Category: Sales Education

Understanding sales psychology is crucial to your business. Learn why!

Posted on by vishal arora

Psychology is an essential sales aspect. Many people think it’s just about knowing the product and selling it, but there is more to it. Selling is understanding the customer and their needs and providing them with a solution.

A good salesperson should read the customer’s body language, know what they want, and then make them feel they’re valued. You need to listen to what they’ve to say, show empathy for their situation, and offer a solution that’ll suit their needs.

Learn more about using sales psychology to win more customers and close more deals.

What is sales psychology?

Sales psychology studies how people think, behave, and feel when shopping. It aims to build a better understanding of human behavior to increase sales. Marketing and advertising use the psychology of sales to determine how to make products more appealing to consumers.

When dealing with potential buyers, the first thing to remember is that they don’t want to be sold anything. Instead, they want to know and see that you care about their needs and preferences. To become successful in selling, you need to understand what makes people buy.

Sales is a complex process that involves multiple parties and their motivations. Customers face many options when they purchase something. As a result, they can postpone the decision or make an impulse purchase. Reps can avoid this by understanding what motivates buyers and influences their choices.

That’s where the psychology of sales comes into play.

Why is sales psychology important?

Sales psychology is an essential skill for any salesperson to have. It helps them understand their customers and connect to a successful sale. Also, knowing buyers’ needs makes sellers serve them better.

The psychology of sales plays a vital role in developing a strong sales strategy, closing a deal, and persuading customers. The more you know about how people think, the better you can influence their thoughts and behaviors.

Let’s dive into the principles of sales psychology to help you boost your sales -courtesy of Robert Cialdini, the author of Influence.

6 Principles of sales psychology

sales psychology principles

1. Reciprocity as a sales psychology technique

The principle of reciprocity is a social rule that says we ought to repay in kind what another person has provided for us. This rule is so strong that it can compel people to do favors they might not want to do, even if they don’t like the person who asked them.

When you ask someone for a favor, you establish yourself as someone who deserves their help. The more favors you do for them, the more they will feel obliged to return the favor.

It means that when you give your customers something, they’ll feel obligated to buy from you again in the future. That’s why a business may offer a gift for people who sign up for an event, a free trial for its CRM tool, or free sample, etc. 

As a sales rep, note the following to use this principle successfully.

  • Avoid offering the same product or free trial to the same customer several times. It weakens reciprocity. Instead, give the potential customer something different, like helpful tips, a thank you email, etc.
  • Include the principle in your sales pitch proactively -you could encourage the prospect to try your tool at a fraction of the cost for a week. 
  • Follow up on the potential customer with more emails to build a relationship.

Example: 

CXL sales psychology
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2. Commitment as a sales psychology technique

The commitment principle states that once people decide, they’ll want to behave consistently with it. If the decision is public, they’re more likely to always act on it in public. Researchers have also found evidence that people who’re more committed to an idea will be more likely to work on it than less determined.

Salespeople can encourage buyers or prospects to make small commitments or a specific decision about your product. 

  • You can ask questions requiring ‘yes’ answers to drive the customer to take a stand. As a result, they’re more likely to agree to purchase your solution later.
  • Include the yes question on your homepage.
  • Offer value to the customer by asking them to complete a quiz that addresses their pain points.
  • Use cross-selling, gamification, offer wish lists, tap into user content to promote your product (see Coca-cola example below), etc.

Example: Cross-selling on Amazon (shows you what other customers bought).

Amazon sales psychology
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Example: Coca-Cola relied on its fans to encourage others to buy its product.

Coke sales psychology
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Note that the images have people’s names to make the sharing more fun and personal.

3. Social proof as a principle of sales psychology

Social proof is the principle that people will do things they see other people doing. When potential buyers see others who’ve purchased a product, they’re likely to buy it themselves. Sellers can use this powerful selling technique in the following ways:

  • Get feedback from customers who’ve had positive experiences about your solution or sales process.
  • Display those testimonies on your website and include case studies in your emails campaigns to showcase your success stories.
  • Positive reviews or expert opinions about your company also validate your claims.
  • Let your homepage show real-time notifications of customers using your solution.

Example

sales psychology principle
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4. Authority as a principle of sales psychology

As a principle of sales psychology, authority is a way to establish trust with the buyer. You can do this by knowing what you’re talking about, being confident in your product, or being an expert in your field. Also, an individual with authority or an influencer finds it easy to persuade customers to believe something.

That’s why sports companies use people like Usain Bolt to endorse their products. However, sales reps can find it challenging to use influencers to support their products. They’ve got two ways of developing authority.

  • They can request reviews from experts or people in high authority who’ve purchased their products.
  • The sales team or the company can build authority through handy content, e.g., podcasts, videos, case studies, webinars, interviews, eBooks, etc.

5. Liking as psychology of sales principle

According to the principle of liking, the more you like a person or thing, the more you’re willing to buy from them. That’s why salespeople need to be friendly and likable. Sales psychology also dictates that customers can buy from someone they know, like, and trust.  

Salespeople need to build relationships with prospects to make a sale. The following five things can help sellers to do that:

1) Be a good listener.

2) Ask questions about the prospect’s company and needs.

3) Share stories about your company.

4) Share your expertise.

5) Send follow-up emails.

6. Scarcity as a sales psychology technique

Scarcity is a sales psychology technique to create a sense of urgency. You can do this by limiting the product quantity or making it seem like it’s going out of stock soon. It can increase the demand for your solution and its perceived value. 

Businesses like Apple and Amazon offer limited-time offers to entice customers into buying their products. Sales reps can also use the same principle to increase sales. However, they need to show how their products can improve customers’ lives or solve their pain points.

Example

Scarcity as sales psychology
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The psychology of selling: 13 steps to successful selling

tips for successful selling

Use the following tips that apply sales psychology to win more customers.

1. Drop the enthusiasm or excitement

Avoid being too excited and sounding unreal in your conversation whenever you engage with prospects on the phone or in person. Marc Wyashack of Sales Insight Labs says this puts off customers due to the unnatural tone in your voice or weird behavior. 

Prospects pull back because of reactance- a psychological phenomenon. Ensure that your introduction is genuine and simple without any exaggerated tone. Be yourself and be honest.

2. Potential customers don’t want the pitch

One of the mistakes salespeople make is that they rush into pitching the prospect on their first contact. And it’s one of the reasons businesses are unwilling to engage sellers. 

Reps should try to understand the likely buyer’s challenges by interacting with them, asking questions, and acting like a doctor. A surgeon prescribes medication after talking with the patient. So, should the salesperson. 

3. Avoid putting pressure on the prospect

It’s a bad habit to convince a customer to purchase your product. They can develop cold feet and repel you due to reactance -which causes anyone to 

pull back when they feel cornered or pressured. 

Prospects need gentle push through open-ended questions on your discovery call. Saying ‘tell more’ can lead the customer to self-disclosure. 

Learn more about discovery call questions. 19 Best Sales Discovery Questions To Close More Deals

4. It’s about them- not you

Marc says that reps should understand one powerful concept in the psychology of selling; WIIFM radio (What’s in it for me?). That’s what prospects think about as you chat with them. They don’t care about you, your products, your company, etc. 

Customers think of themselves: Is the conversation worth their time? Will your product solve their pain points? And if you can’t answer these questions, they’ll lose interest in what you say.

Ask questions that focus on their needs and problems. In this way, they’ll see that you want to help them. That’s because people like talking about themselves, goals, dreams, etc. So, sellers need to capitalize on that.

5. Get in their shoes

Another practical selling tip is putting yourself in the shoes of your buyer – their experiences with your sales process. What do they like or dislike about your product? What makes them buy from you or your competitors? 

Answers to these questions help you get in the buyer’s mind- that’s the psychology of selling. Sellers need to think like the prospect. What do customers care about? As a result, the conversation centers around their interests, not the rep’s need to sell.

6.  Create value through questions

The seller often suggests their product when the customer says they have a problem. It’s not a tactful way of selling. Instead, reps should establish value by asking the prospect to explain their challenge. For example, you could say: “What impact does the problem have on your revenue, productivity, etc.? How would the solution help reduce churn rate, employee turnover, etc.?”

7. Accept that ‘no’ isn’t bad

One of the realities of selling is that not every customer is a fit for your product- nearly 50% won’t do business with you. Because of this, you need to accept that some will reject you, and it’s not a big deal.  And it also means that you should determine whether the individual matches your profile earlier in your discovery call. 

That’s because top performers spend a huge chunk of their time on qualified prospects – those interested in what you offer. Learn to disqualify those who don’t align with your goals. You could say: “I’m not sure if this conversation or product will be the right one for you. Would it be okay to continue with this call to determine that?” 

It puts the lead at ease because it takes pressure away from them. They can either choose to entertain your call or reject it. 

8. If you feel it, say it

During the discovery call, you can tell if the potential customer wants to chat with you or not. The tone of their voice and responses are clear indicators you need to watch. So, if you’re convinced that the prospect lacks interest or is distracted, say it. 

You may say:“ James, I appreciate that you’re talking with me right now, but it seems you’re distracted. Is this a good time to be talking about this?”  Or you might say: “I think you sound uninterested in this offer.” The customer may agree with your assessment, and if they do, say: “Why do you say that?” Dig deeper to know the root cause of the problem.

9. Get deep into their challenges

Salespeople need to think and act like doctors when engaging with potential buyers. You should find out more about their pain points before offering your product. For example, when an individual says their company has operational challenges, ask them to tell you more about pain points.. 

10. Tie the challenges to value

Once you’ve understood the buyer’s problems or needs, attach a specific value to them. You could say: “What effect would a solution have on your profit, sales, motivation, etc. if you fixed this problem?” It allows them to suggest a number or a metric. Or you might reverse the question and say: “What is the cost of not fixing the challenge right now?”

11. Make the meeting a two-way conversation

The psychology of selling says that people get engaged when actively involved in a conversation.  Sellers need to encourage prospects to open up by asking them questions throughout their meeting, presentation, call, etc. 

Say you’re making a demo; ask your audience if what you’re saying makes sense. Keep on interacting with them and requesting feedback. Avoid a solo sales talk.

12. The budget comes later

Talking about money or the budget in the early stages of the discovery process isn’t a brilliant idea. It may repel the prospect. Include the budget after you’ve had a comprehensive discussion about their needs. Y0u might say: “James, a solution to fix your problem ranges from $10,000 – $50,000 based on your challenges. Where do you fit in that price range?”

The budget spectrum provides the prospect with several possibilities. They can tell you what they can afford.

13. Take care of feedback loops

Feedback loops are questions you ask through the entire sales process to bring the potential customer back to the conversation. They re-engage the prospect and nudge them to agree to a sale. If you establish a connection with your audience in your discovery call or demo, it shouldn’t be challenging for them to buy.

There you’re, go out and practice these steps in the psychology of selling.

Best sales psychology books

Here are some sales-packed books to hone your techniques.

Best sales psychology courses

Check out the following sales training programs to up your game in the psychology of selling.

Final thoughts on the psychology of selling

The psychology of selling is a complex topic that is not as simple as it seems. Many factors can affect the outcome of the process, from the individual’s personality to their environment.

Sales reps need to understand what drives prospects and how their brain functions to sell anything successfully. Understanding the psychology of selling will help you improve your sales skills and achieve better results.

Related: 9 Sales methodologies: How to win buyers and influence sales

11 guiding principles to a bulletproof sales negotiation strategy

Posted on by vishal arora

In sales, the ability to negotiate is sacrosanct, irrespective of your product knowledge or KPIs. No matter how smooth your preliminary client communications, your attitude during the negotiation stage might make or break a deal. Moreover, almost every step of the sales cycle requires strong negotiating capabilities. This blog will explore critical sales negotiation principles to increase your probability of closing maximum deals.

But first, let’s define sales negotiation.

What is sales negotiation?

According to Rain Group, sales negotiation is the process where two parties work together to achieve the best possible agreement. Note how this definition emphasizes on ‘achieving’ the desired result rather than ‘reaching an agreement’. 

If you go into a negotiation with the mindset of reaching an agreement, it might compel you to make an agreement that is only profitable to the seller. However, it is easier to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome when you negotiate intending to work together.

This brings us to the two principal styles of sales negotiation-

  1. Consultative or Collaborative negotiation
  2. Adversarial or Competitive negotiation

What is the difference between consultative and adversarial negotiation?

consultative vs adversarial negotiation

Consultative negotiation is often the preferred negotiation style as it helps you discover the customer’s sore spots and address their core concerns. But, being consultative does not imply renouncing your price margins or undermining your time as a seller. On the contrary, it allows you to read your customer’s pulse and propose a favorable solution.

Why is negotiation important in sales?

benefits of sales negotiation

As identified in RAIN Group’s Top Performance in Sales Negotiation Research Report, salespeople who master negotiations are 12.5x happier with the negotiation outcome and also 3.1x more likely to hit their pricing targets. Below are a few key benefits of cultivating sales negotiation tactics.

  • Expert negotiators can figure out the root cause of client objections which translates into more sales.
  • Helps resolve price conflicts and develop customized pricing strategies for your prospects.
  • Sales negotiation allows you to engage with prospects and build trust for long-term business relationships.
  • Prospects unhappy with the terms of the sale like cost, service warranty, etc. can often back out from the deal. Learning to negotiate enables you to offer substitute options suitable to both parties.
  • Helps you close the sale without compromising on target pricing.

Now that you understand the benefits of sales negotiation, we will illustrate how to negotiate as a seller.

11 sales negotiation principles to improve your win rate

sales negotiation principles

1. Remember the 3Ps (Preparation, Priming, and Pain points)

Preparation

In sales negotiations, preparation gives you leverage as a seller and also calms your nerves before getting into a negotiation meeting. Try to ascertain the following metrics to improve your odds of closing the deal.

  • Why does your buyer need your offering?
  • What does the prospect miss out on if they don’t buy from you?
  • Are you speaking with the decision-maker? Or does the person you are negotiating with have any buying power?
  • What is their buying timeline?
  • What is their budget?

Priming

Right from your initial sales conversation, concentrate on building trust to influence your prospect’s decision. Approach them with a problem-solving mindset rather than a solution provider. This will develop a comfort level between you and your buyer, which will help them see your point while negotiating.

Pain points

It does not suffice to be aware of your customer’s pain points. Make sure you bring it up during sales conversations and highlight how you can address their concerns. Prospects aware of their business needs are less likely to push back during sales negotiations.

2. Create your agenda

Setting up the meeting agenda is key to running a seamless sales negotiation meeting. When you draft the schedule, it gives you the control to navigate the meeting. Start by doing a quick recap of the background to revisit your discussions. Then get to the objectives. This will direct the buyer’s attention to the end goal of addressing their pain points.

Take a look at the below agenda template that can be customized based on your requirements.

sales negotiation agenda
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3. Highlight what they can lose 

People are psychologically more inspired to avoid losses than to achieve gains. As a result, demonstrating what your buyer can lose in a negotiation is more likely to get you a sale.

A social experiment conducted at the University of Santa Cruz proves this theory.

sales negotiation case study
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4. Prioritize value over money

While you must not shy away from talking about money, it is also important to underline the value you offer.  Help your customer understand how your product is more advantageous to them than your competitors. Once they realize its true worth, they are less likely to seek higher concessions.

Take a look at this example of a 3-deep questioning strategy that you can use to quantify your product’s value during the sales negotiation.

3-deep questioning strategy
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5. Sharpen your listening skills

Before you try to resolve your customer’s apprehensions with discounts, listen intently to understand what they actually want. Use probing questions to uncover the underlying issue. When a prospect raises pricing issues, they may be actually looking to mitigate risks by procuring a  cheaper product. 

Use the following questions to get to the bottom of their concern.

  • Why do you think that is?
  • Tell me how I can make this worth your time and investment?
  • Can we offer any specific value add that might change your mind?
  • Why do you think our product is expensive?
  • Explain to me what exactly you are looking for.

6. Practice objection handling

Your ability to handle objections will help you navigate negotiations better. Objection handling requires strong product knowledge and the ability to think on your feet. Here are a few points to consider during objection handling.

  • Control the urge to react instantly and defend your position. Give them a chance to voice their opinion.
  • Let them know that their feedback is essential to you.
  • Once they have shared their objection, respond in order of priority.
  • Share success stories of how you helped your existing customers with similar objections.

For a detailed guide on tackling sales objections like a pro, refer to our blog 22 Most daunting sales objections and how to overcome them.

7. Do not hesitate to bring up the price

A RAIN Group study indicates that sellers willing to make the opening offer are more likely to be satisfied with the end result of sales negotiations. Instead of waiting for the buyer to make the first move, be prepared to share the pricing parameters proactively.  

A study conducted by Gong analyzed 11,331 opportunities where negotiators brought up pricing on the first call within the initial 38-48 min time frame. The results indicated a 10% increase in win rate.  However, irrespective of whether the buyer introduced the budgetary issues or the seller, the win rate remained the same.

win rates graph
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The main takeaway here is if the buyer does not ask for the price within the first 38 minutes of the call, bring it up. Waiting too late will only delay your chances of locking the deal.

8. Tread lightly during price negotiations

Before rushing into price negotiations, review the following parameters.

  • Do not be quick to offer discounts. Your prospect may assume that you undervalue your product.
  • When deciding on concession amount, use independent sources like an industry benchmarking report or third-party research. This will demonstrate an unbiased negotiation technique.
  • Research indicates that when gaining money, people prefer installments, but they would rather lose money in one go. Dividing discounts into multiple smaller amounts gives you a higher possibility of winning the deal.
  • Know that you have alternatives, and be ready to forsake the deal. Be aware of your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). If you lose out on your margins by winning the deal, know when to walk away.

9. Hone your trading skills

Before jumping straight into discounts, review your alternatives. This will help you attain your pricing target in exchange for products/services which are not very essential or easily doable.

  • Be prepared with your trading list and assign value to each tradeable item. 
  • Before suggesting trading options, run through the buyer’s objectives and get their opinion to ensure the trade adds value to their business needs.
  • Do not hesitate to use your creativity and use bundles for every trade. This implies changing the whole option for each trade instead of a single component.
  • Do not rush into offering multiple trades. This will give the impression that your traded offer does not have much value.

10. Handle emotions with care

Sales negotiations are often emotionally sensitive. It takes patience and practice to rein in the discussion at the right time, so it does not turn into an argument. Irrespective of the buyer’s emotional state while negotiating, it is vital to keep your composure and make the buyer feel respected and valued. Remember, your ultimate objective is not just to close the deal but also to develop a sustainable relationship.

11. Get them to commit 

Once you have achieved a mutually agreeable outcome, get a confirmation. As stated by Robert Cialdini, in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, an agreement that is confirmed verbally, in writing, and then declared publicly is most likely to be kept than those committed only verbally or verbally and in writing. So get them to confirm verbally on the call, re-confirm it by email and seek a positive written response. Then you can request them to share it internally among the parties involved.

So we have discussed how to negotiate. The following section will expand on what not to do during sales negotiations.

Avoid these sales negotiation mistakes

  • Negotiating over email is a big ‘No’. When it comes to sales negotiation, you can lose context over email. Also, it’s easier for the customer to ignore you over email or respond in the negative. Instead, request a quick phone/video call so you can answer any objections instantly and tailor solutions that fit their needs.
  • Do not apologize for the pricing, but you can apologize during the price negotiations. Here’s an example.

“I’m sorry. I want to offer you that number – and if it were up to me, I would. But that discount simply isn’t doable.”

What the seller very smartly achieves here is decline the discount without saying ‘No’. Then you can list out the alternatives that you can offer instead of the concession.

  • The days of Always. Be. Closing, are in the past. Instead of using manipulation, act as an advisor and lead them towards the close. Even if the buyer highlights objections at the 11th hour, handle it with composure.

Sales negotiation training

High-performing salespeople are 9.3x more likely to receive highly effective sales training than the remaining.  Also, 78% of salespeople who took part in sales training tend to be entirely satisfied with the outcome. Hence, sales negotiations should be an integral part of your sales training program. Some of the fundamental sources for honing your sales negotiation skills are

  1. Online coaching
  2. Training exercise or negotiation role-play with a buddy or mentor.
  3. Field practice during real-life customer negotiations.

Winning the sale doesn’t win the negotiation

sales negotiation quoty
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As a salesperson, you need to understand that being the seller does not take away your leverage or put you at a disadvantage. It is essential to understand that sales negotiations are equally critical to both you and your prospect. Do your research, understand where your prospect is coming from, showcase and realize what you bring to the table, and do not hesitate to bring up the commercials involved while maintaining your composure. Even though it is not possible to plan for every likely negotiation scenario, practicing these cardinal skills will help you stay on top of your game. 

Sales dashboard definitive guide: Examples & templates

Posted on by vishal arora

Sales reps need to monitor their accounts and sales numbers to know if they’re in line with their targets. A sales dashboard provides them with an overview of the crucial metrics of their performance. Sales managers can also use this information to plan their daily activities and prepare reports for senior management to improve performance.

Scroll on for more details to discover how to create your sales dashboard by following top examples and templates.

What is a sales dashboard?

A sales dashboard is a single screen displaying all the essential information about a salesperson’s success.  In one glance, it offers a complete picture of all the data involved in the sales process. The report includes metrics like opportunities, conversion rates, revenue, pipeline forecasts, etc.

Let’s dive into more reasons why account executives, sales team management, and salespeople need a sales dashboard.

Sales dashboard importance

benefits of a sales dashboard

What is the purpose of a sales dashboard? A sales dashboard has the following benefits.

Frees up more time for salespeople

Typically, sellers use CRM software to see how well they close their deals. But in most cases, they may fail to get the complete information due to using several tools as data sources. Also, it’s time-consuming to search for data on various platforms.

A sales dashboard can come to the reps’ rescue by pooling all the statistics in one place and offering a single view. As a result, it saves them time on administrative tasks and looking for info everywhere. Sellers can concentrate on prospecting and selling.

Makes the sales analytics team’s work easier

The sales analytics team needs to export data from a CRM tool to analyze it. Again, this takes time, and human error can lead to incorrect data. Also, information on spreadsheets quickly becomes outdated and remains static. 

However, creating a centralized source of truth through a sales dashboard keeps the data fresh. And everyone on the sales team can make decisions based on the same information.

Aligns sales with other departments

Alignment between sales and other key departments, like marketing, is critical for your business’s success. Sales dashboards help managers, senior sales managers, and sales reps focus on the common metrics.

Everyone will know what they must do. Each salesperson can see their performance vs. their quota or goals, and managers can efficiently distribute resources. Sales analytics teams can also create accurate forecast reports.

Overall, sales performance and revenue improve. 

What should a sales dashboard include?

A sales dashboard helps you visualize your sales funnel, so it should have graphs and charts. It may also have a section next to your KPIs with notes to clarify what the numbers mean. And a text box with suggestions and sales insights may be one of the features. 

Sales dashboard metrics

Earlier, we mentioned some metrics that a sales dashboard can show you. Here are more examples.

  • Regional sales
  • Average purchase value
  • Quote-to-close
  • Deals in the pipeline
  • Average order value
  • Sales per salesperson
  • Opportunities
  • Sell-through rate
  • Follow-up rate
  • Sales target
  • Sales to date
  • Lead conversion rate

Must you consider all these KPs? Let’s answer the question by jumping into how you can set up your sales dashboard.

How do you create a sales dashboard?

creating a sales dashboard

Decide on the KPIs you want to monitor

A sales dashboard provides you with real-time data on your team’s sales performance. But tracking too many metrics could be overwhelming and confusing. So, determine the key numbers crucial for your company and salesforce. Here are some questions to consider.

  • What KPIs do your company regularly assess in individual or sales team meetings?
  • How important are some metrics over others?
  • In what ways do you measure your performance (KPIs)?
  • Is your sales organization divided into multiple sales teams?

Answers to these questions can help you figure out the essential stats you need to track. And here are some primary metrics you may zero in on in your sales dashboard:

  • Sales activity metrics
  • Conversion sales metrics
  • Pipeline sales metrics

Distinguish the sales dashboard users

We’ve already said sales managers, reps, senior management, and account executives can benefit from a single data source.  However, it’s also critical to identify sales dashboard users. For example, sellers can use it to keep tabs on their goals, while managers can evaluate performance.

Also, consider the specific metrics each group will track and how often they’ll do it – weekly or monthly, etc. And how much info will the dashboard include? 

Choose a SaaS (Software as a Service) provider

Select a vendor once you work out the users and the statistics vital for your team. You may not need a separate tool if your current CRM offers a comprehensive sales dashboard. If you don’t have one, here are some apps you can integrate with any platform.

HubSpot CRM comes with sales dashboards and reports. You can sync your data with multiple devices and software.

Zoho Analytics is also a handy sales dashboard software provider with custom reports and charts.

Visible lets you create the reports you need to analyze your sales data.

GoodData is a cloud-based platform that handles huge volumes of data. It allows you to produce, store, evaluate, and share info.

Tableau is a desktop tool that makes it easy for anyone to visualize and analyze their data and create dashboards.

Sisense is perfect for small and mid-sized businesses that want to customize dashboards, create visual reports and share with team members.

Create and share your sales dashboard reports

You’ve got various ways of producing reports for your sales dashboard to distribute to other stakeholders. They include:

  • Line charts and column charts to show trends about revenue, etc.
  • Waterfall charts, bar charts, and pie charts indicate composition, like sales per region or rep.
  • Line graphs, pie charts, and bar graphs can also provide info to compare values, such as sales by product. 

Sales dashboard examples

We want to dive into sales dashboard examples and templates to inspire you. 

Sales pipeline dashboard

sales pipeline dashboard
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Sales pipelines are a way of organizing and visualizing sales opportunities. Sales pipeline dashboards can help by viewing the pipeline’s stages and detailed information about each step.

Pipeline dashboards can provide valuable insights into how your sales team is performing and how you can improve it. They also provide an easy-to-read overview of your pipeline’s health at any given time.

Metrics

  • Opportunity stages
  • Opportunities by sales rep and size
  • How to move forward with deals, their age, and timeline of deals
  • KPIs tailored to your needs, like product types, team involvement, etc.

Purpose: It’s a perfect sales dashboard to understand the health and status of your pipeline.

Users: Managers, sales analysts, and executives

Related: The Sales Pipeline Master Guide: How to Build, Manage, and Measure

Salesperson’s dashboard

salesperson's dashboard
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A sales dashboard is a platform that helps sales reps track their sales performance. It provides them with a way to measure their success or failure at any moment. Also, it provides them with insights into how they can improve their performance in the future.

Sales reps can use dashboards for various purposes. One of the most common uses is to track the number of leads they generate and follow up on each day. Sellers can monitor how many conversations they have with prospects, how many meetings they set up, etc.

Metrics

  • Open opportunities
  • Meetings booked
  • Forecast
  • Deals in pipeline
  • Sales cycle length

Purpose: Sellers can use it to monitor their sales activities.

Users: Individual sales reps

Sales territory dashboard

sales territory dashboard
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A sales territory dashboard provides an overview of the sales team’s performance in a given region. It allows for quick analysis and comparison of data, identifying trends, and making informed decisions.

You can use the dashboard to track regional performance, analyze regional trends, or identify opportunities.

Metrics

  • Territory map
  • Prior year spend
  • Lifetime spend
  • Account spend
  • Budget for the current year

Purpose: Use this dashboard to grasp the KPIs that influence your sales by region.

Users: Managers and team leaders

Account executive dashboard

account executive dashboard
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An account executive dashboard enables account managers to keep track of their work and their team’s work. They can also organize and prioritize their tasks.  Leaders can use dashboards to quickly assess what is happening in the company and how each department is performing.

Managers can see how they are doing against their goals, how teams perform against targets, and whether they need to take any corrective action.

Metrics

  • Dollar amount of deals won
  • Growth opportunities resulting from organic traffic
  • Deals leaderboard
  • Deals lost by reason
  • Overview of activity performance

Purpose: Use this tool to create goals based on the reps’ or team’s performance.

Users: Sales managers and analysts

Sales conversion dashboard

sales conversion dashboard
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A sales conversion dashboard is a robust platform for sales teams to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. It helps them find out what is working and needs improvement, enabling them to allocate time and resources accordingly. 

Metrics

  • Lead-to-opportunity ratio
  • Opportunity-to-win ratio
  • Conversion rate
  • Loss rate
  • Churn rate

Purpose: You can use the sales conversion dashboard to determine how your team converts leads to buyers.

Users: Sales managers, sellers

Sales activities dashboard

sales activity dashboard
Source

A sales activities dashboard helps leaders see the sellers’ daily activities. It gives insights into the sales team’s progress to focus on what they need to do to close more deals. 

Metrics

  • Average deal size
  • Emails sent
  • Calls made
  • Deals created
  • Activities per won deal

Purpose: Use this dashboard to get inside info about what sellers do day by day to close more deals.

Users: Sales leaders

Leads overview dashboard

leads overview dashboard
Source

A lead overview dashboard has one primary goal – monitoring and analyzing data about its leads. It shows the type of leads, how many, and how often they arrive. You can use this information to decide how best to move forward with outbound marketing efforts.

Metrics

  • Sources of new leads
  • Status of new leads
  • Lead owner
  • Lead conversions
  • New cases

Purpose: Use the dashboard to overview new opportunities and conversion rates.

Users: Sales leaders, sales team management

Sales cycle length dashboard

sales cycle length dashboard
Source

The sales cycle length dashboard tracks the number of days for each sales stage to complete. It helps business owners and managers understand their sales process and identify which steps take longer than they should. Also, it provides a visual overview of the sales cycle to see where there are delays and how much time sellers waste.

Metrics

  • Average sales cycle length
  • Average length of sales stages

Purpose: It’s a perfect dashboard that helps to shorten your sales process.

Users: Sales managers

Key performance indicator dashboard

KPI dashboard
Source

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboard is a visual display of the most critical metrics for a business. It helps sales leaders understand how well the company is doing its objectives.

The KPI dashboard tracks progress towards goals and identifies areas that need improvement. It can help measure success by providing visibility into which KPIs are working and which ones you need to improve. 

Metrics

  • Average impressions
  • Product sales in dollars
  • Sales count by state
  • Average ACoS
  • Total sales

Purpose: You can use the KPI dashboard to have a bird’s eye view of the primary metrics of your company.

Users: Account executives and managers

Sales product performance dashboard

product performance dashboard
Source

The Sales product performance dashboard helps the sales team manage and track products. It contains sales pipeline data,  opportunities, and product performance data to help you decide what products to sell or stop selling. 

The information on the sales pipeline helps the team determine if they are following up with potential customers at a good time. Finally, it includes opportunities, which give reps an idea of how much progress they have made in closing deals with potential customers.

Metrics

  • Product Performance
  • Cost of Goods Sold
  • Point of Purchase
  • Sales Growth

Purpose: Use this dashboard to determine whether you’re selling the right product to the right people at the right place. 

Users: Sales teams and managers

Final thoughts

The sales dashboard is a tool that enables managers to keep track of their team’s performance. It provides a way to monitor their reps’ number of leads, meetings, and calls and deals closed. Also, it tracks where sellers are in the pipeline, what deals are coming up, and how much money they make.

Sales dashboards allow you to have a bird’s eye view of your business. As a result, you can know what needs your attention and where you need to be spending more time. Senior management can use dashboard reports to make strategic decisions about the direction they want their company to take. 

Related: Why ignoring key sales metrics will cost you time and sales

18 Buying signals to land more deals

Posted on by vishal arora

Have you ever wondered about a customer’s intent at the end of an online demo or a sales meeting? Are you often unsure about the sale until your prospect signs the contract or rejects the offer? If you answer yes to both these questions, you are missing out on buying signals. This blog will help you identify these subtle but critical cues and explore strategies for closing deals – better and faster.

But, what exactly are these signs?

What are buying signals?

Buying signals are verbal or non-verbal behaviors displayed by prospective customers expressing buying intent. Questions from your prospects that imply interest in your products/services can be verbal buying signals. Some of the non-verbal buying signals are holding eye contact, body language, tone of speech, etc.

You can track these patterns by analyzing online activity and using SAAS applications in sales processes. The ability to detect these signals early in the sales cycle will help you offer relevant insights to customers at the right time, leading to faster closures and greater sales. It also saves you time on prospecting efforts by segregating interested prospects from unqualified leads.

But how do you recognize these signals? Below is a list of 18 verbal and non-verbal buying signals indicators that you should not ignore.

Top 18 buying signals you should not miss

18 buying signals

1. Displaying positive body language

Whether you meet a prospect online or face-to-face, their mannerisms throughout the meeting can tell you a lot about their interest levels. If someone intently listens to you and displays gestures like steady eye contact or head nods, you are about to have a productive meeting. 

2. Signing up for free trials

When people use free trials and then go radio-silent, do not misinterpret it as a lack of interest. They may have questions about your product, or maybe they are looking for a particular feature they could not find. Offer these prospects personalized services, like enrolling them for automatic product-related emails on tutorials, product features, etc. You can also offer them a complimentary call from your help desk on product features and usage. This extra effort can go a long way in building trust with prospective customers.

3. Proactively sharing pain points

Have you ever had a  prospect readily share their business needs and sore spots? That is a clear indicator that they are urgently looking for a remedy. Be quick on your feet and demonstrate how you can customize your products or services to address their issue.

4. Downloading gated content

People who are willing to provide their contact information to consume your content are generally interested in what you have to offer. This content can be either in the form of a downloadable newsletter, e-books, or whitepaper. Reach out to such prospects and figure out what they are looking for.

5. Actively engaging on social media 

ICPs (Ideal Customer Profile) who consistently interact with your social media content by liking, sharing, or commenting on your posts are your low-hanging fruit. They most probably like your product/service, or your content addresses their business needs.

Related: The “whats”, “whys”, and “hows” of social selling

6. Attending webinars/in-person conferences

Look out for prospects who spend their time and energy attending your webinars or face-to-face conferences. They are sending out strong buying signals and are definitely interested in what you have to say. 

7. Seeking out particulars of your products/services

When a prospect requests the specifics of your offering, it shows that they are aware of their needs. They probably would have done their due diligence and are ready to make a deal, provided you can offer what they want. You can validate this signal if they have asked you about a particular feature or visited a specific web page multiple times.

8. Interrupting your pitch/presentation with questions

During an in-person meeting or online demo, take it as a positive sign if a prospect stops you midway to clarify doubts. It shows curiosity on their end and interest in what you have to offer. Be prepared to answer their queries and leave time for Q&A sessions between your pitch.

9. Inquiring on next steps

If a prospect gives you a specific date for a follow-up meeting or indicates interest in speaking to you again, consider it your lucky shot. This suggests that they need to finalize a few more things before agreeing to the sale.

10. Asking about post-sales services

Once you have communicated about your offerings, if your prospect has questions on onboarding, support, etc., they are happy with your product. They are trying to understand if they will be well-supported after you have made the sale. At this juncture, your job is to make them feel secure by explaining in detail about your support team/services.

11. Requesting for  price

If a prospect enquires about price, do not be alarmed or misconstrue it as an objection. They might be just trying to decide if your product/service fits their budget. Disclose the price and explain how your offering can address their core requirements.

12. Checking on payment terms

When a prospect checks about payment terms, they are often ready to make a purchase and want to figure out the most convenient way to seal the deal. Take this as an opportunity to educate the customer on payment terms and try to provide multiple options (credit cards, payment plans, auto payments, etc.), so they can act quickly.

13. Cross-examining terms and conditions

When a prospect hints about policy agreements like money-back guarantees and warranty specifics, they most definitely are ready to purchase. At this stage, they are trying to establish a trust factor before deciding. You can detect such signals on sales calls, or web visits on your warranty page.

14. Looking for client testimonials

When a prospect asks for case studies or referrals from your existing customers, consider it your buying sign. They might also imply this by visiting your website testimonial page. This signal indicates that they are trying to validate your service quality and establish if you would deliver on your promise. Make sure you incorporate success stories during your sales pitch or follow-ups. It also helps to showcase video/written testimonials.

15. Confirming ease of migration

Sometimes, your prospects might have already used your competitors and are used to working on a particular framework. So if you get questions about migrating to your product, it is possible they are considering this deal and looking for easy ways to transition from their current vendor. New product trainings are often perceived as inconvenient and disruptive for teams. Take this as an opportunity to demonstrate your USPs and how you can easily integrate your product with their tech stack.

16. Speaking like an existing customer

Your calls or email communication with prospects can indicate their interest. If you observe your prospect’s language change from objective to possessive tone, they would have already decided about your offering. You may hear or read emails with phrases like –

speaking like an existing customer

17. Seeking advice from peers

This signal may indicate that your prospect is happy with your offering and taking a second opinion from colleagues. You can confirm this sign if you have multiple web visits from the same brand, your prospect copies you in emails, or loops in colleagues on calls.

18. Responding promptly and coherently

Prospects who respond swiftly often know what they want. Also, notice the quality of response. If someone is willing to explain things in detail, consider that a positive sign.

You can detect these 18 buying signals by analyzing the four main data types. Let’s dive individually into each one of them.

Data-driven buying signals

data driven buying signals

Fit data

Fit data helps you determine a prospect’s needs for your products or services based on the following factors.

  • Firmographic data – categorizing prospect companies based on a set of characteristics like industry type, company size, company structure, etc.
  • Technographic data – segmenting prospects based on their technology stack
  • Demographic data – grouping prospects based on their demography

Opportunity data

This data type identifies the conditions within a prospect company signifying the ideal time to seek a sale. For instance-

  • Corporate restructuring
  • Company events
  • Product launches

Intent data

Intent data expresses your customer’s intent in procuring your products/services. It indicates the right time to approach your prospect for closing the deal.

Behavioral signs

Prospects with specific needs or pain points demonstrate these signals, which can be your signal to reach out and address their concerns. Some of these signs are –

  • A phone call or email
  • Reaching out in-person
  • Digital footprint due to viewing a particular web page, blog, posting a query, etc.

How to procure buyer intent data?

procuring buyer intent data

97% of B2B marketers believe that third-party intent data will give brands a competitive advantage.  But, how do you gather buyer intent data? Here are two main ways.

Company website

When a prospect visits your business website, you can run analytic tools to capture buyer activity, like time spent on a particular page, form submission, etc.

Third-party vendors

What if a prospective customer is looking for solutions you offer, but not on your site? You can buy third-party intent data from a third-party vendor. These vendors or platforms collect digital research activity from data sharing cooperatives like media publishers, B2B websites, etc.

What’s next?

As you would have realized by now, identifying these buying signals is often quite simple, and all you need is attention to detail. But knowing these signals is not enough. Get into the habit of tracking buying signals consistently and prioritize follow-ups with customers who demonstrate buying intent. Strike while the iron is still hot! Observe prospect behaviors, track their activity, address their queries, offer relevant content, ask probing questions and do whatever you can to win that deal.

The quickest & easiest way to sales tracking

Posted on by vishal arora

One of the most critical things for a salesperson is tracking their sales. Without monitoring, it becomes hard to know what works and what doesn’t. It also becomes challenging to tell whether or not you are meeting your quotas.

Sales managers can use sales tracking to understand what their team is doing, how they perform, and if they need any help. They can also use this data to see a pattern in the sales info they prioritize.

Learn more about how you can execute sales tracking in your company in easy ways.

What is sales tracking? 

Sales tracking is the process of collecting data from a company’s sales team and preparing it for analysis. Also, it involves measuring and documenting the business’ or product’s sales activity. Sales tracking helps you understand how well your deals flow in the pipeline, the sales cycle length, the win rate, etc.

Managers can conduct sales tracking in various ways such as:

– manually by gathering information from customer records, CRM, emails, and other documents.

– automatically by using online tools that track email opens, web clicks, phone calls, the pipeline, etc.

Do you need sales tracking for your sales organization?

benefits of sales tracking

Sales tracking has massive benefits for sales managers and reps. Check out the following reasons.

Shows sellers what they should do to achieve their goals

Sales tracking helps reps focus on the critical sales activities at every sales funnel stage. Also, they get to know what they must do to reach their objectives, tasks that are behind schedule, and how to speed up the deals.

Helps keep tabs on salespeople’s performance

Data from sales tracking is an eye-opener because it lets you know whether your salesforce understands your solution, the industry, customers, etc. Dipping sales over time may indicate that sellers can’t align buyers’ needs with your product. Or it could mean that they lack closing strategies, motivation, etc.

You can use the stats to design individualized training programs to address each salesperson’s challenges. In this way, you can hone their sales performance.

Related: Turn your sales coaching into a high performing machine

Provides real-time data to fix problems before they get out of control

An effective sales tracking system can provide sales managers with real-time data anytime and anywhere. They’ll have first-hand info regarding pipeline opportunities and sales activities.

For example, a CRM dashboard can show a few leads streaming in from the sales team at a particular time. Sales leaders can reach out to the reps to find out what’s going on to remedy the problem before it becomes too big. 

Enables managers to allocate resources efficiently

Generated reports from sales tracking show leaders where they need to assign more company resources. Data could indicate that a group of sales reps in a specific region struggle with closing deals. The company can then determine the causes and deploy materials, people, or funds in low-performing areas. 

Helps understand customer’s preferences

Customers’ needs change all the time, so sales tracking powered by AI gives you insight into what buyers want. Sales tracking software helps businesses tailor-make products or services to suit customers’ demands. The more your business makes buyers happy, the more it gains loyal customers.

Let’s dive into the sales tracking numbers you can monitor with these ideas in mind. 

Sales tracking metrics

sales tracking metrics

Measuring sales metrics allows you to see how your company performs and grows. The numbers are also handy in disqualifying prospects or grabbing opportunities before competitors do. Here are some crucial sales stats you can track.

Sales activity metrics

These numbers are within your control. Examples include:

  • Number of conversations made
  • Number of emails sent
  • Numbers of calls made
  • Number of proposals sent
  • Number of meetings scheduled
  • Number of follow-ups

Sales productivity metrics

They show how you plan your daily activities.

  • Time spent on entering data
  • Time spent on selling tasks
  • Time spent on prospecting and lead gen

Sales lead generation metrics

Salespeople and managers need to know if they’re pursuing the right leads to boost conversion rates. Lead generation metrics can help you do just do that. Monitor the following stats.

  • Volume of leads added to the pipeline
  • Percentage of qualified leads
  • Percentage of opportunities followed-up

Sales pipeline metrics

These are significant numbers that indicate how well your reps can convert prospects into customers. Examples include:

  • Total open opportunities
  • Total closed opportunities
  • Win rate
  • Average length of the sales cycle

Sales goal tracking

Metrics can also help you keep an eye on whether you’re on the right path to reach your goals. Here are some sales tracking targets you can check.

  • Total revenue
  • Daily income totals
  • Daily, weekly, and monthly objectives
  • Accruing sales totals

Sales funnel tracking

What’s happening with your sales funnel? Sales funnel tracking stats can reveal if there’s anything amiss in your sales process. Check out the numbers below.

  • Sum of inbound leads
  • Sum of outbound leads
  • Number of monthly qualified leads
  • Conversion rate for each stage

Set up your sales tracking process in 5 easy steps

setting up sale tracking

How do you establish a robust sales tracking system in your company? Follow these five steps.

Step 1. Figure out the key sales tracking metrics you want to monitor

We discussed several metrics that you can observe during the sales tracking process. However, it doesn’t mean that you need to track all of them because you could be overwhelmed and find it challenging. 

Choose a few sales tracking numbers, say less than ten, for a start, and they must align with your overall aim and your long-term needs. 

Step 2: Map out your sales process and build your pipeline

Now that you’ve decided on the numbers you want to monitor, define the sales cycle to gain insights into the stats. You can start by analyzing your customer’s journey from awareness to buying. Next, clarify the activities for your reps to convert prospects into customers.

With the sales process in place, you can now set up your pipeline to follow your leads at each stage.

Step 3: Centralize your data

You’ve got various data sources for your sales tracking, including your CRM. To keep the process simple, collect your metrics into one source. Zapier is an excellent tool to achieve that. Or you can use sales tracking templates – we’ll discuss them later in this guide.

Step 4: Analyze and change your metrics into workable activities

Your sales tracking process is now up and running. Next, set aside a specific time in a month or quarter to examine the numbers. Then, turn them into actionable items to benefit your business and sellers.

Here are some questions to help you understand your sales tracking metrics.

  • Is your team taking any specific steps that aren’t bringing you results?
  • Does anyone reach their quota?  Are there any that aren’t?
  • Can a specific sales action be linked to the achievement of a goal?
  • How does the lead process get slowed down or stifled?
  • When leads are not moving forward, what actions are reps taking?
  • What areas of the pipeline move leads more quickly?
  • What sales activities do reps struggle with, like demos or cold calls?
  • Do you see any changes in conversion rates since the changes you made?
  • When does a lead exhibit signs of churning?

These questions also enable you to discover opportunities and develop proper steps to cash in on them.

Step 5: Inform your sales team about your insights

After analyzing the sales tracking stats, it’s critical to share your discoveries with other team members. These include your reps, product development, customer success, marketing, etc. As a result, everyone understands what they need to do to close more deals or improve the quality of leads, etc.

Sharing info improves work relations and collaboration among your staff. It also helps sales align with marketing for better results. 

Sales tracking software and why you need it

Earlier, we said you could collect sales tracking data manually or automatically through some tools. Sales tracking software makes it easy for you to monitor, record, and analyze your sellers’ activities. Here are more reasons you need to use automation tools.

  • It helps you understand customers’ behavior throughout the whole sales process.
  • You can make data-based decisions to improve sales performance or buyers’ experiences.
  • It enables you to develop better ways of moving your potential customers through the sales cycle. As a result, you can reduce churn rates.
  • Sales tracking software minimizes human error. It offers you an accurate

 record of making decisions.

  • The tools help you make correct sales forecasts. You can see your pipeline value and determine future revenue growth.
  • CRM sales tracking software improves relationships between your company and customers.

How to choose the best sales tracking software

Follow these suggestions to select the best sales tracking software for your small business.

The critical criteria are as follows:

  • Inside sales or outside sales reporting
  • Tyes of sales data you need to report on
  • Track multi-channel sales activity
  • Easy to build reports
  • Level of customization
  • Activity level reporting
  • Automated notifications
  • Integrate with other data sources
  • Data security
  • Customer reviews
  • Customer support

Examples of sales tracking software

sales tracking software

Here is a list of sales tracking tools you can try -not arranged in the order of importance.

Nutshell

Nutshell is a user-friendly sales tracking platform that allows users to view their leads and grasp their pipeline status. Also, you can use the tool to evaluate crucial metrics like revenue per sale, conversion rate, and sales activities. Nutshell has the following essential features:

  • Activity report
  • Loss report
  • Forecast report
  • Sales funnel
  • Downloadable charts
  • Sales report

Pricing model: Starts from $20 per month/user. Free trial available.

Zendesk Sell

As CRM sales tracking software for small businesses, Zendesk Sell lets you monitor leads, assess sales reports, and manage various accounts. It also makes it easy to collaborate between teams, perform lead scoring, and work out pipeline value. You can integrate the tool with other platforms. 

Zendesk Sell has the vital features below: 

  • Sales analytics
  • Lead management
  • Lead qualification
  • Sales call tracker
  • Lead management
  • Calendar integration
  • Task and activity tracking
  • Segmentation
  • Email tracking
  • Prospecting tools
  • Product and price book
  • Data import/export
  • Sales dialer

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is another effective tool for salespeople. One distinctive feature of this software is data visualization – its colorful graphs and charts say it all. Here are more reasons for selecting this sales tracking software.

  • Custom management
  • Customizable dashboards
  • In-depth sales analytics
  • Sales forecasting
  • Funnel charts
  • Sales trends
  • Gamification
  • Automated workflows

Pricing model: Stars from $270 per month/user. 

Salesdash

Small businesses that use outbound marketing as their primary strategy can use Salesdash. Compared to other CRM tools, it offers limited features, such as:

  • CRM
  • Task management
  • Calendar 
  • Forecasting
  • Mobile access

Pricing model: Starts from $20 per month/user.  Free trial available.

Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is also ideal for sales and marketing departments.  It has the following sales tracking features.

  • Lead management
  • Sales activity
  • Sales analytics
  • Forecasting
  • Integration with several platforms

Pricing model: Starts from $25 per month/user. Free trial available.

NetSuite CRM

If you’re looking for sales tracking for small and mid-sized businesses, NetSuite CRM is perfect for you. It has these crucial aspects:

  • Lead qualification
  • Marketing automation
  • Document storage
  • Internal chat integration
  • Email marketing

Pricing model: Unavailable on the website. No free trial.

Pipedrive

Managers and sellers can use Pipedrive for sales tracking and lead generation. It offers the following essential features.

  • Integration with other platforms
  • Pipeline management
  • Sales reports & analytics
  • Monitoring communication
  • Sales automation

Pricing model: Starts from $12,50 per month/user. Free trial available.

Bitrix 24

Bitrix24 is a sales tracking tool for small businesses and has several vital features.

  • Sales analytics
  • File sharing
  • Call management
  • Sales activity tracking
  • Prospecting tools

Pricing model: Starts from $39 per month/5 user. Free trial available.

Sales tracker templates

If you feel that sales tracking software isn’t a top priority, you can use templates for now. You can download sales tracking templates for free and use them right away. Examples include: 

Sales KPI dashboard: Excel Dashboard school

Sales pipeline template: Smarsheet

Sales pipeline: Microsoft Office

Sales Table: Close

Sales forecast tracking: Microsoft Office

Sales Hacker offers various templates.

What’s next?

Sales tracking is an essential aspect of any business. It helps managers and salespeople to know how they are doing, what they need to improve on, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, etc.

You can conduct sales tracking in several ways – manually or digitally with the help of software like CRM. Sales tracking software is much more accurate and efficient than the former because it stores all numbers in one place. As a result, it becomes easier for managers to make data-driven decisions. 

Related: Sales meetings: Best practice to run effective sales meetings in 10 minutes

Unraveling your ideal sales hiring strategy: A complete guide

Posted on by vishal arora

If you are a sales manager or responsible for sales hiring, you would be attuned to the high turnover rates in your profession. According to HubSpot, the average sales turnover is a whopping 35%, which is three times higher than other functions. Additionally, for 45% of B2B sales companies, the turnover rate is more than 30%. Hence, to proactively avoid an understaffed sales team, you must hire quality resources consistently. This blog will mainly focus on refining your sales hiring strategy, which drives your company’s revenue success.

Why do you need a sales hiring strategy?

It is fair to say that the realities of the virtual working environment have significantly transformed sales recruitment. The traditional sales skills that were once considered ‘great to have’, are now the bare necessity. Today’s employers are looking for candidates with contemporary skills like technically adept salespeople or sales reps with a flair for data analysis to thrive in the digital sales revolution.

A study by Harvard Business Review indicates that turnover directly impacts your company’s sales. The time taken to refill vacant sales positions and that the salesperson requires to learn the tricks of the trade will affect your business goals. 

A sales hiring strategy will save you the time and resources spent training bad hires or flight-risk employees. Let’s explore how to ideate the perfect sales hiring strategy for your company.

Building a viable sales hiring strategy with the ‘3Ws and an H’ framework

sales hiring framework

To create an outstanding hiring process that aligns with your business goals, this blog will elaborate on the ‘3Ws and H’ sales hiring framework. It will help you outline What to do before you start hiring, Who is the best candidate for your business model, Where do you find the perfect salespeople for your brand, and How do you hire top talent.

What to do before you start hiring?

what to do before hiring

For your hiring strategy to yield the expected results, you need to check a few things off your list.

Assess previous results

Carefully review your last sales hiring process and the performance of that batch. Answer the following questions before you determine your hiring cycle.

  • Do your employees meet the criteria they were hired for? 
  • Were there any gaps in your hiring process that have affected your sales performance? 

Gauge your needs

Before embarking on this journey, be mindful of your goals and hire accordingly.

  • If you plan on expanding to a new market, it would be better to hire experienced sales staff.
  • Is your sales team scheduling more meetings than they can handle? Do you think you are short-staffed to achieve your projected growth? If your answer to these questions is yes, you could hire some fresh blood to help with operational tasks.

Evaluate your remuneration structure

Often, the primary reason for choosing sales as a profession is the lucrative compensation and performance bonuses. Determine if you are at par with market salary trends. If not, tweak your remuneration structure and make sure it is enticing enough to attract skilled salesforce.

Track market trends

If you have been following industry trends, you would be aware of the skill sets you need to service your current customer base. For instance, virtual selling has lifted geographical limitations and enabled you to expand your target market. However, to service your remote clients, you will need sales reps with specific skill sets, like digital dexterity,  experience with online client engagement, etc. It’s time to look for new talent with fresh skills if you find it lacking in your team.

Who should you hire?

who should you hire

Once you have decided that you are ready to start hiring, you need to ascertain the winning qualities you are looking for in your ideal sales rep. The following actionable steps can help in this regard.

Profile ideation

To craft the profile of your optimal sales candidate, you need to consider the overarching traits that serve your mission.

  • Analyze your high-performing sales reps and identify their dominant characteristics, selling styles, industries they come from, etc.
  • When looking for sales skills, ensure your prospective employees have the right balance of hard sales skills for winning deals, soft sales skills for relationship building, and digital sales skills to keep pace with your technically savvy clients.
  • If you are looking to hire for different sales positions like demand generation, customer success, etc., make sure you screen for the inherently role-based attributes.

For a comprehensive guide on critical sales skills categorized by hard skills, soft skills, digital skills, and role-based skills, review our blog  26 non-negotiable sales skills every salesperson should have.

Drafting your job description

After drilling down the critical skill sets of your next high performer, it is time to put pen to paper and draft an alluring job description. However, you need much more than a generic JD to attract desirable candidates.

Highlight your EVP (Employee Value Proposition)

Employee value proposition is a collection of unique advantages employees receive from a company. Having a solid EVP on par with the ever-changing workforce dynamics helps you attract and retain top talent. Your JD should accentuate your USP. 

Keep it clear and precise

Stay away from jargon and articulate what you are looking for. Smart salespeople are can read through the vague descriptions and are mostly looking for companies that project authenticity.

Be realistic about your expectations

When describing your candidate profile, do not chase after perfection. Your JD should reflect practical traits and achievable goals. You can categorize your list of desired skills into the following buckets.

  • Must-haves – compulsory for the position
  • Good-to-have – added advantage but not necessary
  • Can’t-have –  will not be accepted or does not align with your company culture
Nail down your JD template

Designing job description templates for each sales position will make the hiring process much more streamlined. Here’s a sample template for the role of Account Executive.

account executive JD
Source

Where can you find your ideal sales candidate?

sales candidate soutcing

In today’s digitally connected world, sourcing is not limited to postings on conventional job boards. Yet, with multiple choices, headhunting can seem daunting. The key is to try out several options and decide on the best ones for your company.

Here is a list you could consider.

Online job boards

The tried and tested job boards like Monster, Glassdoor, Indeed, etc., work best when looking for mass hiring. However, do note that these sites can often provide a high number of unqualified aspirants, and hence you will need to do your due diligence during the screening process.

Recruitment firms

Independent recruiters or staffing agencies are a good source for filling up critical positions urgently. But they usually charge steep fees for customized services. So this may not be a viable option should you have budgetary constraints.

LinkedIn

This is the best place to identify sales candidates based on specific filters like skills, industry, years of experience, etc. Although effective, this process is time-consuming. The best salespeople are often employed and not available. In addition, you will need to reach out individually to each of them, making the hiring process even longer. 

Social media promotions

Advertising open positions on social channels is a highly cost-effective and efficient sourcing process. It also has a much broader reach and a faster response rate.

Referrals

Reaching out to your connections can be an excellent option to source trustworthy qualified sales employees. Research indicates that  50% of hires onboarded through the referral process stick to a company for more than three years compared to 14% sourced from job portals.

How do you hire qualified salespeople?

sales hiring process

So now that you have a constant inflow of resumes based on your JD from your preferred source, it’s time do the actual groundwork. Try not to opt for short-cuts at this stage. Considering the exorbitant costs of bad hires, it’s better to invest in a  tailored long-term approach rather than focusing on quick gains.

Screening

Screening applicants before the actual interview helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. You can filter interviewees via phone/video call or written assessment.

Phone/Video call

Screening a candidate over a call with help you assess their key skills like rapport building, real-time objection handling, etc. For instance, you can test their hard sales skills by asking them to take you through a lead generation, and sales funnel they are familiar with.

Take a look at these sales hiring questions.

Phone/video interview questionnaire
Source

Written assignment

This process helps you test written communication skills, critical thinking, personality fit, and commitment to the interview. You can try sending out a  few open-ended questions to better understand the applicant’s abilities. 

You can take some ideas from the below questionnaire.

written assignment questionnaire
Source

Mock demo

If you are hiring for client-facing sales roles, conducting a mock demo is a good test for presentation skills. You can schedule the demo during the screening process or make it a part of the primary interview.

 Advise the interviewees to treat the mock demo as a real-life prospect scenario. You can ask them to sell you a product that would be useful to your company and judge them on the following metrics.

  1. Calendar invite sent before the demo with meeting details (time, date, meeting link, agenda)
  2. Meeting reminder email/call
  3. Confidence displayed in the demo
  4. Background research about your company
  5. Customizing the product/service to suit your company’s needs
  6. Keep the meeting interactive by asking probing questions, checking for any doubts, follow-up questions, etc.
  7. Objection handling during the presentation
  8. Competitive analysis
  9. Ability to manage a challenging customer
  10. A strong finish
  11. A follow-up call/email with the proposal, preferably within a day of the demo

Interview

Now that you have your cream of the crop, it’s time for personalized interviews. 

Interview structure

Without a structured interview process, you are less likely to identify a proper fit.

  •  Use sales hiring scorecards with an identical set of questions for each interviewee. 
  • The scorecard metrics should represent the traits of your high performers. 
  • Score job-seekers based on a grading system against each metric. 
  • If multiple team members are conducting the interview, they should use some variation of the same scorecard for deciding objectively.
Team interviews

Before welcoming a new employee into the team, it is crucial your team members get to know the person and validate the new hire. Each team member who interviews the candidate should have a specific agenda. For e.g., an account manager can gauge your candidate on their relationship-building skills, an operations manager can test them on their technical know-how, etc.

Interview questions

The interview questions should cover the following areas.

  • Expertise in hard sales skills like business acumen, buyer research, client engagement, etc.
  • Personality and behavior
  • Motivations
  • Practical experience
  • Ability to deal with hypothetical situations
Answering candidate queries

A goal-oriented salesperson will want to know more about you and your company before accepting an offer. Be prepared to answer questions on your company culture, compensation and commission structures, success metrics, sales enablement tools used, growth trajectory, etc. 

Making an offer

Now that you have gone through this exhaustive checklist to finalize the best-suited salespeople for the job, it’s time to make the offer. Here are a few things to consider during this stage.

  • Have a group discussion with your hiring team and consider each point of view. If you or your team have any doubts about an aspirant at this stage, they most probably don’t fit the bill.
  • When deciding between multiple strong candidates, the rule of thumb is to assess them against each other. You can do the resilience test where you offer constructive criticism on written and verbal tests to evaluate their reaction. The candidates that stay cool under pressure and can hold their ground are often the ones that can stand the test of time.
  • It is natural for talented salespeople to negotiate on compensation as it’s an innate part of who they are. The decision is ultimately yours and is based on various factors like your sales team’s structure, budget, management approvals, etc.
  • Make the offer by email or phone and proceed with the official formalities once they accept the offer.
  • Notify those who did not qualify. This shows integrity on your end and is a good practice to stay connected for future opportunities.

Onboarding

This is the stage where you want to make haste. Top candidates will not remain in the market for a long time, so the sooner you onboard, the better. A solid onboarding process is key to retaining your high performers for the longer run. 

Use the initial months to empower your new hires by introducing them to the team and company culture, training them on products/services, and slowly involving them in your sales process.

Reflect and reassess 

david hoffeld quote
Source

To execute successful hiring cycles, it is paramount to evaluate every aspect of your hiring process. For future recruitments, do more of what worked best this time and eliminate less successful practices. E.g., if your best hires from this season came from social media promotions, invest more in this avenue and minimize unnecessary spending on recruitment firms. If a combination of written screening tests and mock demos results in better talent but a longer hiring timeline, you might want to adjust your expectations accordingly.

Ultimately, investing time and resources to design an agile sales hiring process will boost your revenue and improve retention rates. Constantly measuring and improving your recruiting efforts are the catalysts to building a winning sales team.

26 non-negotiable sales skills every salesperson should have

Posted on by vishal arora

They say “sales is not for the faint of hearts”. The stakes are even higher in today’s unpredictable economic climate. However, selling skills can also be trained and developed like all skills. This blog will summarize the most crucial sales skills to help you stand out amidst the cutthroat competition.

But before we decode these vital sales skills, let’s look at the definition and its various types.

What are sales skills?

Sales skills are a set of crucial competencies that shape a novice sales rep into an adept salesperson. To be efficient in sales, you will need just the right balance of diverse characteristics. 

You require a competitive streak that helps you win deals, technical skills to keep up with your digitally-savvy clients, and an altruistic nature that inspires you to address customer pain points. However, you also need to develop explicitly role-based skills.

Based on the above criteria, we have divided selling skills into four categories – hard sales skills, soft sales skills, position-specific sales skills, and digital sales skills. Let’s explore these four groups individually.

Top 26 selling skills for a sales representative

Hard sales skills

hard sales skills

Hard skills are abilities that demonstrate your product expertise, industry knowledge and help you win more deals. Here are the primary ones that fall into this category.

1. Buyer research

Keeping a finger on your customer’s pulse requires staying abreast of industry trends. Moreover, following and studying your prospect’s activity will help you deliver tailored solutions. Here are a few pointers.

  • Use your CRM and other data analysis tools to know your customer and their company.
  • Monitor your targets on social media and consume industry information via sources like news articles, newsletter subscriptions, public financial documents, competitor websites, etc.

2. Business acumen

Do you think business acumen is essential for sales success? Most definitely! Your role should be more than a commodity seller but rather a strategic advisor for your clients. Go the extra mile by applying industry context and business-level information (like an annual financial report) to address your customer’s pain points.

But how do you build this skill?

  • Consistently reach out to internal subject matter experts or senior management. You can also seek advice from thought leaders on your social network.
  • If available, take company-sponsored training and courses on related topics.
  • Refer to external training sources like seminars, conferences, etc., for topical and sector-specific updates.

3. Product expertise

Convincing a prospect to choose your product/service is not an easy feat. It becomes even harder to accomplish if you are not well-versed with your/your company’s offerings. Besides, no matter how proficient your people skills are, you will have nothing to say without product knowledge.

Comprehensive knowledge of the benefits, USPs, recent developments and even shortcomings of your product/services is crucial for delivering stellar sales pitches, answering client queries, and finding the right solution for your customer. You can expand your product knowledge with the help of in-house training sessions or collaborating with other functions like product teams, marketing teams, etc.

4. Business communication

Being in sales requires you to be an effective communicator across all channels. Whether on emails, phone calls, social media channels, or presenting in front of a group – honing this skill will take you places. Irrespective of your product knowledge, you will be unable to convince your customers if you cannot deliver your message with clarity. Training and routine practice will help you master your business communication skills.

5. Active listening

To build rapport with your clients, communication and active listening go hand-in-hand. A Rain Group study states that only 26% of buyers consider sellers competent listeners. This gives you a solid reason to practice active listening.

Consider the following directives outlined by HubSpot to harness your listening skills.

  • Truly listen to what your customer is saying by observing their language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Instead of waiting for a chance to prove your point, make an effort to understand their plight, encouraging your prospects to open up more.
  • When a prospect describes what they are looking for or their challenges, feed it back to them so they can hear it from you. You can do this by reiterating, paraphrasing, or putting it in your own words.
  • After paraphrasing, confirm if you have heard them correctly. If you have not, request clarification.
  • Ask relevant follow-up questions and keep them open-ended to encourage them to share more about their goals, challenges, and current plans.

6. Client engagement

Along with effective communication and active listening, client engagement is essential in building sustainable business relationships. Learning the science behind engaging clients comes in handy throughout the sales cycle. For instance- 

  • Honing your cold calling skills gives you the confidence to speak with challenging prospects.
  • Leading with discovery questions inspires customers to open up about their goals, challenges, and business needs.
  • Industry and buyer research will help you engage customers with relevant information.

7. Conflict resolution

If you are a seasoned sales rep, facing and resolving conflicts will be your second nature. High-performing salespeople do not think of objections as rejections, but as opportunities to close a deal. Also, while handling disputes, it is vital to be proactive and try to uncover the underlying cause of the objection.

To learn more about the art of conflict management and resolution, read our comprehensive guide on objection handling.

Soft sales skills

soft sales skills

Soft skills are interpersonal traits that help you deliver exceptional customer service while addressing client concerns. Contrary to the hard skills which are pretty tactical, soft skills focus on your approach towards customers.

Let’s take a look at some of the soft skill examples.

8. Empathy

Sales is an inherently human activity, regardless of your selling skills or your product’s efficacy. To connect with your customer personally, you need to have the emotional intelligence to understand where they are coming from and explore the crux of their challenges. 

However, like any skill, you can develop empathy. Start practicing compassion in your day-to-day life by paying attention to people’s verbal and non-verbal cues. Acknowledge your target’s point of view and try to propose buyer-centric solutions based on the prospect’s emotional state.

9. Adaptability

Darwin’s theory ‘Survival of the fittest’ holds true in sales as well. A salesperson’s ability to adapt to uncertainty can help them navigate rough weather.

For instance, the economic uncertainty brought forward by covid-19 and recurrent lockdowns posed a severe challenge to the people-focused sales domain. Like many professions, salespeople too had to adapt to the realities of a remote working environment to survive the economic catastrophe.

10. Resilience

resilience quote

In sales, resilience can be your greatest strength amidst frequent disappointments. Research indicates that on average, it takes 18 dials to connect with a prospect and only 23.9% of sales emails are opened. Among such thin odds, only the ones with unwavering grit and resilience can climb up the professional ladder.

11. Self-confidence

When you think of a salesperson, you picture someone who exudes confidence. That is because the ability to convince complete strangers to trust your product/service requires high self-confidence. 

If you have spent a few years in sales, you can gain confidence from your success stories. If you are new, study your product/service, client, and the market landscape to develop confidence in yourself and your offering.

12. Storytelling

Brands have been harnessing the power of storytelling for ages to connect with their audience. Articulating how your product/service fulfills your prospect’s requirement in the form of a story makes it engaging and authentic. Furthermore, showcasing client case studies from similar industries will help affirm your prospect’s faith in your brand.

13. Collaboration

Selling is not a one-person job and usually demands collaboration between multiple teams. Even externally, you may deal with various stakeholders responsible for completing the transaction. As a salesperson, it becomes your job to successfully orchestrate the workflow of different internal and external teams into serving a common goal.

14. Relationship building

Relationship building is a crucial task for sustaining mutually beneficial alliances. Particularly in high-ticket B2B transactions, customers want to come back to a vendor they trust. Building rapport with your clients helps you navigate the buying process more efficiently.

15. Critical thinking

Like most professions, critical thinking is an integral part of selling. A salesperson with problem-solving skills can –

  • Process complex information by sorting through heaps of data to ideate the best possible solution for their client
  • Pinpoint the actual reason behind objections and brainstorm creative ways to close the sale while servicing the client.

16. Time management

The adage ‘time is money’ is even more accurate in the sales function. Making the most of your buyer’s time and your own is a critical skill to have for closing more deals. 

Below are a few ways to optimize your time in sales.

  • A methodical salesperson knows the value of those precious calling hours and is particular about leveraging them by avoiding non-revenue generating tasks. 
  • Time-critical tasks like responding to client queries should take precedence over operational functions like updating your CRM. This results in increased productivity and thus more significant sales. 
  • When you value your client’s time by preparing well for meetings and presentations, they take you seriously, which shortens the sales cycle.
  • Utilizing sales tools that automate operational tasks leaves you more time for selling.

Role-based sales skills

role-based skills

As mentioned earlier, sales is a team effort, and every stage of the sales process requires the involvement of a specialist. This is true, especially in larger organizations. Here are some trainable skills based on your role within the sales team.

17. Prospecting

Prospecting is finding and reaching out to your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). It involves comprehensive research on your end to identify the top traits of your ICP and their business needs. For your prospecting method to be effective, you need a strategic approach that can be built into your daily activities. 

Pro tip: Read our blog on Sales Prospecting to get a detailed understanding of the various techniques, processes, and tools of prospecting.

18. Lead qualification

After prospecting, the next step is to qualify those prospects by determining their probability of closing. This is often the most challenging part of sales, as selecting the right prospect can drastically reduce buying timelines. A few things to keep in mind while prospecting are-

  • Determine the characteristics of a qualified prospect based on historical data, like buying signs, budget, target industry, etc.
  • To quantify these characteristics, create qualifying questions that help you assess their potential.
  • Learn when to disqualify a prospect. It will save you countless hours chasing futile opportunities.
  • Follow a lead qualification framework like BANT (Budget, Authority, Needs, and Timeline), CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization), MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion), ANUM (Authority, Need, Urgency, and Money), etc.

Related:  Your key to success: Sales lead qualification

19. Contract negotiation

Honing your negotiation skills is essential in all stages of the sales cycle, but negotiating the contract is what seals the deal. Budgetary constraints can make or break a sale.  An ideal contract negotiation strategy helps you find a  middle ground that is satisfactory to you and your client.

20. Closing skills

Generally, senior team members handle deal closures. But if you want to grow in sales, it is best to have a few tricks up your sleeve for effective deal-closing techniques.

  • Assumptive close requires you to develop a positive outlook from the beginning of the sale. You can also feed it back to the client by reconfirming if you are in line with their requirement multiple times throughout the sales cycle.
  • Question close applies to asking probing questions that aim to eliminate sales objections.
  • The Now or Never close offers a unique benefit to customers in lieu of swift closures.
  • In a Soft close approach, you subtly state the benefits without making any demands. This removes the pressure on their end and gives you more time to understand their core requirement.
  • If your client disagrees with the price, use the Take Away close wherein you remove a feature or service for the discounted rate.
  • Summary closes apply the technique of reiterating the purchase terms in the hopes of getting an answer from the client.
  • Analytical close offers prospects comparative features or benefits. You can show them the pros and cons of different vendors or product functions. 

21. Customer success

A strong customer success team is key to securing repeat business, cross-selling and upselling opportunities. During the sales cycle, take the time to know your clients by asking meaningful questions to discover customers’ pain points. You may have customer support teams for post-sales service. But smart salespeople will aim to nurture relationships by keeping in touch with clients and making sure they receive excellent post-sales support.

22. Territory management

Territory managers are responsible for ensuring sales efforts in their assigned territory run smoothly. They will need to study and track the market dynamics of their region and deliver customized sales pitches accordingly.

Digital sales skills

digital sales skills

In today’s 24*7*365 digitally connected world, we would be amiss if we did not include digital skills in the list of critical sales skills. To survive the online sales revolution, you need to keep up with dynamic technological advances apart from sharpening your basic selling skills.

23. Technical savviness

According to Gartner, 75% of B2B companies will utilize AI-guided selling solutions by 2025. Hence technically sound salespeople have the edge over their peers who are not comfortable navigating technology. The rapidly advancing capabilities of AI can assist you in enhancing sales processes, unraveling complex challenges, and elevating your performance. From demand generation to sales forecasting, sales tech has integrated itself into all stages of the sales cycle. 

To learn more about leveraging artificial intelligence to succeed in sales, check out our blog-  The compelling impact of artificial intelligence in sales.

24. Social selling

B2B social selling capitalizes the power of your social media accounts like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to connect directly with your prospective customers and promote your product/services. Irrespective of your company having a separate social media team, it bodes well for you to nurture client relationships online.

Our comprehensive guide on social selling offers additional strategies for social media selling.

25. Data analysis

Making informed and calculated decisions by analyzing data is yet another digital sales skill that has become increasingly essential for salespeople. Use your CRM data to determine the right course of action instead of relying on your gut instinct for making analytical conclusions. Additionally, AI-based tools can procure historical data and records of client interactions to determine your ICP or forecast revenue.

26. Presentation skills

Delivering a flawless presentation requires practical communication skills with a touch of digital know-how. Familiarizing yourself with digital presentation tools and data-backed research will help you present winning sales demos. A few things to make your sales presentation lively and interactive are-

  • Customizing the sales deck with client data
  • Making it engaging by including chatter polls, transitional questions, and multiple visual elements

Summing up

knowledge quote

Now that you have gone through this exhaustive list of sales skills based on these four prime categories, time to get into action. Whether your job mandates proficiency in hard or soft skills, you can get better at them by incorporating them into your daily routine. Pick out the role-based skill you currently need or the role you aspire to have. However, digital sales skills are sacrosanct should you wish to further your career in sales.

9 Easy ways to make your sales pipeline review a success

Posted on by vishal arora

A sales pipeline review provides a complete overview of your pipeline. It’ll help you focus your efforts to ensure your business meets its goals. Managers need to effectively run a pipeline review meeting to keep salespeople motivated and raring to go. Poorly managed discussions can be time-wasters and lead to loss of productivity. Find out how to conduct a successful sales pipeline review session in nine easy strategies.

Let’s start by refreshing your memory about the pipeline.

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a graphical representation of a salesperson’s process when selling something. It typically starts with identifying potential prospects, followed by lead qualification, and then the opportunity to make a sale.

Reps can use it to track the progress of an individual prospect or lead as they move through each stage of the process. Sales leaders must organize meetings to review a pipeline. 

Pipeline review definition

What is a sales pipeline review? A sales pipeline review is a strategic assessment of your current sales process. It’s an opportunity to identify and address the issues preventing you from closing more deals and identify areas for improvement.

The most common types of sales pipeline reviews are:

The Sales Pipeline Review:  It looks at the deals in your pipeline and how they are progressing towards closure.

The Sales Pipeline Assessment: It assesses all the people involved in your sales process, from prospects to customers, and how they fit into your sales process.

The Sales Process Review: It reviews the processes you use to generate leads, qualify them, manage them through the buying cycle, close deals, and measure success.

In this blog, we’ll zero in on the sales pipeline review.

There are many benefits to conducting a sales pipeline review, including:

-Identifying potential issues in the sales process before they become big problems.

-Providing visibility into the status of each deal at any given point in time.

-Helping identify trends, patterns, and opportunities to improve performance on deals that are not going well.

-Providing an opportunity for management to give feedback on how their team is doing. 

-Offering the team a chance to understand better how sales managers perceive them.

Pipeline review metrics

pipeline review metrics

You can talk about the following metrics during the sales pipeline review.

  • Number of qualified leads
  • Number of scheduled meetings
  • Number of demos booked
  • Number of deals at the negotiation stage

The above numbers help you understand your MQL and SQL conversion rate. They represent prospects you can nurture and convert into buyers.

Related: “How to build a sales pipeline in 2022”

Who should participate in the review pipeline?

participants in a review pipeline

Sales pipeline review meetings should involve a sales manager, a salesperson, a senior executive member. Revenue operation team members can also participate in the sessions, such as customer success, sales, and marketing.  And they can help in many ways.

  • Sales can inform the customer success and marketing teams of any unsuccessful deals. 
  • They can then create marketing campaigns to warm up the leads.
  • Marketing can boost resources in regions with few pipeline opportunities.

Pipeline review framework

pipeline review framework

A framework can help you conduct a successful pipeline review. Here are some things to consider to create a pipeline structure.

Structure: You can review all the pipeline deals or concentrate on high-priority opportunities.

Frequency: Meetings can be weekly, biweekly, or monthly. 

Duration: A pipeline review meeting can last between 30-60 minutes.

Size: You can have 1-on-1s, rotational, or group pipeline review meetings.

Action: At the end of the session, each salesperson needs to know their actionable items. For example, they can focus on refining their closing techniques.

How to successfully run a sales pipeline review in 9 ways

steps to run a pipeline review

1. Dump a group pipeline review meeting

Reviewing a pipeline with the entire team has some challenges. Gretchen Gordon is the owner of Braveheart Sales Performance – a consulting company. She insists that managers should do away with group pipeline reviews because they’re wasteful, boring, and useless. 

Here are more reasons:

  • It’s time-consuming since your sellers have to prepare reports and slides for presentation during the meetings. Instead, they could use this time to chase prospects or sell more products.
  • It makes sales reps believe that they must focus on a big pipeline. 
  • As a result, they concentrate more on filling up the pipeline to impress the sales manager. 
  • Salespeople pay little attention to what you say during team sessions. You may want to use this time to offer sales tips to the entire team on stalled deals. But this coaching could be unsuccessful due to a lack of concentration.

What should you do instead? Check out the following suggestions.

  • Stop using team pipeline reviews immediately.  However, they could be necessary if several salespeople are involved in one sale. Managers can have a group pipeline review to strategize and solve problems as a team.
  • Talk with each seller one-on-one about their sales pipeline and velocity of deals. Also, reps should tell you about every pipeline deal’s agreed course of action.
  • Inform them to stop fluffing up the pipeline – they must take the deal forward or leave it and move on. 
  • See the pipeline as a predictive tool: Work out the number of dollars or deals that you need in your pipeline for each rep to hit their goals. Next, ensure that they fill the pipeline with high-quality deals.
  • Direct your salespeople’s efforts on activities that help them crush their numbers, e.g., the number of demos, discovery calls, etc.
  • Use team meetings to fix organizational challenges, develop strategies to win targetted prospects, share best practices, and role-play.

2. Automate pipeline maintenance

Pipeline reviews need up-to-date data to enable managers and sellers to check the status of leads accurately. Resource reps with CRMs software with AI capabilities to reduce manual data entry and human errors. These tools can automatically capture a salesperson’s emails, notes, calls, scheduled demos, and meetings.

Also, managers should ensure they’ve got the same data that reps have in their CRM dashboard to see the crucial leads in the pipeline. Always remind sellers to have the correct stats.

3. Examine the CRM data before the meeting

Salespeople, managers, and sales leaders should review the latest data regarding the pipeline well in advance. They need to prepare questions, too. As a result, everyone forms an opinion beforehand and knows what they need to do and fix the challenges. 

Also, meetings become conversational instead of being interrogative. CRM software improves your pipeline reviews in more ways, including:

Establishing targets: You can create targets for your salesforce, such as the number of deals, sales qualified leads, meetings, and the pipeline value. 

Monitoring metrics: CRM dashboards keep you in the loop about average deal value, deals in the pipeline, deal closures, etc.

Sales forecast: CRM data regarding your pipeline shows the accurate record of deals that are likely to close and forecasted cash flow.

4. Request a brief report of the deal

Ask the seller to update you by providing feedback on the deal. Consider the following aspects.

  • What’s the current status of the deal?
  • What do they plan to do next?
  • What should they do to close the sale?
  • When do they expect to bring the sale to a close?

As you listen to the summary, you’re likely to note roadblocks to the deal.

5. Clarify the obstacles and challenge the salesperson

You need to be clear on the possible hurdles that can prevent the deal from closing. Here are some things to consider to identify the snags.

  • Does communication seem to be lacking?
  • Does any information need to be added?
  • What has your rep done so far to handle objections?
  • What’s holding up this deal from closing?

After this discussion, spell out the specific action items the seller needs to concentrate on to move the deal. Examples include handling an objection, contacting a person in authority, or abandoning the deal altogether.

Also, avoid turning sales pipeline reviews into forecasts, lengthy coaching sessions, in-depth strategy discussions, training modules, and updates about your company.

6. Explain when reps should move a deal

Salespeople and their managers need to agree on the exit criteria at each pipeline stage. It prevents confusion about the status of a lead and what sellers must do. Reps can ask several questions for each stage to determine if a lead is ready to take the next step in the pipeline. 

Say a salesperson wants to know if they can move a prospect to the demo stage from qualification. They can ask the questions below.

  • How has the lead defined the application’s uses in their organization?
  • Can the company use the product if it meets its technical requirements?
  • Can the company afford this product?

Sales reps can do this for other pipeline stages to establish a system outlining what they must do at each step.

7. Make everyone accountable

Accountability for managers and sellers is vital to ensure a follow-up to agreed items. Sales leaders can engage sellers by email or phone at the weekend to find out about the team’s progress. Or managers can use their CRM tool to track results.

Checking on the salesperson or viewing the CRM dashboard provides you with real-time data about leads. You can give feedback to your team and ask crucial questions on sluggish deals. 

8. Allow a free discussion

There’ll likely be different views regarding particular situations about your pipeline. That’s because every stakeholder in the sales pipeline review sees things from their experience and understanding. Accept that there is no right or wrong answer-be open to other viewpoints and solutions.

9. Create and stick to the plan

A sales pipeline review agenda may have the following structure.

Metrics review

You can begin the meeting by summarizing the crucial metrics and opportunities.

Establish goals and targets

Talk about the activities reps need to perform to ensure a healthy pipeline. Also, identify opportunities salespeople should create to crush their numbers.

Pipeline review feedback

  • Report on pipeline progress since the last meeting and follow up on the previous pipeline review
  • Check on all current high-priority deals that are currently in the pipeline.

Wins

Recognize successes, such as deals closed to motivate your reps.

Challenges

Identify the obstacles and strategize how you can overcome them.

Action items

Highlight all the important deals and change them into action items. 

Salesforce suggests running your meeting based on the structure below to enable you to deal with several leads.

sales pipeline review meeting agenda

It’s vital to stick to the schedule to avoid boring your salespeople to death and losing focus.

After the pipeline review

Your sales pipeline review could have the following outcomes.

  • The sales team is well-informed and can proactively deal with its pipeline. It makes sellers stick to the sale process for all deals.
  • The revenue operations team can determine if salespeople receive leads at the correct times. Also, it can figure out the velocity at which opportunities move through the sale cycle. A longer sales process may call for urgent remedial action, for example.
  • The marketing team can redirect its efforts towards potential deals or ones at the risk of stalling.

Related: “Sales meetings: Best practice to run effective sales meetings in 10 minutes.”

In closing

A sales pipeline review is a process of assessing the current status of your sales pipeline and planning future actions to improve its performance. It’s an essential part of any sales process and can help you see where you are going wrong or improve your overall performance.

You should review your pipeline regularly. If you do it correctly, a sales pipeline can identify problems in the sales cycle that may not have been visible before. As a result, it helps you take corrective action before it’s too late.

Discover more informative and inspirational sales articles.

Upgrade your virtual selling strategy with these 7 practical tips

Posted on by vishal arora

Pre-covid, in-person meetings played a  pivotal role in the sales process. However, recurrent pandemic seasons inspired frontline sellers to sharpen their remote selling skills. What started as a temporary solution is increasingly becoming a key sales strategy, mainly because it can save valuable time and resources. According to Gartner, 74% CSOs (Chief Sales Officers) have recently updated/are currently updating their seller skills profile for remote sales. This blog aims to decode principal virtual selling strategies to uplift your remote selling game.

What is virtual selling?

‘Virtual selling’ or ‘remote selling’ or ‘digital selling’ is a process wherein your sales activities are executed virtually instead of conventional ‘face-to-face’ interactions. Virtual selling also necessitates strengthening your remote sales skills, whether it is technical upskilling for product demos/online meetings or the art of engaging customers over email/phone. So if you are in sales, now is the time to hone your digital sales skills and prepare for the virtual selling revolution.

Benefits of virtual selling

benefits of virtual selling

Remote selling has simplified the sales process for B2B purchasers and sellers alike. Mckinsey’s research indicates that more than three-quarters of buyers and sellers prefer self-serve and remote human engagement over in-person sales interactions. 

But why has virtual selling become so alluring to the salesforce? Read on to find out.

Meets expectations of digital-savvy clients

Today’s B2B buyers are increasingly becoming digitally savvy. A recent Mckinsey survey found that 80% of B2B customers prefer virtual interactions when making purchasing decisions. And this applies to big-ticket transactions as well. B2B buyers find online purchases easier to schedule and cheaper than traveling. Adopting the virtual selling method will help you align selling activity to your customer’s preferred engagement channels and purchasing journey.

Offers flexibility to customers and sellers

Virtual selling has made it possible to seamlessly connect sellers and buyers across various locations and time zones. When sales was considered an in-person affair, sales reps traveled worldwide to meet important clients. Even on the customer’s end, important stakeholders would be flown in for such meetings. Virtual selling has made it possible to gather and interact with people from any corner of the world through your computer screen.

Documenting meetings has also never been simpler. Any effective digital meeting tool will allow recording the session, which can later be transcribed for meeting notes and follow-ups.

Boosts productivity and revenue

  • According to LinkedIn, an average salesperson spends only 37.67% of their time selling. As more time selling equals more revenue, it only makes sense that you should spend most of your time on revenue-generating tasks. You can now use the time saved on sales travel to book additional meetings or other fruitful activities.
  • Virtual selling drastically reduces the sales cycle. Many growth-oriented companies are utilizing AI-powered chatbots to handle preliminary sales queries. These virtual assistants qualify interested leads that are then handed over to sales reps. This shortens the buying journey along with the sales cycle.

Related: The compelling impact of artificial intelligence in sales

Let’s look at the performance of a few companies that embraced virtual selling during the pandemic.

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Remote work helps prioritize personal life

Remote working or hybrid working option has brought us closer to the much-desired work-life balance.  Digital sellers enjoy the opportunity to save money and time on office/sales-related commutes, which gives them more time to focus on mental health. Business video platform Vidyards’s State of Virtual Selling Survey indicates that two-thirds of sales pros plan to work remotely or adapt the hybrid model in the future.

Challenges of virtual selling

Despite the advantages, virtual selling is not without pitfalls. A study conducted by the RAIN Group identified buyer engagement as the top challenge in virtual sales. Take a look at some of the other aspects that were at least somewhat challenging according to this group of sellers from the survey.

virtual selling challenges
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Here are some strategies to tackle these challenges.

7 Key tips to elevate your virtual sales game

virtual selling tips

Both online and offline selling require basic sales skills and unwavering resilience. However, there are some crucial traits that you need to adapt when selling on digital channels.

1. Familiarize yourself with social selling

To prepare yourself for remote sales, you need to get acquainted with the fundamentals of selling on social media. Here are a few insights.

  • Create a stellar social profile on any or all of these business platforms- LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Your profile should highlight what you do, how you offer value to your customers and your relevant skills.
  • Build your social network by connecting with industry leaders, peers, and prospective clients.
  • Provide value by sharing information that addresses your customer’s pain points
  • Actively engage with your network by liking, commenting, or resharing industry updates, news, topical articles, etc.

For comprehensive information on harnessing your social selling powers, read our blog The “whats”, “whys”, and “hows” of social selling.

2. Be proactive and precise

  • Although online meetings are logistically far more convenient than offline ones, you need to do the groundwork before you step into that video call. With most of your clients switching to digital meetings, their calendars may be busier than usual. Prepare in advance and make sure you have all the materials you need for making and supporting your point at the meeting. 
  • Be concise and offer relevant information in a structured manner. This way, you will be respecting their time and make optimum use of the allotted meeting slot.
  • A RAIN Group study states that only 26% of buyers feel that sellers are competent listeners. So if you haven’t already, it is high time you train your listening skills. Additionally, unlike in-person meetings, digital meetings will not allow you to get a feel of the meeting room or monitor your client’s body language most of the time. So listen actively, try to analyze their tone of voice, take notes and ask follow-up questions whenever required.
  • The new normal has changed buyer perceptions and expectations to a great extent. Ensure you do your homework and try to anticipate customer objections that may have altered because of the realities of our remote world.

3. Learn the art of virtual engagement

With a drastic decrease in human attention spans, it has become quite difficult to keep your prospects engaged and entertained in online meetings. Here are a few things you can do to get your customer’s attention.

  • Instead of delivering a monologue, personalize the sales presentation by studying your client and customizing the sales deck. Make it interactive with tools like chatter polls, adding transitional questions into slides, etc. According to a study by Corporate Visions, adding friction to a presentation by asking questions or requesting your audience to participate in activity leads to a more productive conversation. 
  • Make the slides interesting by including multiple visual elements, which will help in keeping your audience engaged.
  • One of the prime benefits of in-person meetings is that you can make a great first impression. It becomes difficult to make a memorable impact from behind a screen. Slot some time in your meeting agenda for a casual meet and greet before the meeting. You can also assign a few minutes towards the end of the presentation for client feedback. But be mindful of their time and take permission in advance for these additional time slots.
  • Make use of personalized video pitches, video proposals, e-signatures, etc., to stand out amongst the competition.

4. Add a human touch to digital meetings

  • When speaking to your client virtually, keep the conversation interactive to avoid sounding monotonous.
  • Sometimes prospects may be uncomfortable with switching on their cameras. But when you are leading the sales meeting, show your face on the screen. It will make the presentation lively and allow your client to read your non-verbal cues.
  • Make your customer comfortable by explaining the virtual buying process, which is different from an in-person sales meeting. This will also put them at ease before making high-end purchases.
  • Empathize with your buyers and acknowledge that they may be experiencing virtual meeting fatigue. Check with them if you should slow down your pace or share certain aspects of your presentation in an email. If they seem burnt out, share the bare essentials over live call and the remaining via product tutorial videos, emails, etc.

5. Get comfortable with technology

Selling in a digitally connected world has immense advantages. Yet, that requires you to get used to working with technology. Since you would want to maximize your limited face-time window with prospects, make sure you nail the basics.

  • Ensure you have a connection with good bandwidth. Nothing can dampen an online meeting more than a frozen or blank screen, especially when presenting live.
  • We have all gone through awkward zoom moments of ‘Can you hear me?’ and ‘You are on mute’. That was three years back and no longer funny or considered a valid excuse. Make sure you know your way around digital tools and are adept at basic troubleshooting skills. Instead of depending on the IT team, it’s good to be quick on your feet when handling tech.
  • Working from home is not always the perfect scenario for a business meeting. It is possible to end up with a not-so-ideal video background or have someone at home pop up behind you on the screen. Take some time before the meeting to prepare your meeting room. Almost every video tool has the option for a virtual background which comes in quite handy in these situations.

6. Embrace virtual sales training

To keep pace with the realities of virtual selling, the sales training industry has undergone a massive transformation by incorporating AI-guided selling models. With most sales operations managed by artificial intelligence, updated sales training models focus more on critical thinking and usage of AI/ML sales tools.

7. Invest in virtual selling infrastructure 

 To survive in today’s dynamic corporate world, you/your company will need to start investing in virtual selling infrastructure. Gartner states that 61% CSOs are already investing in new technology to prepare their salesforce for virtual sales. Here are a few things you can implement.

  • Promote your brand in digital meetings with company-branded virtual backgrounds or screensavers that highlight the brand logo, motto, or client endorsements.
  • Browse virtual selling platforms and pick the one that suits your business needs. Below is a list of such tools that can assist you in virtual sales.
virtual selling tools
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Check out this video on additional virtual selling tips from the CEO of SalesGravy and author of Virtual Selling, Jeb Blount.

Way forward

gartner_virtual selling
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Virtual selling has opened up a whole new world for sellers, transcending the limitations of geography and commerce (money spent on in-person sales). According to Gartner’s Future of Sales 2025 Report, 80% of B2B sales interactions between buyers and suppliers will occur in digital channels.  To prepare for the future of sales, you will need to equip yourself with virtual selling strategies and tools, so you can sell everywhere your customers expects to be engaged and interacted. This will call for a transition from analog sales processes to a digital-first approach.

Your key to success: Sales lead qualification

Posted on by vishal arora

Some of the top priorities for your B2B company is demand generation, and sales lead qualification. The challenge is finding and qualifying good leads that inside or outside sales or distributors can convert into buyers.

Learn how to increase your chances of closing more deals by filtering and qualifying leads for yourself and your team. Maximize your sales pipeline with proven sales lead qualification, lead nurturing and lead management processes that work for many businesses. Scroll on for more details.

What is sales lead qualification?

Sales lead qualification is the process of evaluating and determining the potential of a person or company to buy your product or service.

Prospecting is the first step in your sales process. It’s about finding customers interested in your product or service and getting them to understand what you offer.

The first step in prospecting is qualifying leads. It means you need to find out if there’s a good chance that they’ll buy from you or not. 

Qualifying prospects is crucial because it helps you understand your target audience and identify companies that need your product. Also, it enables you to reduce your time on opportunities that you’re unlikely to convert into customers.

How does a sales lead qualification process benefit you?

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How to generate B2B sales leads?

Typically, you can use two lead generation methods: inbound and outbound marketing. Inbound methodology activities include social media, content marketing, eCommerce, websites, and videos. Also, you can develop leads through outbound activities, such as telemarketing, direct contact, trade shows, email marketing, advertising, etc. 

Types of sales leads

types pf sales leads

A sales lead qualification process generates the following leads:

Unqualified leads (UQL): These are leads your marketing team is working on to qualify and hand over to SDRs.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLS): They’re qualified prospects you can interact with through email campaigns, social media channels, etc. MQLs have a high chance of being buyers.

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): These are MQLs who’ve shown interest in your product or service and are ripe for a chat with your sales reps. 

Product Qualified Leads (PQLs): These leads are highly likely to purchase your product because they’ve either started a free trial or a freemium subscription.

Conversion Qualified Leads (CQLs): A CQL is a lead who has converted by registering for a webinar, completing a form or downloading a resource, etc.

Characteristics of a qualified prospect

How can you know if you’ve got a qualified prospect? Here are the features of a qualified prospect.

characteristics of a qualified prospect

Qualifying questions

Qualifying questions are the questions that sales professionals ask to determine if a prospect is worth pursuing. Asking questions assesses the potential of an opportunity and is an integral part of the sales process.

Some qualifying questions are:

sales lead qualifying questions

It’s also necessary to disqualify prospects during the sales lead qualified process. 

When to disqualify a prospect?

  • Limited funds:  You can disqualify prospects when they’re not interested in the product or service or don’t have the financial resources to buy. Disqualify a prospect if their current budget can’t allow them to buy from you. But continue nurturing them by sending handy resources addressing their needs. 
  • The potential customer lacks authority: Discontinue pursuing a lead who isn’t a decision-maker or has no power in determining the buying process.
  •  The lead is preoccupied with other things: Put the lead in your archive if they show that they can’t have a meaningful conversation with you due to time constraints. They’re not presently ready to chat with you, but you can restart the dialogue later when they can spare some time.

Related: “Sales Prospecting: Definition, Techniques, Process & Tools.”

What you must do first before the sales lead qualification process

Use lead scoring to qualify leads

Lead scoring is a way to measure the potential of a lead and is an integral part of your lead management process. In this way,  your marketing and sales teams can identify prospects and prioritize them accordingly.

Also, lead scoring helps you identify which leads are worth following up with and which ones aren’t worth your time. 

You can perform lead scoring in many ways, but assigning points to different actions is the most common. When someone fills out a form on your website, they get two points. If they fill out an email form, they get an additional point. Check out the following example.

Lead scoring model
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You can use the following lead scoring models.

1) Marketing-driven: These models are marketing data-driven, such as website visits, clicks, and conversions.

2) Sales-driven: Sales data such as calls, demos, or presentations influence this approach.

3) Hybrid: These models combine marketing and sales data to generate a score for the leads, which helps in prioritizing them accordingly.

After assigning scores to your leads, you’ll know where the prospects are in the buying process and what your reps should do. See the example below.

lead scoring model
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Use lead scoring software to score leads automatically.

The next step after lead scoring is qualifying leads by using lead qualification frameworks. 

Sales lead qualification frameworks

sales lead qualification frameworks

A lead qualification framework is a guideline that helps SDRs qualify prospects systemically and using data. Here are some popular techniques you can put to the test.

Start with BANT

BANT is still a go-to method for sales lead qualification for many companies and stands for Budget, Authority, Needs, and Timeline. And this is how you can use the framework.

Budget: Does your prospect have the ability to purchase your product/service? For example, you could say, “How does your company allocate funds for this type of solution?”  “How much of the budget can your business set aside for the product/service?” 

Authority: Is the lead in a decision-making role influencing the product purchase? You may say, “Who else makes the primary decisions regarding buying in your company?” or “Are there any challenges you foresee concerning this transaction, and how can we resolve them right away?”

Needs: What are the current potential customer’s needs-aka the pain points? Here are some qualifying questions you might ask: “Can you tell me about the challenges you’re facing right now?” “What causes that pain, and how do you think this product will improve your condition?” 

Timeline: Is the buyer ready to buy? When do you want to solve the problem? “Are there any priorities in your buying process?” “What other solutions are you considering?”

When to use: BANT is ideal if your business deals with high-premium products. So you want to dig deeper to uncover the lead’s ability to pay. Firms with low-priced products can benefit from this model. B2B sales requiring high levels of authority to decide on purchases can also use BANT.

Strengths: Simple to implement.

Weakness: BANT’s questions are illogical- they can make the prospect feel uncomfortable because you start with money. And needs come later. It could appear as if you’re more concerned with selling than understanding what the lead wants first. 

Again, many people are involved in complex B2B sales as decision-makers. As a result, you should bring this up in your discovery call questions.

Look to CHAMP

BANT is seller-centric, but CHAMP is more focused on the potential customer. Use this sales lead qualification approach to identify if the lead has challenges that your product seeks to solve.  You can disqualify the prospect if there’s no alignment between their challenges and your solution.

CHAMP represents Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization.

Challenges: What challenges does your business want to fix? What problems do you experience that your current solution can’t effectively resolve?

Authority: Who else are the key decision-makers in the buying process? Do we need to bring them into the discussions? Tell me more about the corporate relations that affect the purchase decision.

Money: What’s your budget like regarding this solution?

Prioritization: What are your timelines concerning implementing the solution? Are there any alternatives you’re looking to try? 

When to use it: It works perfectly with likely buyers who’ve no idea about what you’re selling. You can quickly determine if they match what your product wants to address.

Strengths: CHAMP’s discovery call questions follow the natural flow that puts the prospects at ease.

Weaknesses: The method lacks in-depth questions because it doesn’t help the seller explain success after using the product. It limits the rep from demonstrating the solution’s value during the proposal period.

Try MEDDIC

This sales lead qualification framework stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. Here’s how you can use MEDDIC.

Metrics: What does the prospect hope to improve by using your solution in quantitative terms? Do they want to reduce the churn rate or boost the conversion rate? You need to know how the buyer defines their success. 

Economic Buyer: Who makes the purchasing decision in your company?

Decision Criteria: How do you evaluate if a vendor meets your requirements? What criteria do you use to make buying decisions? 

Decision Process: Describe the processes your business follows to assess a potential purchase.

Identify Pain: What challenges do you want to solve?

Champion: Who else is interested in your product/service in the organization? 

When to use it: The MEDDIC lead qualification framework is ideal for brands with low volume and high-value sales, such as software vendors. It gives salespeople plenty of time to gather information about the prospect. 

Strength: The potential buyer can see the metrics they can improve with your product. 

Weakness: MEDDIC may be unsuitable f0r companies with low-cost products at huge volumes, like eCommerce retailers. The qualification process is longer.

Consider ANUM

ANUM operates on the same principles as BANT but reverses some steps. It stands for Authority, Need, Urgency, and Money. Find out whether the prospect is the primary decision-maker. Understand their needs and urgency to fix the problem. The last step is to assess their ability to purchase the solution.

When to use it: ANUM is an excellent approach when dealing with businesses without clearly defined levels of authority, such as start-ups. That’s because it may be unclear who’s in charge of signing off contracts at the early stages.

Strength: Money isn’t the main qualification criterion for this solution. 

Weakness: The rep must demonstrate the reasons for the client to purchase the goods/service.

What about FAINT

FAINT (Funds, Authority, Interest, and Timing) is an alternative to BANT.  Like BANT, this model places the company’s budget at the forefront. However, it adds another element in the sales lead qualification steps- interest. 

Sellers should find out if the potential customer is interested in their solution. They need to generate that excitement by showing leads how the product can improve their current situation.

When to use it: FAINT is perfect for potential buyers who’ve never seen or tried your good/service. Such prospects include those you want to engage with via cold calling. However, BANT is ideal for people who know what you offer.

Strength: The salesperson can gauge the prospect’s interest in the product.

Weakness: Like BANT, the model scratches the surface in understanding the customer’s challenges. 

Opt for HubSpot’s GPCTBA/C&I

HubSpot developed this sales lead qualification framework to emphasize the following aspects.

Goals: How would you rank your priorities at the moment?

Plans: What steps will you take to achieve that goal?

Challenges: Are there any obstacles you foresee with your plan?

Timeline: What is your timeframe for solving this issue? Are there any steps you plan to take if you do not buy at this time?

Budget: To date, how much have you spent on this goal? Can you allocate any additional funds to it?

Authority: What is the process of purchasing products of this type at your company? How are others feeling about this buying decision, and what concerns them? How do I manage and respect ego issues or ownership issues that may arise?

Negative consequences:  Why is it essential to reach this goal? How much will it cost you and your business if things stay as they are?

Positive Implications: How will you move forward if you achieve this goal?

When to use it: It’s a model that suits the SaaS industry. 

Strengths: Sellers can quickly establish if the potential customer is an excellent fit for their product/service. It provides salespeople with enough details to determine if the lead is worth following.

Weakness: It requires the rep to walk the prospect through all the questions to get as much info as possible. As a result, inexperienced sellers or those unfamiliar with the lengthy technique may sound like detectives to likely buyers. 

When to move qualified leads to the next step?

Here are some primary indicators of moving a prospect forward.

indicators of moving leads to the next step

Sales process red flags

After doing everything by the book, the customer may remain without an appetite for your solution. Check out the following red flags that show you need to move on and focus on other lucrative opportunities.

  • It’s hard to know when a prospect is enthusiastic about your products since they won’t communicate. It’ll prevent you from contacting them repeatedly. Don’t waste your time pursuing the protential customer if you cannot reach them.
  • If they can’t or won’t commit, your reps will be less efficient and productive. Your salespeople must make their pitches to someone with authority to approve the sale.  Otherwise, you’ll lose the prospect.
  • Occasionally, your solution won’t meet your prospects’ needs. That’s fine, and it’s okay to move on if it’s not possible.

Parting words

The role of a sales lead qualification framework is to filter leads systemically. It’s a process that helps you determine the probability of converting a lead into a sale. The model aims to identify the right prospects and weed out those not worth pursuing. Because of this, you can save time and effort in the long run.

Use a sales lead qualification framework that meets your company’s needs and prospects. Tailor it to suit your requirements and make it scalable to grow with you as your business expands.

Related: “16 Sales team management strategies: This is what experts do.”