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No matter the week, month, or quarter—if you’re a sales leader, you’re tasked (and challenged) with the need to call your number. No matter how many times you qualify an opportunity with your reps, deals slip. It’s inevitable and all part of the game we willingly participate in. But, does it have to be?
The answer: Not anymore! Gaining visibility into your sales team's pipeline health is not only possible but critical to ensuring deal health and improving forecast predictability. Let’s discuss how to understand the health of the opportunities in your pipeline and equip you with the tools to make informed, data-driven decisions.
Operationalize Your Sales Motion & Methodology
You’ve hired a team of talented sales reps and implemented a new sales methodology. Now what? Traditionally, you hold training sessions to teach your sales reps how to execute your sales motion and implement your methodology. But, as we all know, training alone isn't enough. In fact, 90% of all sales training has no lasting impact on professional behavior. Top performing companies practice through role-play an average of four times a year because it’s so easy for reps to fall back into their 'old ways' (we’re all creatures of habit, right?). So, you need a process in place to ensure your sales reps continue to leverage and adhere to their new learnings. Oh, and that process should be where your sales team already lives and breathes (no one needs another tool).
The answer? A digital playbook and opportunity scorecard that lives right in your CRM. Think of them as a step-by-step guide specific to your sales motion and a dynamic, methodology-specific scorecard that helps reps properly qualify their opportunities. The result? An easily implementable sales motion and methodology, complete visibility for the extended GTM team, and an increase in the adoption and adherence to your new process or methodology. All of this combines to help your team close deals quicker.
Validate Pipeline and Improve Forecast Accuracy
For decades, we've heard that 'sales is a numbers game.' Whether you believe this phrase or not, it doesn't change the fact that sales leaders are tasked with calling a number each week, month, and quarter. For many leaders, this act of calling your number does, in fact, feel like a game. It’s like a coin toss with questionable odds, but the stakes are higher because revenue (and jobs) are on the table.
With your sales motion and methodology operationalized in CRM, you've already increased your visibility into your open pipeline and improved your odds of properly qualifying opportunities. Now, let's up the ante. To further improve your forecast accuracy, you need to call your number based on more than reps' stories (i.e., feelings). You need cold hard facts! For this, sales leaders should turn to prospect engagement data to support their reps' claims.
- Do they have low or high engagement?
- Have you engaged your key buyer personas, historically known to close deals?
- Do you have executive engagement?
This type of data—alongside your methodology-specific scorecard score—empowers sales leaders to confidently call their number, removing the game of chance.
Coach With Facts, Not Feelings
No matter how many years you’ve been in the sales game, it’s easy to get attached and emotionally invested in deals. If we didn't, we wouldn't be human, and this game probably wouldn't be for us. (The whales are worth the chase, am I right?)
However, when it comes to coaching, you can't lead with feelings alone. You need facts to support those feelings. Sales leaders can use opportunity scorecards to gain visibility into the success of their sales motion and methodology. And through unlocking engagement data, they can successfully coach sellers on active opportunities. Plus, they can do this from a single view, directly in CRM—day or night.
The real benefit? With accurate data at your fingertips, you now have the ability to rescue at-risk revenue (before it’s too late). This empowers you to be the strategic sales leader you've dreamt of—one who makes an impact on their team, their deals, the business (and makes money while doing it).
Join The Ranks
Are you ready to operationalize and improve your sales methodology while eliminating gut feelings from your forecasts? The sales landscape is evolving, often beyond our control, but you have the opportunity to approach things differently. Join the ranks of empowered sales leaders who use People.ai to embrace data-backed decision-making and stop leaving your success to chance.
Intrigued? Get a demo today.