Distractions. Noise. Feeling overwhelmed. We all face overflowing inboxes, distracting social media feeds and incredible demands on our time. Today’s B2B sales people are no exception – on the contrary, we are facing ever growing quotas while simultaneously needing to spend more and more time on administration and other non-sales related activities.
The funnel/pipeline is a fundamental tool for sales professionals and managers. It’s the tool that helps us understand whether we are on target to meeting our goals. I spend a lot of time looking at funnels. I’ve seen all sorts of issues and potential games (inadvertent and purposeful) that are played with pipelines. I thought I’d spend a little time on a few of them.
In the world of more complex b2b sales, where an investment in your product or service will actually require changes in the organization – I would argue that the fundamentals for success are still the same, despite the Internet and new technologies.
The primary role of the sales manager is to coach, measure and hold all members of the sales team accountable, helping them build and manage a healthy sales pipeline big enough to consistently make their numbers.
If you are involved with complex business-to-business sales, the new reality is that you are facing buyers who are more educated than ever and who involve more stakeholders in their decisions. Simply put, selling has become more challenging.
The evidence that formalised sales processes improve sales performance is absolutely overwhelming - a raft of studies have shown that companies that have implemented structured sales processes outperform companies that haven’t by anything from 20-45% or more. So why are so many companies still so reticent?
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