Increase Your Sales Pipeline (click text title)

Managing a sales organization is an ongoing effort. There is no technology that replaces the necessary leadership associated with sales management. Not sure where to dig into your sales organization? Below are the steps to accelerate your sales.

1. Business Objective. In your capacity, I'll bet you can cite the objectives of the business easy as pie, but do the key members of the sales team know them? Better yet, do they know the current one(s)? Business objectives change. The business objectives serve as the foundation of the company's sales architecture which is the overall selling system framework.

2. Differentiation. Some argue that differentiation is the job of the marketing team. The bottom line is whether or not your company is successful winning business at your desired prices while being a valuable resource to clients. This is critical in a competitive or commodity marketplace.

3. Ideal Client Profile. Hopefully, you already have one of these. This is the document that clearly defines the attributes of your ideal client. Think in terms of size, buying circumstance, budget, buying habits, etc. This is a profile which each member of the sales team should memorize and be held accountable for knowing. 4. Messaging Consistency. You spend time and money investing in a new campaign. Your sales people position the company using this new message, but the print material and website still convey the old information. Not good! The outbound message to the market must be consistent.

5. Intellectual Capital. What is that, you say? These are your referenceable clients. Other than your employees, they are your most valuable asset. This asset is critical for your sales team to help them win business.

6. Sales Performance. How are the members of the team performing relative to their assigned goal? Approach performance as a longer-term buying process; don’t get tempted to measure only revenue performance relative to quota. Look to upgrade the bottom 20% of the sales team. Recruiting is an ongoing initiative of any healthy sales organization.

7. Pipeline Analysis. The size of your sales pipeline ensures it yields enough to meet the business objective. Quantitative studies aside, the best approach is to conduct formal, periodic pipeline reviews so that you and your executive team can dig into the pipeline to see what prospects are real. High quality pipeline reviews are very helpful for executive teams to better learn of market trends and competitive intelligence.

8. Ideal Sales Person Profile. This important tool defines the model of your firm’s ideal sales person. It’s key to upgrading the bottom 20% of your sales team. This profile changes, however, as the business evolves and matures. The skill set required to be successful in your business today is very different from the future needs.

9. Sales Accelerator Program (SAP). Again, you are probably asking yourself what this term means. Every time a sales person is hired in your company, there is a cost to the business. Focus on developing a program that is focused on reducing the time for a sales person to generate revenue. How quickly can you realize a return on the investment for this hire?

10. Skill Development. Many think that sales talent is born; not developed. Oh, if that were only the case. Companies need to invest in their sales team development every single day. A big gap between executives and sales people occurs when the sales team is criticized for not "selling the value." Sales people will perform based on how they are trained and how they are compensated.

11. Compensation. Does your compensation plan drive the sales behaviors you feel assist in meeting the business objective? It all comes back to the business objective. The blessing and curse of sales people is that they use their compensation plan as a job description. However, if the plan changes too frequently, the sales team will grow distrustful and look to leave. Approach this with true circumspection.

12. Metrics. The beauty of sales is that just about everything can be measured. It is incumbent on the executive team to create metrics with desired goals such that every aspect of the company's CRM sales architecture can be measured and analyzed. Who sells the most of what product? Who sells the highest margin deals? What product is not selling as expected? Which sales person has the shortest buying cycle? Which sales person has the longest buying cycle?

For more information email sustainablevirtualteams@yahoo.com or call (503) 621-4953.