Pipeline Management Strategy for More Wins

The next four blogs focus on best practices related to sales analytics to support an accurate sales forecast.  The previous four best practice blog series of:  Data Access and Enrichment, Sales Pipeline, Sales Opportunity Management and Sales and Sales Management Process set the foundation for accurate, timely, and relevant sales analytics to support the sales forecast.  This is the fifth category of the blog series “Best Practices for B2B Sales Pipeline and Forecast Management started on January 21st of 2020.  The ultimate goal of the analytics is to provide fact-driven information, interpretation and insights  across the four key sales roles: ...

Xactly and AI forecasting company TopOPPS set a new standard fordata-driven decision making throughout the Revenue lifecycle SAN JOSE, Calif., March 10, 2021 — Today, Xactly, the leader in revenue intelligence solutions, announces the acquisition of TopOPPS, a company focused on artificial intelligence (AI), sales pipeline management and forecasting. With this strategic acquisition, Xactly is expanding beyond Sales Performance Management to deliver a first-of-its-kind, end-to-end platform for Revenue Operations (RevOps). The combination pairs Xactly’s rich empirical data set and purpose-built AI with TopOPPS’ capabilities in one platform to advance the quality and scope of data-driven decision making throughout the revenue lifecycle. By introducing behavioral data driven forecasting and pipeline management, a new standard of intelligence is redefining revenue performance and shattering status quo thinking. ...

This blog focuses on the fourth part of the Sales Management Process, the quarterly business review[QBR].  These meetings are held at the beginning of each quarter and in lieu of the monthly sales strategy meeting discussed in the last blog.  These meetings are an integral part of the sales management cadence described by this blog series..  The QBR meetings are individual presentations by the sales rep.  Each rep is given 30 to 60 minutes to review their performance for the previous quarter and their game plan for the new quarter.  The previous quarter review should include a few opportunity postmortems of both close-won and close-lost opportunities.  The QBR meetings are usually done within the first two weeks of the new quarter and set the stage for hitting the current quarter goals.  ...

This blog focuses on the third part of the Sales Management Process, the monthly strategy review.  These meetings are held on a monthly basis, usually twice a quarter, at the beginning of the months when the quarterly business review[QBR] is not being held.  This is a team call with the sales manager and his/her sales team, plus sales support and marketing.  While it may not be feasible to invite marketing to all the one on one’s and sales forecast calls, they should attend the monthly sales meetings and the QBRs.  This will help align marketing and sales. ...

This blog focuses on the second part of the Sales Management Process, the sales forecast calls.  The last three blogs focused on Sales Coaching and One-on-Ones, the first part of four parts that make up the Sales Management Process.     A Word of Caution Both One-on-Ones and Forecast Calls are weekly meetings, but don’t make your One-on-Ones the forecast call.  One-on-One time is for the sales rep.  This is the sales rep’s  sales development time.  It is your time to help them become  A-players.  The Sales Forecast Call is all  ...

This is a continuation of the previous two blogs on sales rep coaching.  This blog focuses on reviewing the sales rep’s overall performance during a one-on-one.  In a series of weekly one-on-one meetings this topic typically comes up once every four weeks.   ...

This is a continuation of the previous blog on sales rep coaching.  The prior blog reviewed how sales rep coaching fits within the sales management process and outlined best practices related to “call coaching”, one aspect of sales rep coaching.  This blog focuses another aspect of sales rep coaching --  sales pipeline reviews and detail opportunity reviews.  The next blog will focus on the third aspect of sales rep coaching, sales rep performance one-on-ones.   ...

Sales rep coaching and sales manager/sales rep one-on-ones are the catalyst for sales optimization and sales growth. They are also the tool for increasing the sales rep proficiency and converting C and B quality sales reps to B and A players.  Some supporting research from CSO Insights reveals a correlation between quota attainment and coaching.  The study found the better the sales manager coaching the higher quota attainment.   ...