The Importance of a Sales Process: Pipeliner Sales Process Survey

Expert opinion on the subject of sales processes has pendulum swung a great deal over the years. One day sales processes are all-important and sales organizations must stick to them like glue. The next day the sales process is far less important than allowing a salesperson the freedom to take actions as they see fit. Skip ahead in time, and we’re right back to hewing as closely as possible to the sales process.

Our opinion has never varied: We have always seen the sales process as the backbone of any sales operation. It has been our experience—and the collective sales experience of our staff, which is considerable—that sales aren’t consistently made without one.

But we decided to find out what’s actually happening out there in the business world. Hence we polled a healthy cross section consisting of hundreds of salespeople, sales managers and sales leaders regarding sales process importance, and how sales processes are being used in their companies.

To help illuminate the results we also brought in a panel of noted sales thought leaders: Lisa Magnuson, Dave Stein, Ago Cluytens, Andy Paul, David Hoffeld, Matt McDarby and Joel Capperella. Pipeliner Chief Strategy Officer John Golden has also provided his own commentary and, where appropriate, we have highlighted the results with additional research.

Poll questions that were asked, answered and explored:

Question 1: Does your company have a formal sales process?

According to many authorities, having and using a formal sales process is mandatory in today’s lightning-fast, incredibly competitive business environment. A mapped out process, consisting of sales best practices for a company, assures a higher degree of sales success with every opportunity.

Expert Ago Cluytens, Practice Director for RAIN Group, weighs in on this question.

Question 2: Do you think having a formal sales process is important?

While over the years opinions have varied on this question, today they rarely do. And for a “ground level” look, have a gander at these numbers: an overwhelming number of respondents say that having a sales process is “Very Important.” That is extremely significant, and shows that a formal sales practice as a best practice is considered critical.

Corporate strategic sales expert Lisa Magnuson provides her insight on this question.

Question 3: How often do you validate or re-validate your target customer’s buying process and habits?

This is a significant question and series of answers because today we most definitely live in the age of the buyer. It is easier than ever for buyers to obtain independent information on products and services. Hence you need to fully understand where your buyers are turning for data and make sure your company is presenting data along those channels.

Question 4: Should a sales process be mandatory and every salesperson have to follow it?

The numbers surely speak for themselves here: An overwhelming number of respondents maintain that a sales process should definitely be mandatory, and salespeople should have to follow it. Experts tend to agree.

Question 5: How many sales stages should a sales process ideally have?

The majority answer to this one seems to match up with a broad opinion on the subject.

Question 6: Should each sales stage have defined tasks and activities that need to be completed before moving onto the next sales stage?

The top answer to this one was interesting: “Yes, but only the most important should be mandatory.” That shows that there should be defined tasks and activities that need to be completed before the opportunity is moved along the pipeline.

Leading sales expert and author Andy Paul provides insight to this question.

Question 7: Who created your sales process?

No one tracks and knows sales best practices like sales management. It therefore comes as no surprise that the majority of our respondents state that sales management are the ones that created their company’s sales process. But the next question demonstrates if this is the ideal scenario.

Question 8: Who should be responsible for creating your sales process?

In the last couple of years there has been considerable discussion about sales and marketing alignment. Interestingly, this very point shows up right here in our survey results—as a majority of respondents believe that a sales process should be created by sales and marketing together.

Insight to this question is provided by top sales consultant and trainer David Hoffeld.

Question 9: Where do most sales managers spend the majority of their time?

The top answers to this question shows that a majority of sales managers are a bit “all over the map” in terms of where they spend their time. Some spend their time in a mixture of early and late sales process stages, while others in whichever stages they are needed.

Noted sales thought leader Matt McDarby weighs in on this question.

Question 10: Do you have documents, marketing assets or other materials specifically allocated to individual stages of your sales process?

The majority of respondents obviously do understand the importance of collateral materials as part of individual sales process stages. Most have specific materials aimed at some or all of the sales process stages.

For an expert perspective, we turned to leading marketing consultant and author Joel Capperella.

Take a Sales Management Audit

Review and score your overall sales ecosystem with Ken Thoreson’s revealing audit.

Tune Your Sales Tactics with Ken Thoreson’s Sales Audit

Your sales ecosystem is supposed to be a finely-tuned set of activities working together to move sales from lead to close. But do you have unseen stumbling blocks that are preventing the system from operating at full efficiency? Many sales managers find themselves frequently in the dark about what is clogging their pipeline, throttling their salespeople, and preventing them from reaching their sales goals.

It’s time for a tune-up!

The health and effectiveness of your sales ecosystem is a balance of tasks like coaching, forecasting, hiring practices, and managing key accounts. It involves tactics of both style and substance.

Ken Thoreson of Acumen Management Group is a master at helping organizations uncover these bottlenecks and missed opportunities. His sales audit will help you reveal areas of challenge, so you can keep your sales pipeline humming along.

The audit will help you understand:

How well you understand your pipeline
The trustworthiness of your data
Whether the information in your sales stages reflects your projected revenues
Whether your key accounts have a valid plan of attack
The efficacy of your hiring, training, and coaching practices
Take and self-score Ken Thoreson’s free downloadable sales management audit!

Sales Force Education

Perhaps more than any other vocation, salespeople generally get their educations on the job. There is no university degree for a “Bachelor of Sales.” Any veteran sales rep will tell you that the only real way to learn how to sell is to get out there and do it, fall on your butt, and get back up and keep at it until you succeed.

It isn’t all trial and error, though. While a salesperson is making their way through that (sometimes painful) learning curve, there is oftentimes mentoring involved. This invaluable mentoring can come from an experienced sales rep within the same organization, or from attending seminars or training given by proven sales leaders. It can even come from books or videos of sales techniques. In all cases, intelligent sales reps will take what they can apply from the instruction and run with it, leaving behind anything they feel won’t work for them.

What happens, though, when a sales rep has embraced sales as a career? In almost all cases, what usually occurs is that education – at least in sales technique itself – ceases entirely. The person “already knows it.” It’s usually not just the salesperson who feels this way, either; it’s their sales manager and coworkers, too. The people around a salesperson expect the rep to know all there is to know about sales technique.

Download this free ebook and learn how to give your salespeople a continuing education so that they’re constantly improving.

Chapter 1: Sales Strategies and the Limits of Technology

It is absolutely true that sales strategies (and, therefore, salespeople) require the aid of technology. But even the best of intuitive, usable technology can only take a sales rep so far. Given a state-of-the art technical solution, what other sales tools contribute directly to a sales rep’s survival and further success?

Chapter 2: Continuous Sales Force Skill Improvement: Impact on Company

From the top of a company’s executive structure, the view is all about the future. It of course takes every department in a company pulling its weight in order for that company to succeed. But after PR has spread the news and marketing has generated leads, and the remainder of the company has put in a satisfactory performance, it is always down to the sales force to make or break that company’s bottom line.

Chapter 3: The Role of Continuing Education in the Sales Force

Throughout history, the importance of an education has always been stressed. The general agreement is the better one’s education, the better one’s prospects. There are probably as many arguments in support of or against the standard college education as there are fields to which it could be applied. But one profession that should be of particular educational interest is that of the sales force – and, like salespeople themselves, this does not take a conventional approach.

Chapter 4: Sales Force Education: 4 Specific Target Areas

A continuing education to improve sales force skills can mean the difference between relatively unchanging closing ratios and those that are consistently improving. But looking deeper than a general concept of “sales skills,” here are four key areas that if competently addressed with proper skill enhancement will achieve ongoing sales force improvement.

Chapter 5: Continuing Sales Force Education: The Customer

Learning everything possible about a prospect company and their issues beforehand means that when that contact is made, a level of trust will be established; the prospect can at least appreciate that the sales rep did his or her homework. That trust will be strengthened as the rep learns more by interaction with the prospect, and by following social media and news items about the target company.

Chapter 6: A Sales Force of Experts

When you contact a company to inquire about their product or service, who do you expect to get on the other end of a phone, chat or email line? It’s a simple answer: an expert whom you can trust.

Download Sales Force Education now.

Pipeliner Proactive Support

Pipeliner CRM tool is designed to be user friendly that many need little to no support.

We’re Behind You All the Way

Pipeliner CRM is a simple yet powerful product. It can be onboarded in hours instead of days or weeks. It is intuitive, visual and logical. Users actually take to it because they love using it.

Pipeliner is meant to almost be self-educating—and, in fact, we actually build learning into the program. This is in contrast to conventional CRM solutions which have, through the years, been traditionally complex and have not resulted in user learning and, much of the time, adoption.

In line with our belief in the power of education, we educate our users, too. While we offer the standard type of tech support—reactive to situations and issues—we also offer proactive support as well.

In this white paper, we’ll show you how we have embedded education right into Pipeliner with these tools:

Context-Sensitive Help—access help from any view in Pipeliner, for that feature or set of features
Knowledge Base—A vast array of information is available in the Knowledge Base, useful for salespeople, sales leaders, or any Pipeliner user–accessible right from Pipeliner.
Contact Support—Right from Pipeliner, directly contact Support by email with any question or issue you may have, at no extra charge.
What’s New—From the Pipeliner Help menu, click on What’s New to see brief descriptions and videos of each of the latest Pipeliner features.
Getting Started—a quick-start guide that will rapidly get any user up and running with Pipeliner.
About Pipeliner—this feature offers an introductory video, a screen to sign up for a free demo webinar, and more.

Try Pipeliner Proactive Support now!

Sales Process: Empowering Sales, Management, and the Company

How important is it for a company to both have and understand its sales process? It’s not just important – it’s crucial to sales coordination, management and company expansion. A company’s sales process is the precise series of steps through which a sale passes, from prospect through to close. A sales process could also be referred to as a “pipeline” through which all your sales run. For example, one B2B software company uses a fairly common pipeline model of lead, demo, booking, and close as individual steps, and each of these steps are monitored.

How do you determine the stages of your company’s process? You can’t set sales pipeline management on the right track until you’ve gathered, correlated, interviewed, and established a foundation on which to build.

In this eBook you will learn and be able to act confidently to get this important first step done right.

Chapter 1: Know Your Sales Process

While a salesperson very familiar with a company’s product or service may be able to operate without established pipeline management, it is doubtful anyone else will. An established sales process means a sales force that works as a team, all moving in the same direction.

Chapter 2: Account Management: Buyer Profiles Are Key to Sales Process

Today, savvy salespeople are learning that a great pitch and some information on the target customer company and their needs no longer cuts it. Today’s account management wins come from digging in and fully understanding a company, their requirements, and the specific target personnel and their jobs.

Chapter 3: Sales Process: Real-World Examples

How does a sales process – also known as pipeline management – affect a company’s overall sales? A 2012 study by CSO Insights found that companies with workable sales processes had higher numbers of reps making quotas, higher percentages of company target attainments reached a higher percentage of forecasted sales, and had lower sales turnover.

Chapter 4: Sales Process Stages: Focusing on profitability

Exactly isolating your sales process – the precise steps taken by your sales reps from prospect to close – is crucial to your company’s operation. But once you have done so, how can you then use that data to focus sales attention and predict future sales? This is the essence of utilizing the stages of your sales process.

Chapter 5: Sales Process: Utilizing Sales Personnel

There is another vital use of pipeline management: the proper utilization of sales personnel.

Chapter 6: Importance of the Sales Process–Outside of the Sales Pipeline

The firm establishment of a sales process, closely reflecting specific real-world sales actions that move sales from prospect to close, is vital to a company’s smooth operation and expansion. But not only is such establishment needed for salespeople and sales managers – but it is also quite important for other individuals and departments outside of immediate sales pipeline management.

Download Sales Process: Empowering Sales, Management, and the Company now.

Customizable CRM: Pipeliner Intelligent Fields

Exploiting Your Company’s Uniquenesses: Pipeliner CRM Intelligent Fields

Part of a customizable CRM, an Intelligent Field is a field which displays data in a read-only fashion, data which has been automatically calculated using other data obtained elsewhere.

Pipeliner CRM has been, from the beginning, designed from the standpoint that no 2 companies are alike. Pipeliner is totally customizable from many standpoints, including a company’s sales processes. Tasks and activities are also customizable; the many and varied tasks, and their order, will be different for each company. Overall, Pipeliner is a rapidly adaptable framework for your organization.

One of Pipeliner’s customizable elements are its forms–available with the leads, opportunities, accounts and contacts functions. Forms can be designed for a wide variety of operations, completely dependent on the company, its products and its processes. One key component of these forms is Pipeliner’s Intelligent Fields.

We currently have 4 different types of Intelligent Fields, and new ones are added on an average of every other release. In this white paper we will cover those that are currently available in Pipeliner CRM, and how you can use them.

1. Calculated Fields

A Calculated Field is a field that calculates and displays data, based on other data automatically acquired from another field or fields.

2. Custom Validation Rules

When a user enters data into a CRM form, it can often happen that the data needs to meet a certain standard before it is accepted. That is what a validation rule is–it is a fixed rule that confirms that entered data meets a specified standard before that data can be saved. Hence, the data cannot be saved unless correct data is entered.

3. Web Resource Fields

A web resource field is one which imports specific data from the web, into a customized field.

4. Dynamic Dropdowns

A feature recently added to Pipeliner CRM, Dynamic Dropdowns are dropdown menus that relate to one another, and make their choices dependent on one another.

Self-Assessment Test: Managing Leads and Opportunities

Our self-gradable test will show you where you can improve the management of Leads and Opportunities to Increase Sales Velocity and Close Rates

From a Lead to a Closed Sale

As a Lead moves along the sales pipeline, at some point it becomes an Opportunity. This means it has the real potential of becoming what everyone in the sales force is after: a closed sale.

Whereas qualifying a Lead might be relatively simple, Opportunity management is a bit more complex. This is because the stakes are higher. A salesperson is now going to invest valuable time into working the Opportunity, engaging key people at the target company, making presentations, and using any sales technique to move the Opportunity along. Other departments will likely become involved also.

Tech support might be standing by if the prospect company is testing a trial version. Marketing might be armed to provide specific materials to help the sale along. Executives in the company could be standing by as tags on the sale. Everyone is betting that this Opportunity will pay off, but there is always that risk factor. Not all sales close. Will this one turn to profit, or become expensively wasted effort?

Learn How to Handle Leads and Opportunities

As Leads become Opportunities and move through your sales process, are they getting the right kind of attention, or are you still operating without a process? Are Leads just thrown over to a sales rep, and left to the vagaries of chance?

There’s a right and a wrong way to handle Leads and Opportunities, and our self-assessment test is a fun way to find out if you can improve your tactics.

You’ll learn more about:

Defining and tracking Leads
Defining your Lead Management Process
The importance of recycling Leads
Revealing problems or bottlenecks in your sales processes
Sharing best practices within your sales team
Download this self-assessment test and improve sales velocity and closing rates!

Sales Forecasting, Analytics & CRM

With the right tools, your sales forecast can be effective and accurate. The right CRM solution helps you get your bearings within the tangled web of sales metrics, and see the clear picture of the story your numbers are telling.

Download this free ebook and learn how to properly analyze your sales pipeline, and create an accurate and cost-effective sales forecast.

Chapter 1: CRM Solutions: Reliable and Accurate Sales Forecasting?

Sales forecasts are often done with considerable guesswork, sent along to company management, and everyone crosses their fingers and silently prays that these forecasts are somewhere near correct. If two key issues were solved – accuracy being one of them – everyone from sales reps on up to the chairman of the board could sleep a lot better at night, having far more confidence in those sales forecasts.

Chapter 2: Sales Forecasting: An Organizational Shift

Traditionally, sales forecasting has been done by the sales manager after lengthy consultation with sales reps. While it may be “how it’s always been done,” this methodology is risky at best. There is actually a way to make this a much more winning game – from the salespeople on up.

Chapter 3: 6 Key Factors for Accurate Sales Analytics and Forecasting

By actual statistic, sales forecasts – along with closing rates – are generally off by a considerable margin. Here are 6 key factors that, if implemented, will go a long way to greatly improving the accuracy of your sales analytics and forecasting.

Chapter 4: Benefits of Truly Accurate Sales Analytics

There is of course the basic benefit of accurate sales analytics: accurate sales forecasts. But there are numerous other benefits which should also be taken into account, and act as further motivations for companies to move beyond the considerable degree of speculation that commonly dominates today’s sales forecasting.

Chapter 5: Sales Analytics and CRM Solutions

The most consistent and positive way to work out a sales forecast is with a CRM solution that includes accurate sales analytics that will show you the facts of the matter, every time.

Chapter 6: Sales Analytics: Changing Role of the Sales Manager

Here we will take a closer look at how precise and usable sales analytics change the role of the person normally held accountable for overall sales and the forecasting of those sales: the sales manager.

Download Sales Forecasting, Analytics and CRM now.