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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You know that your pipeline is the foundation of a successful sales process and the root of all revenue.

When you understand the power of its metrics, you have all the information you need to create more opportunities, generate more leads (from the right kind of customer), and encourage existing customers to buy more. Within this book you’ll find the answers:

• How to properly measure your sales pipeline
• The KPIs that you need to track
• How to predict your sales with accurate and insightful pipeline measurement

Quantify the performance of your pipeline and you’ll be able to identify gaps, proactively tackle the challenges that kill your conversion rates, and close more sales.

Download this free ebook and learn more.

If you understand the metrics within your pipeline, you will have access to the information you need to create more opportunities, generate more leads (from the right kind of customer) and encourage existing customers to buy more.

One fact about Germany’s performance in the World Cup is that they played as a team.

Salespeople need to learn this same lesson. They are, by nature, loners; setting their own goals, being responsible for their own incomes, and following their own instincts. In one respect that’s a great thing—it’s what makes them great salespeople. But today the sales landscape has become far too competitive and, more importantly, too complex for a salesperson to go it alone.

How can you win your ultimate sales challenge with as much elegance and ferocity as German team did at the 2014 World Cup? Download our free ebook to make an unforgettable kick-off for your business.

While we’re learning, there are other factors that have entered into the sales landscape in the last few years that substantially aid the needed changes both for sales and sales management—and interestingly can be likened to the German victory in the World Cup.

What is insight selling and how can you benefit from lost leads and opportunities? How do you manage the information within your sales process – the quantity and quality? Most importantly, how do you keep it accessible, organized, and accurate?  Within this ebook you find the answers to how to develop and improve your sales system. You’ll learn:

• What is insight selling and how can you blend it into existing sales best practices?
• How can you analyze and capitalize on lost sales opportunities?
• What are the best ways to qualify leads and opportunities?

Improve your pipeline with the basic principles of insight selling and learn the power of new sales techniques and strategies. Download this free eBooklet and learn more.

Today’s forward-thinking sellers gather much more information than just about the general industry. They learn as much as possible about the specific prospect company itself, its role in the industry, its competition and any problems particular to that company.

We’ve got a new ebook just perfect for anyone planning to attend an in-person event or conference! — The Little Black Book for Conferences and Conventions.

Four experienced event attendees have written all their secret squirrel techniques and ideas for how to make the most of these opportunities — from preparing ahead of time, to what to do during the event, to following up afterward. Our experts:

• Barbara Giamanco — Leading social selling author, speaker, and advisor
• Joanne Black — Renowned authority on referral selling
• Peri Shawn — Award-winning sales and coaching author, speaker, and trainer
• Chad Porter — Co-founder of Invisume (“The Invisible Resume”)

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Building Relationships – Numbered lists for preparing and making the most out of relationship-building activities
• Keeping Organized Amid the Chaos – Secret methods and apps that help maintain control — scheduling, what to bring with you, and using your time wisely
• Before the Event – Activities, planning, and creating a state of mind that sets the stage for success
• During the Event: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques – Contacting people, using social media, and managing meetups
• After the Event – Putting all your hard work to good use — don’t fall short at the finish line!
• Techniques That Really Work – Experts’ secret squirrel ideas that might just work for you
• Etiquette Pet Peeves – What to do — and what not to do!

Download this fun and free ebook, and you will be prepared and productive at your next in-person conference!