In my original blog in this series “Best Practices for B-2-B Sales,  I outlined five categories of best practices: The previous five blogs in this series, reviewed the best practices related to data.  The next three categories, Sales Process, Opportunity Management and Pipeline Analytics all are driven off of the sales pipeline. This blog introduces 6 different best practices related to the sales pipeline.  These best practices cut across all  three areas. ...

  When you hear the phrase “AI for sales forecasting” it feels like the solution is an algorithm to predict “the sales number”.   This is only partially correct. While the ultimate goal is an accurate sales forecast, AI for sales forecasting requires artificial intelligence to be infused throughout the entire sales process. ...

Flawed thinking has it that there’s nothing important or exciting about the “middle.”  Just ask Jan Brady or any nose tackle on a defensive line.  But the middle of your sales funnel is really important – opportunities have to be watched and decisions made based on status and progress.  Which ones will make it?  Which ones will fall out? What’s my next step?  The decisions we make on opportunities in the middle of the pipeline will prevent surprises later and will help us to put the right resources on the right deals at the right time.  If we don’t make the right decisions, or worse, neglect these deals, it usually results in fallout, or what I call “zombie” deals that linger around cluttering up the pipeline. These zombie deals steal time away from us on thought process, manager conversations and important resources.  If we do go about it the right way though, more closes, faster cycles and accurate forecasts happen. ...

The search for the perfect balance between what your sales people say and what the data in your CRM reflects reminds me of reading about Ponce de Leon’s 16th century search for the Fountain of Youth. Expeditions were provisioned and  ships set sail for the new world, but despite great effort and expense, the fountain remained elusive and ultimately undiscovered. ...