Progressive pipeline management—otherwise known as opportunity management—is completely dependent on the information available to sales reps. It often happens that such data is somewhat sketchy and incomplete, which of course paints an unclear picture of the risk involved in a sale. The poorer the information, the more the activity of the sales force resembles haphazard ... Read Post

There has lately been an attempt to differentiate overall sales in to various broad sectors: territory management, account management, call management and opportunity management. These all certainly have their own sales techniques, issues, peculiarities, and solutions—but not only does the last of these, opportunity management, fully embrace the rest of them, but underlies them and ... Read Post

While the handling of sales opportunities is a technical subject that we’ve been exploring in some detail, there is an underlying factor that affects any salesperson’s opportunity management. It is also the underlying element to sales techniques. That is, the way an opportunity is viewed. A Matter of Viewpoint Often the way that a salesperson ... Read Post

A quality CRM tool is crucial both to the operation of a sales force and, factually, of a business itself. But as a sale travels further up the pipeline, the precision of that CRM application increases in importance. By the time you’re well into opportunity management—that stage of a sale in which a sales rep is ... Read Post

Sales management and sales forces don’t much care for pondering lost opportunity. It’s usually like, “We lost it, it’s gone, move on.” And it’s true that considering past losses is completely useless as an exercise just for itself; if one is simply mentally rehashing them, it can be productive of nothing but a bleak outlook. ... Read Post

We’ve got some exciting news for our Pipeliner CRM users. Let’s take a closer look: Read Post

According to a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled Dismantling the Sales Machine, the time has come to let salespeople utilize their “on the ground” judgment and sales techniques when it comes to making various decisions about opportunity management. According to the article, “Selling today requires flexibility, judgment, and a focus on results—not process.” The ... Read Post

When you’re forecasting sales and the performance of your sales funnel or sales pipeline, your metrics are key. That’s because metrics provide the analytical information you need to ensure your sales team (and sales funnel) are doing all the right things. But what metrics should you measure? Read on, and I’ll outline five of the ... Read Post