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Sales teams are always looking for ways to improve their processes and better service the client. This article lists nine steps that you can take in order to make your sales team more successful with a greater chance at closing deals, building trust, and ultimately earning revenues!
The “salesforce pipeline stages” is a technique that every sales team should create. It will help them to be more efficient in their work.
The phases of a sales pipeline define the internal processes required to take a prospect from first contact to purchase of your goods or services. Every sales team should have nine steps in their sales pipeline, including prospecting, lead qualifying, and product delivery, all of which can be managed using CRM software.
The phases of your company’s sales pipeline should correspond to the stages of the customer’s journey, often known as the sales funnel. To put it another way, the internal duties you develop for your sales funnel should also serve as a foundation for discovering new leads and ensuring prospects have a better understanding of your brand and services.
1. Prospective Analysis
This is the first step of the sales funnel, when you undertake research to identify prospective customers for your goods or services. Depending on the size of the firm and the sector you’re targeting, the research stage should give a list with all of the contact names for the company leads you want to sell to. This may be accomplished by creating buyer personas and ideal customer types before to or concurrently with your study.
The majority of research can be done on the internet. Lead lists are available from data businesses, and lead generating services such as UpLead can generate a list of prospective consumers to sell your company to. To have the greatest possibility of going through to the following sales phases, as much research as possible should be done prior to interacting with a lead.
Lead list software from UpLead (Source: UpLead)
2. Obtaining Leads from the Internet
Some companies choose to create B2B leads online by luring prospects with search-engine optimized content or online advertising, and then persuading interested leads to fill out web forms through an online advertisement, corporate website, or social media profile.
To drive visitors to your company’s website, you’ll need to use strategies like search engine marketing (e.g., paid advertising via AdWords) and search engine optimization (SEO). However, if you succeed, you will be able to bypass some of the other steps of the sales funnel described below.
Your web leads are instantly exported into a customer relationship management (CRM) system through integrations, making this stage’s workflow even simpler. Many CRMs use Zapier to make it simple to build up automated processes. For example, your company may use this interface to connect web forms to your email tools, and when a form is submitted, immediately send a promotional email or add the contact to an email drip campaign.
Automation trigger page for Zapier and Mailchimp (Source: Fulcrum Dynamic)
3. Introducing Products & Services
The first introduction of your company’s goods or services may be done on a large scale via advertising or marketing, or it can be done on a more intimate level through cold calling and introduction emails. A convincing elevator pitch, which is a rapid description of your products aimed to pique attention, is typically required when cold phoning or sending introductory emails.
The goal of the elevator pitch isn’t to complete the deal, but rather to advance the lead to the next level of the sales funnel and see if they’re interested in continuing the conversation. It’s also worth noting that the first introduction may take a few tries, particularly if you couldn’t get in touch with the contact, so being constant with your follow-up is crucial. Other non-traditional means of contacting prospects, such as LinkedIn message or direct mail, may be required.
4. Qualification of the Lead
Lead qualification is the step in the sales funnel when you assess whether or not a prospect is interested in your goods or services, and if so, to what extent. If they suggest they’d want further information, you may analyze this while on the phone with them during your introduction conversation. It may also be determined if the lead agrees to meet with you to learn more.
Lead scoring is a method of determining the quality of your sales leads by providing a score to each one based on characteristics including emails opened, past communications, website page views, content interactions, and if they’ve shown explicit interest. CRMs, such as Zoho CRM, may automatically score prospects, enabling sales professionals to prioritize leads that are ready to purchase or advance to the next step of the sales funnel.
Lead scoring in Zoho CRM (Source: Zoho)
Because the lead has already indicated interest in the referral source, generating referrals is an effective sales management approach and one way to jump straight to the qualifying leads stage. Leads acquired via adverts or content marketing might potentially skip this phase since they are effectively qualifying themselves by filling a web form online or through social media, demonstrating their interest.
5. Lead Nurturing
The next level of the sales funnel is lead nurturing. This component of your sales strategy is following up with the prospect and reminding them of what you have to offer. The main goal is to strengthen the relationship with the potential customer, so whether you’re in the introduction stage of the sales pipeline, giving a sales presentation, sending a proposal, or even closing a deal, staying in touch with prospects to nurture them to the next stage is critical to your success.
Setting up drip campaigns to deliver emails to prospects in a series or depending on their actions are examples of lead nurturing, as are sales professionals regularly reaching out by phone or email. Existing customers may benefit from these nurturing techniques as well, by maintaining in contact with them for possible product updates and resale possibilities.
Delivering Sales Presentations is No. 6 on the list.
Demonstrating a product or service, providing a free trial, showing numerous ways your company might assist the prospective customer—or all of these—are all examples of how to do a sales presentation. During an introductory call and after the lead has showed interest, a less formal sales presentation might be provided. Drip email campaigns and touch-base lead nurturing emails are often used to make virtual sales presentations.
The following are some examples of probable outcomes from a sales presentation:
- The lead agrees to conduct business and requests any proposals, contracts, or onboarding materials required to clinch the sale.
- A formal quotation or proposal is necessary if the client loves what your company has to offer and wants to study it before making a final choice.
- More data is required: Before seeking a formal estimate or proposal, or making a final choice, the prospect wants more information or to arrange another meeting.
- Business is lost when the client decides not to proceed based on the presentation.
Do you want to make sure your sales presentations go well? Check out our step-by-step approach to putting together a winning sales proposal.
7. Sending Quotes or Proposals
A business proposal may be as simple as an email to a prospect outlining the price of your goods or services, or as complex as a lengthy proposal or legal contract with the terms and conditions. Regardless of how a proposal is sent, it’s an important step in the B2B sales process; after all, no company would agree to buy anything until they know the price and terms.
8. Term Negotiation
Depending on the magnitude of the purchase, a client may be able to negotiate conditions and pricing throughout this stage of the sales funnel. Because of their size or because your firm is competing with other businesses for a transaction, they may have the capacity to negotiate conditions. Furthermore, if legal issues are involved, the negotiating step might take a lengthy time to complete.
Setting expectations early on about which terms, conditions, and components of the price may be changed and which are fixed in stone is one of the greatest ways to help this process go more smoothly. Negotiations might include a number of parties, including the client, sales team, finance department, and legal department, so make sure everyone is on the same page.
9. Bringing the Deal to a Close
There will very certainly be contracts to sign and onboarding matters to handle once the prospect is ready to go ahead. Invoices are issued and payments are collected at the deal closing step of the sales funnel for certain firms. This might also be the time at which a sales representative introduces the new client to an account executive or customer service manager who will serve as their new point of contact.
After You Close the Deal: Retaining & Selling to Existing Customers
Even though it is the last step of the sales funnel, closing the contract is seldom the end stage of the B2B sales process. Customers are often entrusted with maintaining customers by delivering good service and meeting their product or service demands.
There should also be a strategy in place for ongoing marketing to current clients in order to offer new items or services and/or enhance what they already have. When selling to current consumers, sales strategies such as upselling and cross-selling may be used.
CRMs may help organizations retain existing clients by supporting them in delivering customer service and marketing new items and services to them. Check out our post on CRM customer retention methods for additional information on how to use CRMs for customer retention.
Conclusion
Researching, prospecting, and qualifying prospects who could be a suitable match for your goods and services are the first steps of the sales funnel. These actions continue until the last step of the sales funnel, which involves closing the deal and providing a product or service that fits the demands of your prospect. To guarantee that no transactions slip between the cracks, successful sales teams collaborate to establish collaborative pipeline stages and employ CRM software.
The “saas sales pipeline stages” is a list of 9 pipeline stages that every sales team should create. The nine stages are: qualification, lead generation, opportunity identification, opportunity evaluation, solution design, solution development, proposal preparation, proposal delivery and post-sales support.
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