its way to the final, predetermined destination. In sales, the pipeline is a way to visualize exactly where a prospect or customer is in the sales process. Companies may rank their pipeline in a few scant terms or levels while others may have a detailed, descriptive list of stages within their pipeline terminology.
A pipeline will show where a sales rep’s potential deals are, detailing the value or dollar amount of each potentially closed deal for the day, week, month, quarter or year. This transparency allows management and sales team members to analyze potential prospects as well as see where the missed opportunities were and at what stage they dropped out of viability. This analysis allows sales reps to see how to effectively move prospects to the next stages in their pipelines and will help managers to effectively coach their sales team to increased success and, ultimately, bigger revenue for the company. Business to business (B2B) sales pipelines are especially important because they can assist in the allocation of funds and resources into converting sales, help forecast future sales or needs as well as define yearly progress and goal achievement.
When creating a pipeline for any sales team, every step of the selling process is important. Multiple parts of the cycle may end up inside of a given pipeline stage, or each of these may warrant their own staging description, depending on the size of the company, the type of sales, and the length of the cycle itself.
Managing sales through the steps from prospecting through closing the deal really depends on a few factors, but all management strategies must include standardizing the pattern or path expected for salespeople to follow. This pre-determined organization should be part of sales team training and should specify which activities should be happening, when, and with whom.
This sales process workflow template gives you a solid foundation to build on and customize for your team.
Based on the ideal customer profile, sales management should set up best practices on prospecting and lead generation for sales teams to follow. For some teams, this sales methodology may include standardized email templates to use along with sales scripts for follow-up discussions sourced from company marketing content or other creation of content specific to this stage of the process.
Excellent process organization will provide specific task management opportunities for sales and admin teams. Sales reps should know exactly what steps to take with a potential customer as outlined in individual tasks connected to each step of the process.
Probably the most valuable way to keep a salesperson motivated and their processes of selling organized are to structure and track their sales pipeline.
One of the key aspects of management is setting up methods of accountability for performance. Tracking and reflecting on little wins or improvements as reps move through the cycle should be a part of the process as well since sales reps can learn from these experiences and become stronger, more effective salespeople as a result.
When the sales team knows where they stand on prospective customers on a regular basis, they are more able to manage their pipeline effectively. Effectively managing the pipeline should include a detailed, regular reporting system by each salesperson. This reporting should include verifiable, quantifiable metrics for valuable insights into each rep’s current status on