Top Challenges That Sales Teams Need To Work Through For Better Pipeline Management

Sales pipeline management keeps track of sales leads that each sales personnel pursues right from their generation to closing. Pipeline management capabilities help businesses run smooth and effortless sales transactions with the least mistakes and zero confusion. For modern-day businesses, managing sales tasks on a spreadsheet become unmanageable when there is a need for larger pipelines and a better pipeline management system needs to come to the rescue. Sales pipeline management is very easy to handle once established. It can give you a detailed account of each sales lead at any stage. Sales targets are efficiently reached, and processes are streamlined for the whole sales team by establishing a thorough sales pipeline.

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Some of the top challenges that sales teams need to avoid in their pipeline management strategies: 

• Running long sales cycles

If your sales cycles are running for longer periods, that is a clear indicator of your failing pipeline management. Too lengthy sales cycles are prone to let out prospects who have been in there for long. Make sure your sales cycles are as short as possible.

• Not setting clear goals

Each sales team should be setting up clear and detailed goals at the beginning of each quarter. In the absence of defined goals, the system fails to understand the requirements and hence provides irrelevant suggestions based on what it understands. To avoid this technical error from the pipeline, setting clear goals is vital.

• Not tracking sales

Tracking sales at each stage in their lifetime is an essential task for every sales team. Not following on the lead until the customer places an order leads you to lose sales. Customers at the end of the sales funnel require more attention than everyone. But tracking customers who need a little push is important.

• Not communicating within the team

Miscommunications or lack of communications within a sales team can lead to tragic losses in sales. Always ensure that each team member is working with the latest information and all the data is uploaded on the latest pipeline status.

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Tools for driving sales pipeline and analytics management

Some of the top tools that will help drive sales pipelines and analytics management:

• MoData

MoData was designed to help B2B sales teams with end-to-end management. The platform collects data from all the interactions between each member of the sales team and the customers. The actionable insights generated by MoData are greatly useful for closing the leads. The pipeline inspection and management tools of MoData are excellent.

• TopOpps

TopOpps stands out as a sales pipeline management tool as it uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) for its operation. This tool encourages the sales team to spend more time on actual sales instead of micromanaging each lead. TopOpps gives out individual performance analyses of each sales representative. This helps in improving their performance and working on their weak links.

• Vortini

Vortini has a similar function to Salesforce. It measures the effectiveness of each sales campaign and gives improvement suggestions. The forecasting feature of this tool is an excellent addition to the package. The opportunity management feature of Vortini identifies and brings in potential leads that sales executives can follow.

• Anaplan

Anaplan is a versatile tool that can manage the sales pipeline and build, optimize, and monitor processes in several areas of a business. The performance tracking and analytics management features are a cherry on the top. Anaplan is quite scalable and can handle data from many users.

• Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the longest-running pipeline management tools. It is customizable as per the user’s requirements. Users can schedule their tasks, personalize email outreach, track detailed activities, track engagement analytics, etc. Salesforce can help users increase conversion rates and sales. Salesforce is best suited for large organizations.

• Pega

Pega is an innovative tool for pipeline management. Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes Pega an attractive tool for many businesses. The customer activity-tracking feature of this tool is very thorough and gives deeper insights capable of driving sales. It can integrate your calendar with your email to not miss out on any sales opportunities.

• Kluster

Kluster tracks real-time data and provides sales intelligence to manage the sales pipelines. It is a data-driven tool. The revenue operations of this tool and an amazing uplifter for the sales operations. The forecasting feature provides deep insights. It provides coaching to all its users to give their best performance.

Sales pipeline management is a continuous process. You should constantly update the system and adapt to it to bring out the best performance from your team. Setting up a sales pipeline strategy is a tremendous task, and it requires proper training. Make sure you know what you are doing; otherwise, you will end up making huge losses for yourself.

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