These days, for every organization to manage their sales pipeline is a task to handle as it is getting more longer and challenging day by day. With so much opportunity around and pressure of keeping all sales process in tact, sales employees find it difficult to manage the sales pipeline. A proper sales process involves a constant follow-up of the lead with the objective to close the sale.
Thankfully, automated sales pipeline is there as it makes all sales reps work easy and they can easily take their sales process ahead with the automated technology. With the invention of the internet, even the small organization can connect to the world and can easily sell their product. You can easily find leads, prospects, customers and build a strong relationship with them.
Stages in Sales Pipeline
An automated sales pipeline has different stages which basically drives people from one stage to another. The sales stages must be effectively designed with each stage clearly defined its objective. A sales reps need to determine which prospect qualify to purchase the product and which doesn’t.
To qualify a sales involves three stages:
Stage 1 : Contacting
The first stage involves contacting of leads and finding the right person who could invest in the product and could be a genuine customer. Initial contact is done through marketing, the more you do marketing of your product, the more it gains popularity and through which you can contact your leads. Many of your prospects will be for long term, some need time to invest in your product and searches enough places to assure that the service you are providing is authentic or not.
Stage 2 : Engaging
The person to whom sales reps have contacted should have a liking towards the product and then only he will be engaged to listen to the product description. Engaging your already contacted leads is not a difficult job but you should be clever enough to answer their every query. By having knowledge of your product fully, you will be able to regain them and they will be assured with your service and product too. If they are ready to listen to your product description half of your deal is likely in the right hands.
Stage 3 : Qualified
The last step is to qualify the lead i.e. the sales reps should determine the leads and move further down the sales pipeline. The fully qualified leads need to be understood and nurtured by every sales department in the organization. Those who are able to qualify the prospects are most probably able to close the sales.
How automation improves business productivity?
When you have automated your sales pipeline, you come into the category of reaping benefits and profits. With sales reps working hard on their leads, catching them and working on the opportunities, it becomes difficult that leads will slip away from their hand. Plus, this will also make them work on their leads faster as everything is available easily and they don’t have to find out it elsewhere on emails or any other source.
If you are a business owner, then you should focus on gathering reliable information that will help you in improving your sales process. Being a management yourself focus on bringing everyone equal and not leave a lead at the initial stage of the sales pipeline. For instance, if you see that most of your sales are dropping out after first contact stage then it means there is some problem with your sales pipeline.
By automating your sales pipeline, you will be able to able to build up a relationship with your prospects and will eventually earn money for your business.