That pipeline involves several different parts. Whether you’re nurturing leads, setting up calls, or negotiating final prices, there are many hoops to jump through before you can officially say you’ve made a deal.
And even then, your work isn’t finished. Customer relationships remain long after negotiations have finished, and it’s essential to nurture and sustain them.
With its state-of-the-art, cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software, Salesforce is a tool beloved by many in the world of sales. It enhances and optimizes the sales process, meaning there’s – theoretically – less time spent on admin and more on the thrill of the deal.
But there are always things you can do to get the most out of this platform. With our handy guide, you’ll learn exactly how to use Salesforce to improve your sales pipeline.
But first, it’s time for a couple of definitions. Namely, what is a sales pipeline – and what is Salesforce?
The sales process involves many parts, such as qualifying leads, nurturing them, and converting them. Like retargeting strategies in eCommerce, this process aims to turn prospective clients into satisfied and loyal customers.
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of this process, showing you where all your different prospects are located along the process. It includes several different stages, such as:
In this first step of the pipeline, you’re on the hunt for prospective leads. This process can involve researching new clients and making contact with them.
You might reach out with the tried-and-testing cold-calling method. Alternatively, you may prefer emailing, customer referrals, or social media.
Whatever your technique, make sure you use high-quality technology, such as VoIP phone system for business, to avoid connectivity issues. It’s hard to clinch a deal if your video conference keeps buffering.
In this second part of the sales pipeline, you decide which prospects are worth pursuing. You will probably create buyer personas that map out your ideal customer and measure prospects against these criteria.
A great tip here is to use free resources, such as webinars or e-books, to establish your company as industry-leading and reputable. Alternatively, using videos for lead generation is a hot industry trend you might want to follow.
Here comes the meaty part, where you get to work your ‘warm’ leads. During a sales call, you get to finally communicate face-to-face with your prospective lead and figure out their pain points and requirements. It’s essential here to convince them of how valuable your service or product is.
At this point, you’ve basically sealed the deal with your prospect. But you still need to finalize the end proposal, which should be personalized to your client’s individual needs.
This is probably the most satisfying part of the sales pipeline. Clinch the deal and get their name on that – virtual – dotted line. Or, if you prefer to have their actual signature, you may want to investigate faxing from Outlook to have the actual document in your hands.
The stage after you’ve closed a deal could arguably be the most important. Though negotiating a sales deal might seem like the most successful part, you must continue working on that customer relationship.
Remain attentive and proactive when it comes to anticipating customer needs and queries. Heck, it might even prove to be an excellent cross-selling opportunity. There are even budget-friendly ways of nurturing leads that you can explore!
Salesforce is a cloud-based software program that offers an extensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. In fundamental terms, it allows you to store and manage customer data – and it does so very successfully.
It’s become a household name for many industries due to the fact it:
It’s an instrumental piece of software for successful sales pipeline management. It helps you and your team move prospects through the sales funnel, as well as offering in-depth analytics and information that are easily customizable.
You can even filter by sales rep, team, or territory, allowing you to personalize the type of data you access.
With that being said, Salesforce can prove a tricky beast to tame. That’s why we’ve gathered our favorite tips for using Salesforce to enhance your sales pipeline.
No piece of advice or guidance will be helpful to you if you have not already scrutinized how your pipeline works.
Explore your sales pipeline with a fresh mind. Is it easy to use? Does it offer a standardized process that’s intuitive to follow? What kind of data does it show, and is that data useful?
A sales pipeline should, first and foremost, be easy to understand. It’s also instrumental in tracking all-important sales KPIs, so if these aren’t visible or to hand, you’re already in trouble.
KPIs are your guiding light in the sales process. For example, if you offer telephone services for small business, maybe those KPIs include hitting up a certain number of local businesses each week.
When evaluating and optimizing your sales pipeline, Salesforce provides various tools and features, including Salesforce commission tracking. These tools make the process more intuitive and user-friendly, helping your sales team establish a solid foundation. Standardizing your pipeline is also advantageous since it aligns with your target audience’s likely common concerns and pain points.
The whole point of a sales pipeline is to make it easier for your sales reps to clinch deals.
It stands to reason, then, that they are the people who also know best what they need and where the pipeline might be failing the team.
With this in mind, it’s time to get communicative. In other words, interview your sales team and mine them for information to help you improve and customize the pipeline.
Consider the following questions:
You can then use this information to update and tailor the pipeline to fit your team’s needs better.
If your company is international, you may even want to hit up Sales teams in other regions to analyze their approach. If you choose to do so, you might try Vonage for high-quality calls.
You can also reach out to other departments who are directly impacted by your pipeline data.
Finance, human resources, and marketing are all likely to be using the data from pipeline reports.
Ask them what important data they think is missing from the pipeline reports, as well as what information they usually collect from it. To take a hypothetical, let’s say you’ve launched a new website using the .ai domain from OnlyDomains. There will need to be some level of dialogue between Sales and Marketing regarding this new market’s prospects.
Once you’ve gathered all of the information above, it’s time to standardize your sales pipeline.
This makes it intuitive to use and easy to follow, which is crucial if you want your sales team to have a good starting point.
Standardizing is also helpful because your target audience will probably have similar concerns and pain points.
Salesforce really comes into its own when we look at the level of data and metrics available.
This data is crucial for measuring the performance of your sales team and will be instrumental in creating your all-important KPIs.
If you haven’t already, set aside time each to review KPIs. They may include:
As we mentioned above, sealing the deal is only part of the sales process – albeit a pretty thrilling one.
Establishing and maintaining relationships with strong prospects is the holy grail of sales. This means being attentive to queries and concerns they may have.
Don’t consider prospects as only customers – instead, they are clients who deserve a significant portion of your time and energy when it comes to providing stellar service.
Our final tip. Though it might seem obvious, it bears repeating because it’s so important.
Please, whatever you do…follow up on your leads! Who knows how many missed opportunities have slipped through your team’s fingers because prospective leads haven’t been chased up?
Sure, it’s never nice to get that resounding ‘No!’ and some leads just aren’t worth your time. But going that extra mile will set you apart from competitors.
You’ll want to ensure you’re contactable at all times, so using a tool like remote desktop Android phone or Apple means you’ll be available to clients at the drop of a hat.
Salesforce really is your best friend when it comes to creating an effective and efficient sales pipeline.
Whether you’re logging prospects, analyzing the average deal lifetime, or storing all-important customer contact details, the platform provides a seamless and customizable experience that suits everyone.
To really get the most out of Salesforce, we can’t recommend enough talking with your team and other departments to identify what’s missing or holding you back.
Once you’ve got hold of that data, you can let your imagination go wild as you create the perfect sales pipeline for your team.
Go forth and seal those deals!
