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How Technology Helps you Manage the Sales Pipeline
Home » AI for Sales » How Technology Helps you Manage the Sales Pipeline
Couple questions here – are your sales stagnating?
If yes, then you’re probably looking for new ways to improve your sales performance. Perhaps the answer could be in your sales pipeline. Research shows that top performing companies and sales teams do extremely well when it comes to managing their pipeline. However, over 60% of sales teams say their companies are doing a bad job of managing the sales pipeline.
So, how do you improve your pipeline and sales processes as well?
If you want to grow your business, a healthy pipeline will be essential. Leads flow more smoothly and consistently when the pipeline is managed properly and supported by all the right tools.
However, manage it poorly and you’re looking at stuck leads and conversion drops.
The technology available today allow sales teams to maintain a healthy pipeline and continually move leads on to the conversion stage. Your company can also grow at a steady rate by following sales pipeline management best practices and making use of the worlds best CRM software.
But first…
What is a Sales Pipeline?
The proper definition for sales pipeline is the visualization of the volume and flow of a company’s revenue opportunity in a given period.
It is actually the visual snapshot of where a prospect is in the sales process. The pipeline shows how many deals salespeople are expected to close in a given week, month or year as well as how close a particular rep is to hitting their sales quota.
For instance, you could have a pipeline worth a million dollars in contract value. But since your conversion rate from leads to sales is 10%, then you can expect to close only $100,000 worth of new business.
For B2B sales in particular, a healthy pipeline comes with a lot of benefits. Companies can improve their sales process, analyze different sale strategies and forecast future business results. It will also help you review your progress for the current financial year and know exactly how far you are from your targets.
Without further ado, let’s look at how different technologies can help you manage your pipeline.
1: Cloud Computing for Improved Collaboration
With cloud technologies, your sales teams could become far more agile and improve their effectiveness. There’s added interoperability, work flexibility and collaboration among all members of the sales teams when data is stored on cloud servers.
Storing data on the cloud is also a cost effective option that improves scalability while also safeguarding your data. And in these tough times, it also opens up avenues for working remotely so sales teams can concentrate on closing deals and boosting lead conversions.
2: Automation
A sales rep’s effectiveness can be measured by the time they spend doing actual sales. So if you can save on time spent doing repetitive tasks, then your reps will be able to focus on a singular goal of selling and closing deals more effectively.
This is where automation comes to the rescue. Great sales CRM software has automating functions that schedule follow up emails to leads overtime.
The message can be customized to suit individual preferences and ensure the follow up is effective. Similarly, you can utilize templates to cut down decision making when sending emails
No more typing out repetitive messages and copy pasting the same dialogue over and over. And it’s not just emails that can be automated. You can also send out voicemails to prospects and clients with voicemail automation software. Companies can also employ a sales automation tool to optimize the sales funnels for a boost in conversion rates.
3: Predictive Analytics for Pipeline Forecasting and Management
For all companies, meeting existing sales targets and forecasting sales and revenue is crucial to organizational success.
Predictive analytics employs techniques such as data mining, machine learning, modeling, big data as well as AI to analyze current sales and make reliable predictions for the future. Of course, this will involve discerning patterns from the transactional data already collected via your CRM. And then using it to identify future risks and opportunities.
Predictive analytics leverages algorithms that take into account all factors that could impact a customer’s decision to purchase. These predictive models take into account different factors such as average deal size, time in stage, current sales pipeline, and past rep performance when mapping historical data.
This will help unearth buyer signals in customer behaviors. Your sales teams can therefore connect with the right prospects, at the right time and pitch them relevant products directly leading to a sale.
4: Artificial Intelligence in Sales
Sales AI has the potential to become a sales rep’s best friend – one who is present every stem of the way from the first contact to close of deal. AI powered applications that work on machine learning and natural language processing are soon going to be a must have for serious sales teams.
In just a few years, AI based sales assistants such as Veloxy will be used for voice to text data entry thus saving reps valuable time crunching numbers with CRM and manually updating the pipeline.
Artificial Intelligence powered assistants could also help your teams make data backed decisions and improve business predictions. All while helping build products for upselling and cross selling by providing your teams with relevant recommendations.
Conclusion
Technology has really come a long way in transforming our lives. From sending out handwritten letters to instantaneous email, these emerging technologies are the driving force that can result in closing more deals. If you’re looking to reap all the benefits above, make sure you get Veloxy.
Veloxy allows your reps to focus on sales activities while it does all the heavy Salesforce lifting. With Veloxy, you get a lot of automation benefits – especially when it comes to sending out emails. And lastly, Veloxy also offers AI powered analytics so that you and shrink your sales cycle and close deals faster.
Get Veloxy today and stay on top of all aspects of your sales pipeline.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sauvik Sarkar
Sales AI is transforming selling activities for companies of all sizes, and one of the leaders in this movement is Sauvik Sarkar. While artificial intelligence can be intimidating to most, Sauvik helps improve adoption with one-on-one training, insightful blog articles, and more.
Couple questions here – are your sales stagnating?
If yes, then you’re probably looking for new ways to improve your sales performance. Perhaps the answer could be in your sales pipeline. Research shows that top performing companies and sales teams do extremely well when it comes to managing their pipeline. However, over 60% of sales teams say their companies are doing a bad job of managing the sales pipeline.
So, how do you improve your pipeline and sales processes as well?
If you want to grow your business, a healthy pipeline will be essential. Leads flow more smoothly and consistently when the pipeline is managed properly and supported by all the right tools.
However, manage it poorly and you’re looking at stuck leads and conversion drops.
The technology available today allow sales teams to maintain a healthy pipeline and continually move leads on to the conversion stage. Your company can also grow at a steady rate by following sales pipeline management best practices and making use of the worlds best CRM software.
But first…
What is a Sales Pipeline?
The proper definition for sales pipeline is the visualization of the volume and flow of a company’s revenue opportunity in a given period.
It is actually the visual snapshot of where a prospect is in the sales process. The pipeline shows how many deals salespeople are expected to close in a given week, month or year as well as how close a particular rep is to hitting their sales quota.
For instance, you could have a pipeline worth a million dollars in contract value. But since your conversion rate from leads to sales is 10%, then you can expect to close only $100,000 worth of new business.
For B2B sales in particular, a healthy pipeline comes with a lot of benefits. Companies can improve their sales process, analyze different sale strategies and forecast future business results. It will also help you review your progress for the current financial year and know exactly how far you are from your targets.
Without further ado, let’s look at how different technologies can help you manage your pipeline.
1: Cloud Computing for Improved Collaboration
With cloud technologies, your sales teams could become far more agile and improve their effectiveness. There’s added interoperability, work flexibility and collaboration among all members of the sales teams when data is stored on cloud servers.
Storing data on the cloud is also a cost effective option that improves scalability while also safeguarding your data. And in these tough times, it also opens up avenues for working remotely so sales teams can concentrate on closing deals and boosting lead conversions.
2: Automation
A sales rep’s effectiveness can be measured by the time they spend doing actual sales. So if you can save on time spent doing repetitive tasks, then your reps will be able to focus on a singular goal of selling and closing deals more effectively.
This is where automation comes to the rescue. Great sales CRM software has automating functions that schedule follow up emails to leads overtime.
The message can be customized to suit individual preferences and ensure the follow up is effective. Similarly, you can utilize templates to cut down decision making when sending emails
No more typing out repetitive messages and copy pasting the same dialogue over and over. And it’s not just emails that can be automated. You can also send out voicemails to prospects and clients with voicemail automation software. Companies can also employ a sales automation tool to optimize the sales funnels for a boost in conversion rates.
3: Predictive Analytics for Pipeline Forecasting and Management
For all companies, meeting existing sales targets and forecasting sales and revenue is crucial to organizational success.
Predictive analytics employs techniques such as data mining, machine learning, modeling, big data as well as AI to analyze current sales and make reliable predictions for the future. Of course, this will involve discerning patterns from the transactional data already collected via your CRM. And then using it to identify future risks and opportunities.
Predictive analytics leverages algorithms that take into account all factors that could impact a customer’s decision to purchase. These predictive models take into account different factors such as average deal size, time in stage, current sales pipeline, and past rep performance when mapping historical data.
This will help unearth buyer signals in customer behaviors. Your sales teams can therefore connect with the right prospects, at the right time and pitch them relevant products directly leading to a sale.
4: Artificial Intelligence in Sales
Sales AI has the potential to become a sales rep’s best friend – one who is present every stem of the way from the first contact to close of deal. AI powered applications that work on machine learning and natural language processing are soon going to be a must have for serious sales teams.
In just a few years, AI based sales assistants such as Veloxy will be used for voice to text data entry thus saving reps valuable time crunching numbers with CRM and manually updating the pipeline.
Artificial Intelligence powered assistants could also help your teams make data backed decisions and improve business predictions. All while helping build products for upselling and cross selling by providing your teams with relevant recommendations.
Conclusion
Technology has really come a long way in transforming our lives. From sending out handwritten letters to instantaneous email, these emerging technologies are the driving force that can result in closing more deals. If you’re looking to reap all the benefits above, make sure you get Veloxy.
Veloxy allows your reps to focus on sales activities while it does all the heavy Salesforce lifting. With Veloxy, you get a lot of automation benefits – especially when it comes to sending out emails. And lastly, Veloxy also offers AI powered analytics so that you and shrink your sales cycle and close deals faster.
Get Veloxy today and stay on top of all aspects of your sales pipeline.