Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, sales drive your business and your bottom line. And, we all know that time is money when it comes to your sales team and their efforts. Defining and streamlining your sales process is an ongoing challenge and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. However, without a doubt, incorporating automation into your approach lets your sales team focus more on turning leads into clients with personalized touchpoints instead of admin work and paper shuffling.
Inbound marketing and social media marketing both are proven to drive results and increase leads. Yet, not all of those marketing qualified leads (MQLs) may also fall into your definition of a sales qualified lead (SQL). Whether it is a website visitor who filled out a form for a free product or a Facebook in-app lead that doesn’t fit your target audience, you may see lead quality decrease despite the number of leads increasing.
Because of this, it’s even more essential to streamline your sales process to handle the influx of leads and sort through the unqualified leads before your sales team begins their sales process. This is the time to let sales automation come off of the bench and onto the field.
Examine and Define Your Sales Processes and Plan
A sales process refers to a series of repeatable steps a sales team takes to move a prospect from an early-stage lead to a closed customer. A strong sales process helps reps consistently close deals by giving them a framework to follow. Having a sales process allows your team to have a clear understanding and roadmap on how to make the most of your marketing team’s efforts. It also helps new sales reps better understand your sales goals and have them get onboarded faster.
Surprisingly, we come into contact with numerous teams who don’t have an official sales plan, and because of this, they haven’t taken the opportunity to examine their processes to identify weak points or areas that could be made more effective.
As W. Edwards Deming says, “If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, then you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Within your sales process, you’ll want to outline the steps your sales reps need to take from the point a prospect becomes a sales qualified lead to the closing of that lead. In addition, you’ll want to work with your marketing team to make sure you have clearly defined when a prospect moves from a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead.
According to HubSpot, 19% of buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the awareness stage of their buying process, when they’re first learning about the product. 60% want to connect with sales during the consideration stage after they’ve researched the options and come up with a shortlist. 20% want to talk during the decision stage—once they’ve decided which product to buy.
By defining the process, you can more effectively set up the qualifications within your automation system so that you don’t have to move the lead throughout the sales funnel manually.
Eliminate Admin Work by Implementing a Sales Automation Software
According to a Smartsheet report, nearly 40% of workers spend a quarter of their workweek on repetitive tasks. While not everything in the world of sales should be automated due to the higher conversion rates from more personalized touchpoints, administrative tasks can be nearly eliminated by the proper sales automation tool. With sales automation, you can apply more effective strategies, quickly manage your sales pipeline, and simplify processes such as lead gathering and nurturing.
HubSpot Sequences: Sales Automation Tool
With HubSpot’s sales tools, you can prevent prospects from slipping through the cracks from the manual process of moving them through the sales funnel. Not only can you set qualifications so that the prospect automatically moves from a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead when criteria are met, you can also set and track the prospect’s lead score. This allows your team to know when there is a higher probability to close the deal.
You can also create and schedule personalized emails that are automatically sent when the prospect completes certain actions and enters a specific area in the sales funnel. The workflows capability also saves your sales team time when it comes to creating deals and managing bulk data.
ActiveCampaign CRM and Sales Automation
With ActiveCampaign’s sales automation tools, you can keep contacts within your sales funnel instead of being forgotten and left behind. When you can automate contact management, score leads, monitor deals and pipelines, and track tasks, the time sinks disappear. A sales automation CRM keeps your entire sales process moving smoothly.
This CRM tool gives your sales team a central location to search and store all of their sales data. The platform allows you to automatically update lead information, see the actions they’ve taken, and view your entire sales pipeline with lead scoring so you know which leads to focus on at what time. You can find more information on ActiveCampaign’s sales automation tools here.
Get Sales Automation Guidance from Uncommon Marketing Works
You may be thinking that the idea of a sales automation tool seems great, and it’s exactly what your team needs. Maybe they’ve already been complaining about not being able to hit quotas due to the amount of time needed for mundane tasks. This is the opportunity for you to figure out how to streamline your sales process and have your team’s efforts focused on where they need to. However, how are you supposed to know where to start?
Our team of sales automation software experts at Uncommon Marketing Works is here to help. We not only listen to your company’s needs and find the software solution that suits you, but we also help set up and implement your sales automation tool as well. Contact us today for a free 30-minute strategy call so we can begin to save you time and money by streamlining your sales process.
FAQs:
How to Define Your Sales Processes and Plan?
Within your sales process, you’ll want to outline the steps your sales reps need to take from the point a prospect becomes a sales-qualified lead to the closing of that lead. In addition, you’ll want to work with your marketing team to make sure you have clearly defined when a prospect moves from a marketing-qualified lead to a sales-qualified lead.
How Does Automation Eliminate Admin Work?
40% of workers spend a quarter of their workweek on repetitive tasks that can be nearly eliminated by the proper sales automation tool.
What’s the Easiest Way to Set Up Sales Automation?
Our team of sales automation software experts at Uncommon Marketing Works is here to help. We not only listen to your company’s needs and find the software solution that suits you, but we also help set up and implement your sales automation tool as well. Contact us today for a free 30-minute strategy call so we can begin to save you time and money by streamlining your sales process.
