Step #3: Proactive B2B Sales Pipeline Management
The ability to be reactive to prospect engagement can be hugely effective in developing a fast-moving relationship. However, it’s key to remember that you cannot rely solely on your prospect’s actions to close a sale – your behavior must drive their actions too.
Learning From Your Successes
Even when your results are on the up, it’s important to continually monitor your B2B sales pipeline velocity and measure how your actions affect the prospects’ decision-making process – and that means metrics
Make a note of the average time your prospects spend on each buying phase. Do you notice anything that changes, increases or decreases each time? What is the probability of a win at each phase and what actions have improved this before? Are you assessing your won and lost sales by industry, company size, and lead source?
By transforming these insights into hard metrics, you’ll have the power to manage your B2B sales pipeline according to actions, rather than hoping for a win. In turn, you’ll be able to evolve your pipeline, shorten sales cycles and increase win rates. Lead Forensics provides the data you need to identify these trends, including your prospects’ business information, size, activity, and lead source.
Don’t forget to share your metrics too – discussing your learnings with colleagues will reinforce your findings or force you to re-evaluate.
Turning The “No Decision” Into Intelligence
Whether it’s “no budget”, “no current need” or a lack of authority, by now you’ll have identified your common objections and have a plan on how you can win them back. But what about the dreaded “no decision”?
According to a CSO Insights research report, sales don’t close 53% of their forecasted deals, a staggering 26% of which were attributed to “no decision”, and in addition, 50% of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are not ready to buy. But “not right now” doesn’t always mean “no”.
It’s easy for prospects to decide not to decide, but whilst winning the deal is sales priority number one, getting to a conclusive “no” fast is crucial to your B2B sales pipeline management.
Remember that feedback is gold dust, and it’s crucial to ask yourself “why did a no decision happen?” to avoid investing your time on non-movers in the future.
TIP: Consider using Lead Forensics to maintain your relationship and be reactive when the prospect re-engages – you might be surprised when a “no decision” prospect comes back to life. The Watch List feature will alert you in real-time when your prospect visits your website, allowing you to make timely contact and ensure they don’t engage with a competitor first.
It Doesn’t Always End With A Sale
We’ve all heard and know that it’s more profitable to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. In fact, it can cost between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer. Maintaining the relationship you nurtured through the sales funnel shouldn’t end once your prospect has committed to a sale. And if you want to lock in their renewal, add an upsell or get them to refer business to you, it’s essential to ensure they continue to feel valued by you.
Remember that the ‘personal touch’ counts, especially when 68% of clients leave because of the treatment they receive. Consider the points through the customer journey you should touch base, keeping in mind their communication preferences. Could you schedule performance reviews? Could you create a reminder of their noteworthy business dates like anniversaries or events they are holding, and send content that would be relevant to them?
An increase of 2% in customer retention is a saving of 10% in costs. So whether you’re renewing, upselling or taking a long-term sales approach, if your client feels valued, your B2B sales pipeline forecast will look much healthier. And timely points of contact could give you an even better chance of selling that extra product.
TIP: Use Lead Forensics to discover when current clients are looking at product pages on your website and take that as your cue to re-engage.
Take a pipeline health check with a free Lead Forensics trial, and you’ll discover just how many new business and upsell opportunities you‘re missing out on.
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