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Achieve your Sales Targets with your Sales Pipeline
Being aware of and managing the amount in your sales pipeline each week, fortnight or month can have the single biggest impact to achieving your sales consistently from month to month and quarter to quarter. It is an important forecasting tool that all businesses should use even if they don’t have salespeople, as it clearly shows how many sales to expect and when to expect them.
Boost your Sales through Reinvention
Is it just me or is 2009 going to be the biggest and best year yet? Despite what is being reporting in the media and what we are seeing overseas, many of the people that I’ve spoken to recently are extremely motivated and confident that 2009 is going to be their best year yet (including me). So if 2009 is going to be your best year yet, now is the perfect time to sit down and work out what you want to achieve and what you need to do to make this happen.

Build your Sales Pipeline and Boost Your Prospect Numbers
Do you get frustrated constantly searching for prospects and contact information? The traditional methods of building a list of people that you can market and sell to such as purchasing databases, driving around business parks and noting the tenants of buildings that you walk past are great, and they do work, however, they are costly and time consuming.
Business Networking Tips
Networking has been good to me over the years. Apart from referrals, it has been the single most successful way of generating new business and building my professional network. It must be the salesperson in me, but there is nothing more rewarding than meeting and connecting with new people who end up as friends, associates or clients.

Consultative Needs Based Selling Approach
Looking at your business from a sales perspective and most importantly understanding your business from a client perspective, is one of the most important first steps in sales. Most people hate being sold to but love the feeling of buying; so the clearer you can explain how your business helps and "what is in it for them" the easier it makes prospective customers to make a buying decision. The consultative/problem solver approach qualifies and listens to the customer and helps them to buy what they need. The consultative approach focuses on the needs of the customer and how you improve or benefit them in some way.
How can I increase the number of Referrals I receive?
I’m sure most of you would agree that selling to someone who has been referred to you is much easier and more enjoyable than those generated through traditional sales efforts such as direct mail and cold calling. The success rate is higher because they are in the market for your services and are also much less price sensitive because the referring party has told them the value and benefits that you can deliver.
How can I make cold calling easier?
Lately I have been working with a number of sales teams to help them increase the success of their cold calling and I thought I would share with you some of my tips for success:
How can you find the best of the best in sales?
Many people believe great sales-people are born, not made but I disagree because sales is a process that can be taught to anyone and it is simply how the process is applied that separates good from great. Success in sales comes from skill development, attitude, confidence and behaviour.

How to avoid being a pest in your sales follow up
Did you know that one of the biggest gripes against salespeople by decision makers is the lack of follow up? Many people resist following up because they find it uncomfortable and don’t want to seem pushy or annoying and many people don’t follow up because they simply forget. This lack of follow-up presents a great opportunity for those who are organized and take the time to do it.
Overcoming Sales Objections
Objections are simply reasons or concerns that a prospective client has as to why they won't make a decision when you want them to. You will hear statements such as:

Quick Prospecting Tools
Do you get frustrated constantly sourcing new sales and contact information?
Sales Tips to give your sales a boost in 2010
customers, the same results can be achieved. Besides, you can find new customers from referrals within your existing client base. Here is a couple of quick tips to help you build your revenue in 2010.
Quick Tips to Presenting Proposals
These quick tips will help to reduce some of the 'discomfort' that can be associated when presenting your pricing options
SALES TIPS AND TRICKS
Want to increase sales but don’t have the sales skills or worried you will come across as an aggressive, pushy sales person? The key to developing confidence in sales is by being flexible and open-minded about trying something new!
Sales Tips for Selling in a challenging economy
It’s difficult to ignore the news of the financial crisis that is occurring around the world and the fear and uncertainty that it is creating. Here in Australia many companies have been tightening their budgets and reducing their spending over recent months and it looks like it’s going to continue. So what does this mean for those of us running businesses or working in sales?
Sales Tips for the First Appointment
“It’s all about planning and preparation” It’s amazing how many sales people and business owners I talk to who under-estimate the value and importance of planning and preparing for a first appointment.

Smooth Sailing or Storms Ahead ? How to use the Sales Pipeline to predict your future
A sales pipeline is simply a forecast that you or your salespeople prepare monthly which lists the customers that are likely to buy in a given time frame, the value of the sale and when it is likely to close. It is an essential tool for business owners and sales managers to identify where you are and where you need to be in order to meet budget.
The Top Sixteen Lies of CEOs
At the suggestion of, and with the help of, Glenn Kelman, here are more lies. These are the lies of CEOs running a companies that are beyond the startup phase. Startup phase lies you’ve read here before.
How to Tell If Your CEO Is Clueless
Pontificating, theorizing, and terrorizing abounds these days in tech startups. Here is a simple test to help you figure out if the startup you work for is in trouble. All you have to do is listen to your CEO talk to people for a week and determine if she uses these lines.
Is your sales effort built on a house of cards?
Is your sales strategy and projected sales growth built on a house of cards? For many start-ups this is the case. Their initial sales growth often comes off the back of an entrepreneur’s ideas and the hard work of a dedicated few who pitch in, take on multiple roles and tasks all the while promoting and selling the idea to more and more people. This works well in the early days where the team is small, communication channels are direct, everyone knows what is going on and is committed to the fledgling business’ success. There’s lots of activity, lots of fun, lots of sleepless nights and a growing sales pipeline. The business has a life of its own until one day the owners/ directors realise that if they are to grow further they need more people...

Face-Time or Phone-Time To Fill Your Sales Pipeline?
Have you noticed that the higher up people move in their organizations or the longer someone has been in a sales role, whether it be in professional services or a traditional sales role, the farther away they move from the daily regimen of outbound prospecting calls to schedule appointments to increase their sales pipeline?
Tale of Two Clients - Sales Training! :) versus Saaaales Training (:
Here's an interesting comparison for you. Two client companies are on the exact same sales development time line. (Same time line but separate from each other - they don't even know about each other) Both of their sales forces went through sales force evaluations at the exact same time. Both of their sales management teams were developed at the same time. Both of their sales organizations received sales infrastructure help (sales process, sales pipeline, metrics, sales recruiting process, etc).
Tale of Two Clients - Sales Training :) vs. SAAAALES TRAINING :(
You've heard it before. It flows down hill. Your organization can only be as effective as the weakest leadership link. When it comes to a sales development initiative, you must start out committed and remain committed to drive the process until the change you demand has been accomplished. Anything short of that is a formula for failure.
How to fill your pipeline pre- and post-sale? Thought leadership is the answer
Filling the sales pipeline is one of the most talked about aspects of marketing and sales. In this article I challenge conventional thinking about how to fill the pipeline and advocate that in fact thought leaderhip is one of the most effective ways to do so.
Recruiting Strong Salespeople - The Sales Candidate Pipeline
Recruiting Salespeople - again? Yes. I cannot write enough about this! But, as usual, I'll address recruiting from a slightly different perspective this time - the candidate pipeline. Not to be confused with the candidate pool which is simply a single component of the pipeline. Your sales pipeline should have four stages:

What are Reasonable Sales Management Expectations?
I am often asked which of the various services we provide to companies can be done in-house, by the executive team. Fair question. Answer: All of them. So why would companies use us or others with our expertise? Answer: Because when they try to do it in-house they aren't able to get most of it right:
2nd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
What exactly is a case of Happy Ears? A salesperson has Happy Ears when she hears what she wants to hear. Example: Your salesperson asks her prospect about the budget and the prospect says, "we'll try to find the money". Your salesperson hears, "We have the money, and we will spend the money, and there isn't a limit."
5 Steps to Coaching Your Salespeople Beyond Happy Ears
Following are my thoughts about how you, the leader of your salespeople, can help them overcome Happy Ears. Slip into these five roles to help them be more realistic about and more comprehensive with their opportunities.
My Pipeline is full, but the deals aren't closing!
Salespeople that spend large chunks of valuable time and energy attending multiple pre-sales meetings, conducting 'needless' needs analysis and writing proposals at the customer's request, are more often than not left scratching their heads in a state of ambiguity and confusion.
10 Steps to Record Breaking Revenue
When things loosen up (and things will loosen up) and companies and consumers both begin spending money again, you could be in for a significant windfall. You may even have some record breaking revenue months if, and it's a big if, you have your sales force doing all of the right things, even while companies and consumers aren't spending money. Here are ten requirements for having and continuing to have record-breaking months in the not-too-distant future:
20 Marketing Steps to a Sale
How and why marketing is a multiple step process to producing sales

Managing Sales Reps with "Attitude Problems"
Their production bounces around. They can be a sales superstar in the first quarter and be a struggling performer in the second quarter. Which extreme is the real rep? It's your job to manager them, where do you start?
8 Steps to Reach Your Sales Goals
The end of one year and beginning of a new one is a great opportunity to examine your successes from the previous year, determine what you want to replicate, what you want to change and then set some goals for the new one. Because setting attainable sales goals can be a lot trickier, and more stressful, then people tend to think, I'd like to offer a step-by-step guide to help you set and reach your yearly target.

THE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR SALES PIPELINE BUT CRM CANT TELL YOU
Why do only 1 in 5 companies state that they are seeing revenue increases after implementing a CRM application ? Why are they not seeing the sales productivity gains they expected? And why do they still get surprised at the end of the quarter? Why is it that they still don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to the health of their sales pipeline and forecast? The main reason is that though you may think you’ve implemented a full CRM solution, you’ve really only implemented half of a total solution.

Invest in your Future; Practice Prospecting
View prospecting as an integral part of your sales pipeline. Prospecting is not something you do when you have time, or something that you rely on others to do, but a routine first step down the road to a sale. Accept that you have to turn over a lot of rocks to find the goodies, and just take one suspect at a time.

9 Ways Social Media Can Expand Your Online Marketing
When every news report warns of global doom and gloom, the business owner’s first instinct is to cut all extraneous costs. You run your production team lean, run your sales force lean, and everything else goes into the deep freeze. Too many people see marketing as something irrelevant, as vague feel-good fluff that neither makes the product nor closes the sale. That’s crazy talk. We’ve come up with ideas for marketing yourself through the latest social media and the old-fashioned general Internet...
Sales Training – How Top Salespeople Can Stuff Their Sales Funnel
Stuffing a turkey is optional; you can always cook stuffing on the side. Stuffing a sales professional’s sales pipeline is mandatory. Let’s look at the sales pipeline process.
Improve Sales Performance with More Effective Pipeline Management
I have written extensively about the sales pipeline. Here are a few examples:
Sales Training – ‘Gunk’ Threat to Salespeople
As with cars, salespeople (even some of the best), are affected by ‘gunk.’ Gunk generally refers to all that nasty stuff that over time collects in car parts if you don’t change your car oil regularly. What you do over time affects your everyday marketing and sales results, and even top salespeople may want to ‘degunk’ their processes from time to time.
Sales Training – Top Salespeople Constantly Fill the Sales Pipeline
Reaching end of the year goals is similar to reaching the end of month goals: you need a strategy that gets results quickly and also continues to fill your sales pipeline all year round.

Referral Based Selling
Did you know that: • 40% of sales people are failing in their sales careers? • 45% of all sales people earn the average income for their industry? • A typical sales person devotes only 10-20% of their time to actual selling because a large proportion of their available time is devoted to cold calling? • 85% of all sales people do not generate enough quality referrals? • Sales people who actively seek and exploit referrals earn 4 to 5 times more than sales people who don’t? • Referral business closes and converts more than 70 percent of the time?

4th Quarter: Selling in the Profit Zone
Where's the profit zone? Your company has covered its fixed costs for the year and is now selling in the profit zone! Yet company planning, personnel decisions and holidays monopolize the last 65 selling days of the year. The focus should be on realizing your true revenue potential in the last quarter of this year. This is where the profit gold lies.

Flush the Ambiguity out of your Sales Pipeline
Truth or Fiction! Do you feel this is the guessing game you are playing when assessing the potential and probability of your sales pipeline? Uncertainty over new business opportunities is a big issue. Often times it is a result of having a subjective, non-scientific approach to predicting potential and probability of revenue opportunities.

Questions Every CEO Should Be Asking His Sales Managers
High impact sales questions for CEOs
The Sales Pipeline
Maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is the key to consistent and predictable sales performance. Everybody feels better when there are enough qualified opportunities "in the works" to forecast strong sales in the future. The best way to ensure an increase in future revenue is to focus on building your sales pipeline today.
Sales Process
Why Your Business Needs a Sales Process A great sales process can help your sales force succeed. The benefits of a sales process
Why Should I Buy From You
A seemingly simple question can often be the most difficult to answer when it comes to sales. Learn three proven sales tools to add to your repertoire when asked, "Why should I buy from you?"
6 Steps to More Sales
Entrepreneurs are often sales challenged. Here is a sales system for entrepreneurs that actually works. Learn how to replicate sales without being directly involved through the development of a sales system.
Consultative Selling Won't Fill Your Pipeline
This Consultative Selling article explains the role of this sales method in pipeline management.

Other sales pipeline Related Articles

RoP Return on Prospecting inventing a better mousetrap
The majority of sales teams we consult are still forced to cold-call and produce quantity in an attempt to fill the funnel of the pipeline. The definition of “cover” was some mythical rule-of-thumb like 3:1 meaning 3 times value in pipeline to cover target. Little regard was given to sales “cycle time” or time left in financial year – the mantra 3:1 became a KPI and we’ve seen salespeople fired for not driving pipeline! How silly can that be? Quality prospects which meet our engagement criteria and a 1:1 win ration means we don’t add lost cost-of-sale to the cost of those we win. We’ve seen sale teams DOUBLE their attributed product profit margin by changing the way they prospect and engage. Register to download this FREE white paper on the new trend to limit cold-calling and how to utilise the salespeople’s freed up time to SELL!
The Sales Pipeline
Maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is the key to consistent and predictable sales performance. Everybody feels better when there are enough qualified opportunities "in the works" to forecast strong sales in the future. The best way to ensure an increase in future revenue is to focus on building your sales pipeline today.
Sales Training – How Top Salespeople Can Stuff Their Sales Funnel
Stuffing a turkey is optional; you can always cook stuffing on the side. Stuffing a sales professional’s sales pipeline is mandatory. Let’s look at the sales pipeline process.
Face Off: Value Propositions vs. Sales Messaging - Why Your Value Prop Is Losing and What to Do About It
This article debunks the myth of the value proposition as a magic bullet for sales. You'll learn why most value propositions are more like blank or copper bullets and how to provide your sales team with the silver bullets they need to grow your sales pipeline and win more business.

Prospecting Improves Morale & Is The Key to Increasing Sales - Find Out the Success Formula
[Business:Sales] Prospecting needs to be part of the entire sales process not just when a sales persons calendar is filled to the brim with appointments. The reason is when the pipeline of appointments dry up the sales person will feel low and morale will suffer for them and those around them. When morale is low theirs one place to look for the culprit and that is the prospecting pipeline. This will be one of the major clues that will determine why morale is low or high. Find out what the SUCCESS FORMULA IS TO INCREASED SALES & INCREASED MORALE...
3 Steps to Filling Your Pipeline with Eager Clients and Customers
If your primary source of business revenue is selling services, there is no worse feeling than having an empty pipeline. So how do you keep a full pipeline with eager clients and customers? Let me share 3 tips to get you started.
Recruiting Strong Salespeople - The Sales Candidate Pipeline
Recruiting Salespeople - again? Yes. I cannot write enough about this! But, as usual, I'll address recruiting from a slightly different perspective this time - the candidate pipeline. Not to be confused with the candidate pool which is simply a single component of the pipeline. Your sales pipeline should have four stages:

How to fill your pipeline pre- and post-sale? Thought leadership is the answer
Filling the sales pipeline is one of the most talked about aspects of marketing and sales. In this article I challenge conventional thinking about how to fill the pipeline and advocate that in fact thought leaderhip is one of the most effective ways to do so.
Tale of Two Clients - Sales Training! :) versus Saaaales Training (:
Here's an interesting comparison for you. Two client companies are on the exact same sales development time line. (Same time line but separate from each other - they don't even know about each other) Both of their sales forces went through sales force evaluations at the exact same time. Both of their sales management teams were developed at the same time. Both of their sales organizations received sales infrastructure help (sales process, sales pipeline, metrics, sales recruiting process, etc).
Understand Pipeline Management for Stronger Forecasts
Having clear definitions around your sales, and sales stages help one sell better, organizations plan and use resources more efficiently, and most importantly win more sales and happy customers. Taking the time to define and understand the difference between forecasts, pipeline, prospects and more, pays continuous dividends.
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