Business would be so much simpler if we could peer into the future. We try to, with forecasting tools, research, and plenty of hard-won experience. But no matter how accomplished we think our forecasting is, in B2B sales it is speculative at best. Some of the ways B2B sales professionals try to make the best choices for the future include reading and understanding last year’s numbers, understanding seasonal trends, learning about new products (their own and competitors’), and then making the most educated conjecture about the right moves to make. It’s even worse to try to assess new business development from scratch.
The “crystal ball” doesn’t always look like you expect it to.
Unfortunately, the metaphorical “crystal ball” requires outstanding organizational and managerial skills, like knowing who to reach out to, who you already reached out to, what was said in the conversation, who you need to send an email to, who should be called today, and importantly, what each lead’s specific need is. It’s not easy. However, new tools make it not only possible– but practical– to build predictable pipeline.
Why Predictability?
The sales go-to-market is the subject of thousands of strategy discussions (and MBA Case Studies). When it comes to selling directly to other businesses— Outbound Sales— there are generally two main challenges and one main outcome sought.
The main challenges are 1) Finding qualified leads, 2) Working those leads effectively through a sales process. The outcome is closed revenue (growth)– but if you can have predictable revenue, it’s better. Here’s why:
1) Planning is efficient.
2) Resources are allocated properly.
3) Investment risk is diminished.
4) Personnel continuity is enhanced.
5) Forecasts are more accurate.
There are literally a dozen reasons beyond these first five why predictability is better. Predictable is defined by synonymous terms like expected, likely, and inevitable. Unpredictability means erratic and dubious. Maybe the simple pleasure of nailing your number as a sales leader is enough. Goodness knows there’s nothing that destroys credibility faster than missing your sales forecasts.
The root of missed forecasts? It’s always gonna start with pipeline. Always.
Building Predictable Pipeline
Making the sales pipeline flow more predictably means consistently opening conversations with the right target prospects. It requires integrating, organizing, and understanding countless activities, like emails, reports, and phone call records. Keeping it all organized and on track is an overwhelming (impossible?) task when you rely on tools like spreadsheets and your email inbox. It would be nice to have an assistant to keep track of all this and let you know what’s on the schedule for today, but most of us don’t have that luxury. Building predictable pipeline, however, can now be done with the right technological tools.
With the right tools, sales professionals can coordinate activities to make the sale pipeline flow more predictably.
It’s a Matter of Orchestrating Activities
An orchestra conductor preparing for a concert has a musical score in front of him that lets him know at any point in the musical piece what the strings are doing, what percussion is doing, and what the first and second woodwinds and brass instruments are doing. Following the score allows the conductor to communicate nonverbally with whichever section needs attention most at any given moment. Is it time to cue the oboe? Does the brass understand how powerful to make the next few measures?
Likewise, building a predictable pipeline requires that the sales professional orchestrate numerous activities so none are forgotten and cues arrive right on time. Relying on a spreadsheet to determine who to email today, who to follow up with, and who is ready to talk can be susceptible to errors, and it’s all too easy to let critical tasks fall by the wayside, even for the most conscientious professionals. You also lose data as you pass leads forward. It’s amazing what gets lost when systems don’t track, can’t connect or otherwise aren’t integrated. Not so with FLOW.
FLOW Makes It Easy to Design Your Process
KiteDesk FLOW offers your sales development representative a single screen that allows him to orchestrate calls, emails, reports, and other communications so that the pipeline becomes increasingly more predictable. When team members can review ideal customer profiles, book meetings and calls on a calendar, receive reminders, explore analytics, and make one-click calls all from a central dashboard, and then feed information to the CRM system, you maximize sales productivity and minimize the chances of forgetting a critical task or not following up when you should.
Collect Analytics and Let Them Tell Their Story
Creating predictable flow in the sales pipeline is also a matter of looking at past history. But simply looking at last quarter’s sales numbers isn’t informative enough. What was your prospect engagement ratio? How many calls and meetings did you attend, and what were the results of them? How many emails were opened, and how many received replies? It’s not easy to collect these figures consistently and make sense of all of them, unless you have the right sales productivity tools. What if your sales productivity tools automatically collected all this information and served it up to you in custom reports that told you exactly what was most important about last quarter’s or last year’s numbers – and what is most important to do right now?
Sales automation is about taking care of the administrative and analytical tasks so that your sales team members can bring their unique expertise and human touch to the sales conversation. KiteDesk FLOW helps you bring your sales stack together, so each professional knows the orchestral “score” at all times, including which sales activities are prioritized.
The Payoffs of Predictable Pipeline
As alluded to earlier, predictable is expected, likely, and inevitable. We love that term at KiteDesk… When something becomes inevitable, it holds a power all it’s own. Think about anything that becomes reliable in business– it provides the foundation for so much else. There’s no reason outbound sales development can’t be the source of powerful predictable pipeline.
We’re excited about KiteDesk FLOW and invite you to request a demo at your convenience. Eliminate the erratic and make the sales pipeline flow as it should.
Photo credit Chris Leggat
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