The modern buyer has wreaked havoc on the B2B sales function, as has every other part of twenty-first-century business. By nature, salespeople are highly competitive and expect to deliver daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.
So why is the level of rigour and planning that goes into sales improvements woefully inadequate compared with the rest of the business? How can you build a profitable business if it costs you more to get a customer than the money you earn from selling your products?
Even by a small margin, improving sales performance can significantly impact.
Without sales, you have no customers. Without customers, you have no business.
Your business sales operations and underlying model must sync with the customers you wish to serve.
Despite all the new capabilities at the fingertips of sales (social selling, Salesforce, LinkedIn, marketing automation), salespeople still struggle to ‘hit quota’. So, moving middle-performing sales professionals even 2-5% higher in quota attainment can have a massive impact. Optimising the pipeline to win more maximises a sales team’s performance by improving how the complete set of available resources are deployed – systems, processes, people, technology and capital.
The ultimate aim is to engage the right prospects, close the sale, and monetise that customer relationship indefinitely. Current sales practices, processes and organisational structure may hinder growth more than any other external factor.
Forty-four per cent of sales organisations list ‘optimising sales’ as a top sales objective; guiding potential customers through the buying process is critical to optimising the sales funnel and requires an aligned marketing strategy.
The goal is to simulate thinking about what you have at your current disposal and deliver them as a critical ‘sequence’ play. Prioritise your sales team’s efficiency to speed up the short- and long-term sales cycle.
Sales funnel optimisation focuses on the various phases of the sales cycle. Instead of focusing on one-dimensional goals, optimised teams continually strive to maximise performance across multiple metrics and time scales. By working together, the marketing team can deliver the right content and qualified leads to enable the sales team to retain and win more customers.
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