In my many years as a Senior Sales & Marketing Executive, I’ve noticed that most, if not all the time, Sales Management professionals fail to outline the power of pipeline to their enterprise-level salespeople.
To me, this is the single most important facet of sales management. Realistic and achievable selling objectives should consistently be discussed with each sales representative, so they become incredibly aware of what types of forecasted numbers in a CRM pipeline will produce FOR them in terms of commissions and bonuses.
Inherently, enterprise-level sales reps are focused on commissions. And they should be. They are salespeople. And closing is what they enjoy the most. Sales management should be proactive in reviewing the sales pipelines of each rep no less than bi-weekly and defining EXACTLY what that pipeline is worth to the company, and to the rep in terms of commissions.
CRM has incredible power, especially if there is a Marketing Automation product in place to AUGMENT the sales process. The most proactive companies realize this, and they continue to drive eardrums and eyeballs to the brand, assisting enterprise sales reps in keeping prospects consistently engaged with the brand.
This does not ever replace a sales mantra of Prospecting, Qualifying, Presenting, Closing, and Servicing (Substantiating) new accounts and logging every new opportunity and “touch” in CRM. Marketing augmenting the sales process is incredibly powerful when deployed in conjunction with a CRM platform.
When creating sales processes for qualified and motivated salespeople, sales management professionals should be more than proactive in creating and deploying the tools, training, and techniques for their salespeople to succeed every day in CRM. These can include:
There is, and always will be POWER of PIPELINE. The most proactive companies deploy a well-defined sales strategy within CRM, where Marketing is proactively augmenting the sales process for salespeople who are actively pursuing and processing dozens of prospects, daily. When they know their revenue pipeline inside/out, they are much more productive.
When Sales Management provides these tools, training, and techniques, salespeople are inspired to know the value of their pipeline and work harder every day/week to monetize it.
©2024 Jeffrey P. Bosworth (.com)
