This ebook is designed to show you how Pipeliner CRM, with its constantly innovated and evolving new features, assists salespeople, sales managers and other roles in the company as they make their way into the future. As we move forward, it becomes increasingly important how users spend their time, because their time becomes ever more valuable.

It should be noted that our innovation of new and more powerful features is an ongoing and evolving process. There will always be changes and improvements going forward. We believe that data analytics is crucial for future business decisions, and it requires consistently evolved angles from which to view the data.

Pipeliner is like no other CRM tool in the world. At the center of it is the Automatizer functionality, which makes it possible to automate not only routine tasks, but even some functionality in other applications. This doesn’t mean that everything should be automated, though—there is so much more a company can do today.

A salesperson’s job is broken down into specific tasks which, within Pipeliner, we refer to as activities. An activity could be a call, a visit, a reception of feedback, or an email. With the Automatizer, some activities can be automated. Activity metrics are important, but there is a slight difference between measuring activities conducted by the salesperson and those that are automated.

Effectiveness and Efficiency

To fully grasp the importance of a tool like Pipeliner, you must understand the difference between effectiveness and efficiency. Far too often these two terms are simply interchanged and thrown around like buzzwords, and are used incorrectly. When “experts” say that sales metrics have to be “both efficient and effective,” it’s obvious that the speaker considers the two terms mean the same thing. This isn’t the case.

Peter Drucker, the great Austrian management consultant, educator and author, stated this difference very precisely: “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

When it comes to sales, I’ve always used the analogy of a hammer and a nail. If you are hanging a picture on a wall, you need a hammer. While something like a brick might do the job, it won’t work very well. And you not only need a hammer, but the right kind of hammer. A sledgehammer will drive the nail right through the wall, and will probably put a big hole in the wall. You need a smaller hammer that you can use to put the slender nail in place on which you’ll be able to hang the picture.

Another analogy would be using a bicycle to go from Los Angeles to San Diego (a distance of 120 miles). You’d have to plan roughly 12 hours for the trip, and because you’d arrive there sweaty and tired, you’d need to rest, shower, and have a change of clothes ready. Obviously, a bicycle would not be an effective mode of transport in this circumstance.

If you don’t have the right tool, you can never be effective.

In Sales

Once again, effectiveness is doing the right thing. To do the right thing, you need the right tool. If a salesperson is not using a tool that has meaning for them as a salesperson, or if they absolutely dislike the tool, they’re not engaged with it. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t sync with their mindset, and doesn’t speak their language as a salesperson.

We have to take into account the fact that salespeople are visual people, driven by different approaches. Because Pipeliner is completely visual, it is the only truly effective tool for sales. The primary principle for Pipeliner development is Instant Dynamic Visualization. Any tool that isn’t so formulated will never be effective.

Now moving onto efficiency, it is only with the right tool that a salesperson can become efficient. As an example, a salesperson should be very efficient in calling people. But if they don’t have a tool that enables them to make multiple calls—such as today’s dialers and call robots—they won’t at all be efficient in cold-calling. If their company tells this salesperson that they have no calling software, that they must use their own smartphone, they’re going to have a great deal of trouble making a quota of 100 calls a day. They might somehow be able to achieve this for a couple of days, but by day 3 they’ll be so exhausted and frustrated they’ll probably throw the smartphone out the window and quit.

Salespeople—just like everyone else—only have so many hours in a day. They only have certain times of day they can reach prospects. They can work outside of these hours, but it is only those hours they’ll be able to connect to prospects. It is therefore critical that a salesperson be very efficient in their activities. Otherwise they won’t get everything done, and make quotas, the way they need to.

Automating Tasks

While a salesperson needs to constantly improve in the things they do, they don’t need to improve in repetitive tasks. Such tasks should instead be automated, offloaded to Pipeliner’s Automatizer, or a workflow engine.

Outside of sales, history has shown us many such innovations, for which we’re eternally grateful. We all used to have to manually wash dishes after every meal—an extremely repetitive and mundane task. Today we just load up the dishwasher and press a button. Similarly, we once had to wash clothes by hand, and dry them on a line outside, at least when the weather was good. Today we have efficient washers and dryers to take care of those tasks for us.

Interconnection

Today these kinds of appliances are becoming even more efficient by being smart, able to share knowledge with each other. This is the Internet of Things (IoT).

In a similar way, the tools we use in sales must interconnect, too, and we must be able to connect with them. When we examine data, it must be made meaningful to us—not just to show us discrepancies, failures, or shortcomings, but mainly to improve the process. That is actually the goal of data—to remove problems, reduce risk, and to leverage opportunities. When we can rapidly and fully understand indicators and metrics, and deeply view actual issues, we can be proactive instead of reactive. At that point business gets interesting, because at that moment we are faster than our competitors.

Data within the sales process has different meanings for different roles in sales. A sales development rep (SDR) would interpret things differently than a sales hunter or farmer. The way data is interpreted brings real efficiency.

Efficiency Brings Productivity

What, in turn, does efficiency provide to a company? Efficiency leads to productivity. When we’re more efficient, we become more productive as a natural result.

Improved productivity means that you are getting better at all your activities, getting more out of the system, reducing costs and levering opportunities. Of course that’s a major goal for any company, now and into the future: reduction of risk, reduction of costs, and optimizing profit.

Part of becoming more productive and more efficient is coordination and working together. For example, when a salesperson works well with an SDR, their sales productivity increases exponentially. The time frame for accomplishing activities is reduced. This all means more wins for sales.

Come with me now and see how Pipeliner can bring ever-increased effectiveness, and therefore efficiency—and therefore profitability—to your organization.

What Does It Take to Be a Pipelinerpreneur?

What is a Pipelinerpreneur? An entrepreneur who has decided to make a business selling and delivering Pipeliner CRM. It is a business at which you could greatly succeed, and Pipeliner Sales offers you a great deal of assistance in building it.

In this ebook, I’m providing a practical program you can use to become an active Pipelinerpreneur. I won’t be providing instruction in learning Pipeliner CRM, because it’s a given that you will learn it on your own. As with any job, you must learn to use your tool—if you’re a carpenter, it might be the perfect hammer, or the perfect brush if you’re a painter. For this job, it’s Pipeliner CRM. We provide a Learning Management System (LMS) integration with which you can easily learn Pipeliner. We also have provided hundreds of pages of product help, along with many videos and even webinars to assist you.

In addition to learning Pipeliner CRM, it’s also important that you learn our approach and philosophy, especially the Network Selling model.

Creating Your Own Business

Having the software well learned—or learning it while you’re studying this ebook—will already help you be a better salesperson. The program in this ebook will add to that. It will help you to be even more skilled and help you create your own business.

The great thing about the Pipelinerpreneur program is that you don’t have to invest money or create your own business idea. All we expect from you is to take it seriously, be willing to learn, and be willing to invest your time. You’ll also need to set your goals and evaluate the different possibilities for your business. We provide and deliver everything else.

My favorite action hero (and countryman) Arnold Schwarzenegger related in one of his speeches that he physically trained for hours and hours daily in his fitness center. But at night, he was studying hard and learning many other things. This is similar to what you will be doing—working during the day, and studying and learning the rest of the time. When you’re young and dedicated, you can even have a full-time job and, at the same time, become a Pipelinepreneur.

Change Your Life

To do all that, you have to decide to change your life. And then to sit down, get to work, and start doing it!

To begin, you need to develop self-awareness. Self-awareness is not complicated. All self-awareness is, really, is honesty with yourself.

If you’re not willing to learn, to work hard, and go that extra mile, you’ll never get anywhere. Your self-awareness will inform you of such. For example, if you’re only investing 30 minutes of training per week to become a basketball star, you’re never going to make it. And your self-awareness, if you listen to it, will tell you that.

The next element you need is confidence. Confidence is sometimes based on natural talent. As an example, I would love to be a good musician. But if I’m honest, I’m not confident in my capability to do that, because I don’t have that talent.

Fortunately, becoming a Pipelinerpreneur doesn’t require natural talent. Learning to sell is not an art, but a craft that anyone can learn. The same is true for becoming a Pipelinerpreneur. You can learn business intelligence. Learn to be value-oriented. Understand why and learn to respect your customer. How being more empathetic can help with your sales.

Getting Down To It

We’ve all been through a bit of hell with covid-19. Perhaps you’re saying, “Covid has ruined my business!” Well, here we’re giving you the opportunity to build a new business. This opportunity comes with no attached risk and no hidden agenda. We want you to become self-sustaining, self-dependent, self-responsible, self-motivated, and self-oriented.

You can make this business any size you want. It’s all a matter of simple mathematics. If you decide that you want to make $30,000 a year, you’ll need to gross $60,000 because we let you keep 50 percent of what you make. How can you make $60,000? Well, we’ll show you exactly how to do that in this ebook. If you want to make $300,000, it’s no big deal. If you want to make $3 million, it’s also not a big deal. It’s just a different approach. It’s up to you to set the right milestones for yourself, the vision for yourself, the mission you want to accomplish.

My Mission

The above describes what we are doing with the Pipelinerpreneur program. My mission is to help every person who wishes to build their own self-sustaining independent business. We at Pipeliner are providing you all the support you need to become a strong business, to become a shining light in the darkness where, right now, hope is necessary. People can truly have the power to live well, support their families, and perhaps support others who have not been previously able to find work.

We’re not taking anything from you for this. Why? Because I strongly believe I was given so much in life, that what I have received I freely give away. The only thing I cannot do for you is the work you must do. I am providing the ideas, a path forward, and even the product.

If you really take a look, no other CRM company in the world is doing anything like this. While others provide training courses or certification—all at a fee—we’re not charging for any of this. We’re only requiring your time and energy.

The Vital Need for CRM

A business like the one you are going to create is crucially important, because every company in the world, now and into the future, needs a CRM system. Covid-19 has pushed the digital agenda 5 years ahead. No organization can live without technology. Today a business is 60% technology and 40% human. Central to the technology of a business is CRM.

So let’s get started in building your business as a Pipelinerpreneur!

It’s no secret that the covid19 pandemic has pushed the digital world many years ahead—I would say at least 5 years, perhaps even more. We now see (whether you believe it or not) that with the “3rd wave” of covid19 we need to prepare ourselves for this to be an ongoing situation. The pressure to have a digital strategy is now crucial, and I would say it’s impossible to function as a business if you don’t have one.

The pandemic has caused a transformation in society that is changing everything we do, and how and why we do it. We see these changes in how we produce, how we consume, in transport and endless other sectors. A primary change that has come about is in the way we communicate. Zoom rapidly transformed from a company no one had ever heard of to a world brand. It’s the platform through which much business is conducted and schooling is even done.

Something I find very interesting is that G5—5th generation wireless—was implemented just in time for the pandemic. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but it sure made the difference when we all had to work from home. A couple of years ago, the internet would not have supported the sheer amount of video conferencing that is taking place. The mobile web is just the beginning of this tremendous revolution.

Now, through technology, every company needs to learn to truly focus, and out of that focus to become more efficient. From efficiency comes productivity, and from productivity comes profitability.

Automatizer

Let’s take a look at the crucial role that CRM is playing in this transformation, and why Automatizer is, for the future, the core of our CRM product.

In a recent article I was discussing the need, throughout time, to reduce and eliminate repetitive tasks. But in fact, it’s not so much about reduction, because the word “reduction” is somewhat negative. It’s more the need for support in such tasks. Above we were discussing efficiency, and efficiency is how you optimize work. When you’re at home and you have multiple processes, optimization is difficult when you have to do everything manually.

For the first time in this technology movement we’re in, we now have a system with which someone can automate many different processes. We’ve created an engine for this purpose, that becomes the center of CRM technology. Almost anyone can configure and use it.

I’ve talked before about the most widely used application in history: Microsoft Excel. Just about anyone can pick it up and use it immediately, so extensive study is not required. At the same time, you can dive deep and take years to learn Excel’s more complex functionality in-depth, which many have done. With scripting skills, you can even create automation in Excel.

Today we need a different technology, one for the purpose of automating as many repetitive tasks as possible. It must be as simple to pick up and use as Excel. This is why Automatizer, the heart of CRM of the future, was created. It is the hub around which everything else revolves. Like a wheel has spokes, many functions radiate out from this Automatizer hub.

And also like Excel, Automatizer can be used for more sophisticated tasks. It is not only useful for automating the simpler daily repetitive activities, but for more complex work, it allows you to regularly assemble data from multiple touchpoints and summarize or otherwise analyze or utilize it.

The Problem Being Solved

In many ways, Automatizer is the next in a very long line of time and labor-saving devices going back to the beginning of time. Just one example is that somewhere sometime back, somebody got sick and tired of having to wash dishes after every meal, and decided to invent the dishwasher. Another task people became weary of—washing clothes—resulted in the washing machine. When buildings became higher and climbing stairs became too much of a chore, the elevator was invented.

It’s a similar situation today. There are many tasks performed as part of sales that rob the salesperson of value, simply because these tasks could be automated. Such tasks are not only boring, but any intelligent person would ask, “Why do I have a computer? Why isn’t the computer doing this?” As an example, copy-paste was one of the core concepts for the Macintosh computer. It’s now everywhere, and we’ve become very used to it. But if someone performs copy-paste 100 times a day, they would rightly think, “Why can’t the computer do that? It’s a waste of my valuable time.”

Not to Replace Humans

We are definitely becoming wiser with the way we utilize technology. We’re using it to remove repetitive work that normally hinders people in building relationships. That is the heart of automation—it should not replace people, but should free people to pursue their actual purpose, whatever that may be. People were not made to perform repetitive tasks; they become depressed, angry, or upset when they have to do the same thing over and over.

We’re now living in a world where technology can take over simple or complex repetitive tasks, which in fact technology can perform much better than humans. Machines never make mistakes, they are never sick, they work 24/7, and don’t require vacation pay.

The processes you can create with Automatizer are endless. Through creating these processes you become more focused. Here we circle back to the beginning, because out of being focused you learn and become more efficient. Efficiency makes you more productive, and from that productivity comes profitability.

When your organization focuses on the right technology utilized for the right purpose, it can’t help but be successful. As technology is utilized, it needs to be constantly fine-tuned. This fine-tuning should be so easy that everyone can learn it. That is something else we’ve accomplished with Automatizer.

I invite you to come with me as we dive deeper into Automatizer—learn how it works and how you can use it.

The topic of Sales management is very broad, and is covered in an infinite number of books, so we won’t be covering that here. There is also an endless list of material on sales management—and as anyone who has read my previous writings on the subject knows, I consider that management is management. There are principles which dictate great management, and they are applied in sales management, as well as in the management of any other part of a company, or in the overall management of the company itself. The management methods that we have found the most effective, and to have the biggest impact on effectiveness and efficiency, are those of world-renowned management consultant Fredmund Malik.

“Management must be learnt just like any other profession, a foreign language or a type of sport. Management is not easy, so it must constantly be practiced. However, neither is it more difficult than other professions, so anyone can achieve a certain degree of competence, higher than that of an amateur.” —Fredmund Malik

In this ebook we are going to get very specific: we’re going to be dealing with sales management through CRM. I personally believe (as do a lot of experts today) that utilizing a CRM is the only way to manage a sales team—and in fact, it is practically impossible to manage one without it.

There is no system in the industry today like Pipeliner CRM, one that empowers precision sales management through CRM. Therefore we can truly say that Pipeliner CRM is the only really effective tool available today in the market.

We are going to break sales management through CRM down into 4 basic functions, with a chapter covering each.

Lead Management

In sales, it all begins with leads. There is always a sales quota to be made. A quota won’t be attained without adequate opportunities—and opportunities won’t happen without adequate leads.

Even with a good inbound lead program (which most companies have today), to truly guarantee their success, every salesperson should prospect, should generate their own leads. Lead management can be very precisely conducted through Pipeliner CRM, from lead assignment up through conversion to an opportunity.

Opportunity Management

At the very heart of running a sales, the pipeline is opportunity management. Opportunity management consists of, first, setting up a sales process. This means knowing the various stages that your opportunities pass through, from lead all the way to close. When you know how long a deal takes to make it through the pipeline, and how long it should take for an opportunity to make it through each stage of that pipeline, you’ve got a fairly accurate sales process.

Account Management

Account management is a considerable job—and one of the most important for a sales professional. Account management consists of several key functions, all of which actually add up to happy customers. Account management is most precisely conducted through CRM.

Existing accounts are the foundation and stability of a company. Moreover, it is far less complex and costly to keep an existing account satisfied and happy than it is generating new business.

For all of these reasons, account management is a primary important function of an enterprise.

The War Room Concept

The War Room is a vital concept in sales management.

A physical war room, in the military, is a space in which generals, officers and battle coordinators visually plan out battle tactics and strategies for specific operations. In business, the term has come to mean a meeting space built for the specific purpose of providing a dedicated location for stakeholders and project teams to share a location and visually communicate tasks and activities associated with the execution of critical projects.

Moving over to sales, the idea is to control and manage all of your sales resources in one location, in a way that they are all visually available and all data is present.

Hunter and Farmer

Finally, we need to examine the two basic types of salespeople, the hunter and the farmer, and how each of these are managed.

Come with me as we explore each of these vital parts of sales management through CRM.

This is the second ebook in our Sales Management Series. In this ebook, we’re going to discuss the basics of metrics in Sales Management.

The use of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure a sales team’s growth or contraction have been used for many years. Some examples include gross sales, net revenue, products sold, and others that demonstrate how a company has succeeded (or not) through a particular period (quarter or year).

But these particular KPIs are actually lagging indicators—so called because they only reflect what has been done. It is rather like the final score of a football game that’s already been played—by the time lagging indicators are recorded, it is too late to change anything. Hence, KPIs are needed which help predict what those lagging indicators will be. These are called leading indicators. As you’ll see, leading indicators are used much too infrequently in sales. We’ll discuss what they should be and how they should be used.

We will also be discussing the combined use of leading and lagging indicators within CRM, and why this is such a vital necessity for sales analysis today.

I hope you find this, and all the ebooks in this series, of helpful use!

This is the first in a series of ebooks covering the vital subject of Sales Management. In this ebook, we’re going to cover the basic essentials of the subject: Getting rapidly up and running when you’re first put on the job, taking on a team, the mindset you need, the subject of management, a sales manager’s virtues, dealing with people, and the technology you need.

Future ebooks in this series will deal with the vital metrics of sales management, and sales management through CRM.

I firmly believe that sales is the most important profession for dealing with today’s turbulent world and economy, for salespeople create wealth and produce peace. But salespeople need a competent, stable leader—and that would be you, the sales manager! Hopefully, these books, written from my own substantial sales management experience, will help to guide you to a successful sales management role.

Let’s get started!

In the last few years, there has certainly been a lot of talk about sales enablement—it’s one of those trendy terms that came around and has definitely remained. It has come to the point now where software vendors are promoting a new type of solution called a Sales Enablement Platform (SEP). In one respect this is great news, for salespeople have never needed more enabling than they do today. There’s only one problem: just what is a Sales Enablement Platform?

There certainly is no sales enablement “magic bullet”—you utilize it and bang! instant results! People today will jump on any train when they hear it will bring immediate positive painless change—even as they know there is no such thing. It’s like trying to win a gold medal without doing any training, even though you know that can never happen.

So what is sales enablement, really, and where is it going? Is it just a buzzword that becomes an umbrella for various solutions? And what exactly is a sales enablement platform?

Depending on which vendor you reference, an SEP sounds an awful lot like a CRM. But at least one vendor I found goes well out of their way to say that their product, this SEP, is most definitely not a CRM. Yet that same vendor states that their SEP has “CRM characteristics.” Another SEP calls itself, “The Sales Enablement CRM.” Other SEP vendors spell out benefits that sound exactly like those of a CRM application. What gives?

However we define it, sales enablement is very important today, and will become more so in the future. Why? Because even if you have a top performer, how much better are they going to be if they have the right tools?

Let’s have a look at what sales enablement really entails, and what a Sales Enablement Platform really is and what it should be.

How important is CRM in this digital age? How does it affect a company, the users, and most importantly the company experience? In this ebook, we’ll have a look at all of these aspects, for the role of CRM has become more important than ever.

Processes

Today some C-level executives are very nervous as they feel the growing pains of the digital transformation that has been occurring on a steep curve for the last several decades. The only way to deal with that transformation is through technological processes—and these technological processes are the only way to run a company today.

It’s gotten to the point now that if a process malfunctions, it can wreak major havoc with company operations. For example, if something goes wrong with an e-commerce application, a valuable transaction doesn’t occur. In another area, the data flow is interrupted and a crucial operation doesn’t happen, and vital data is lost. Or, you’re selling live in a video chat, reach the most important part of your pitch, and you lose your connection.

In sales that series of processes is, in fact, CRM. CRM applications have come from a technological “nice to have” up to the point where a company cannot live without one. I would say that CRM is the “operating system” of a company. It is the heart, it is the hub because the “C” stands for “Customer” and without customers, a company doesn’t exist.

How does your company remain aware of a customer and their details? CRM! You need to understand customer account information, contact data, what kind of activities have taken place with them, their assigned sales rep, calls, emails, leads, opportunities, and everything else that would comprise a 360-degree view of that customer.

Customers have come to expect a level of care and attention that can only be obtained through CRM. They become impatient if you’re not instantly aware of their purchase history, preferences, and recommendations. They expect you to have a perfect profile of them, and you should. All of this makes up what today is referred to as the CX—“Customer eXperience.” An effective CX is a holistic one. From that customer’s buying journey, we can then create a personalized experience. This cannot be done without CRM.

Of course, when you have a CRM armed with all this data, you have to use it. It’s just like anything in life—many people have things in their houses or offices that they never use. With a CRM system, company staff need to actually interact with it.

If that’s going to happen, the CRM itself must possess spectacular ease of use, because salespeople should not be the only ones interacting with it. It isn’t just one division or one department; it has to be every department. How else can you obtain a great experience for the customer—that all-important CX?

Training

When a CRM solution is not intuitive, it takes much longer to learn. A non-intuitive quality will also impact its everyday use; when salespeople or others in a company have trouble understanding an application, they will tend to shy away from it. That means that vital data may be entered incorrectly into CRM, or not be entered at all.

To get a CRM in broad use across a company, it must be easily learned, which is where ease of use comes in. Pipeliner CRM excels in this area, as it can be learned by a new user in hours, as compared to the weeks and sometimes even months of other CRM solutions. We have ensured ease of use and learning through our visual orientation, consistent across the product.

Our completely visual approach has been part of our user interface strategy from the beginning. This strategy extends to every screen created. When a user learns one screen, its similarity to others means that progressive screens can be rapidly understood.

Additionally, we’ve built learning right into the product, so that users have access to product information right at their fingertips. People don’t all learn in the same way, so not only is this information in text and graphical form but increasingly in video form as well. We also have tutorials, and a way to contact support if for some reason the user doesn’t find what they’re looking for.

Benefits and Requirements

Given that every business must have a CRM or find themselves out of business in the future,it now becomes important to select the right CRM. What CRM benefits does a company require?

These benefits must be examined in detail. Different stakeholders—management, finance, general users—have different requirements. For example, not everyone will need all customer details but may require fast overviews through dashboards or reports.

It’s also true that requirements change, and so technology needs to change right along with them. Technological innovation, too, can drive change (introduce new benefits) and can affect what a company desires, needs and wants.

I am often asked why I have a “disproportionate” number of developers compared to marketing and sales personnel. Most SaaS businesses are generally the reverse and weigh far more in favour of sales and marketing. I have followed the advice of educator and author Peter Drucker, who said that to have a competitive advantage you must create the future. That only happens with a healthy investment in R&D. I believe, in our case, it is the right approach. Today we have a fantastic product that is only getting better.

Let’s fully explore what a CRM is, and isn’t…and why we believe Pipeliner CRM is the only truly efficient CRM for the 2020s, and the future.