MarketStar Blog | Sales (3)

Content is an essential component of B2B selling. This is especially true for companies that sell complex B2B products, with online content the best way to reach buyers.

Talking to a customer service executive can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience that almost every consumer goes through at least once in the buying cycle, whether it is to fix a problem on an existing product or deciding on a product to buy which best suits their needs. To address this problem, the industry moved to messaging and online chat which provided some respite to the users.

Key Takeaways

• According to a CNBC survey, top CFOs predict that a recession will hit in the first half of 2023.

• Several effective and creative strategies can boost revenue and improve financial decision-making during a recession.

• Maintaining open lines of communication with all your stakeholders, including employees, vendors, and customers, is crucial for managing your business during economic uncertainty.

• You can make your business even smarter by replacing people-driven processes with technology, which frees your employees to do higher-order thinking.

As we face an increasingly uncertain future, businesses must learn to build resilience in their operations to weather any potential economic storms.

This means preparing for the worst while remaining optimistic and agile enough to take advantage of any opportunities that may come up.

In these challenging times, businesses must think long-term and build resilience against future economic downturns.

As we’re all aware, economies are cyclical – what goes up must come down. And while we can’t predict the future, we can prepare for it.

So, how can B2B marketers build resilience during an economic downturn? This blog post will explore key strategies to help your business weather the storm and be better prepared to overcome any financial challenges that come your way.

Planning for an Economic Downturn

It’s no secret that the world economy is heading toward a downturn.

And while it’s impossible to predict precisely how long it will last or how deep it will go, it’s important to be prepared for a worst-case scenario.

If you’re a business owner, now is the time to take a hard look at your operations and ensure you’re as lean and efficient as possible. This means cutting unnecessary costs, streamlining, and tightening your processes.

It’s also important to have a good handle on your cash flow. Make sure you have a solid line of credit in place in case you need it and consider stockpiling some cash reserves to tide you over in case of a prolonged downturn.

3 Cash Flow Management Tips During a Recession

One of the most important things you can do during a recession is to manage your cash flow carefully.

This means knowing how much money is coming in and going out and adjusting your spending as needed. Cash flow management is about managing your business finances responsibly so there’s enough cash to grow.

It can be a tricky balancing act, but it’s essential to keeping your business afloat during tough times.

Here are a few tips for managing cash flow during economic uncertainty.

1. Cash Flow Forecast

A cash flow forecast is a key tool for business owners to use to manage their finances during a recession.

By forecasting your cash flow, you can make informed decisions about allocating your resources and ensure that your business has the funds it needs to weather the economic downturn.

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating a cash flow forecast during a recession:

• Be conservative in your estimates. It’s better to overestimate your expenses and income and have too much cash than to be caught short.

• Remember to include one-time expenses in your forecast, like layoffs or downsizing.

• Revise your forecast regularly as the recession progresses and your business’s needs change.

With a cash flow forecast, you can manage your finances during a recession and help keep your business afloat.

2. Manage Your Accounts Receivables

During an economic downturn, businesses can face increased pressure to manage their accounts receivable.

This is because when customers have less money, they are more likely to delay payments or default on their debts. As a result, businesses must be proactive in managing their accounts receivable during a recession.

There are a few steps businesses can take to manage their accounts receivable during a recession.

• First, they can offer discounts on early payments. This will incentivize customers to pay their invoices sooner.

• Second, businesses can extend payment terms to give customers more time to pay their debts.

• Third, businesses can provide financing options which will allow customers to pay their debts over time rather than all at once.

3. Improve Communication

When a recession hits, it’s more important than ever to focus on strong communication between teams, stakeholders, and partners.

This is because, during a recession, there is typically a decrease in business activity and an increase in uncertainty. To weather the storm, it’s important to keep everyone on the same page and working towards the same goal.

Here are a few tips on how to improve communication during a recession:

• Be clear and concise in your communication

• Make sure everyone is on the same page

• Hold regular meetings and check-ins

• Be responsive to questions and concerns

• Keep an open mind and listen to others

4 Effective Tips to Grow Your Business in a Downturn

The economic landscape may be uncertain during a recession, but your business can still grow. Recessions present a unique opportunity for B2B businesses to expand their customer base and market share.

Here are a few tips on how to grow your B2B business during a recession:

1. Focus On Your Existing Customers

Your existing customers are your best source of revenue during a recession. Make sure you stay in touch with them and meet their needs. Retaining existing customers will help you grow your business and build customer loyalty during a downturn.

2. Look for New Markets

Keep your growth potential open by not just focusing on your existing markets. Look for new markets that your competition may be underserving. They can offer you an opportunity to expand.

3. Invest in Marketing

A recession is a perfect time to invest in marketing. Deploy marketing campaigns to reach new customers, increase your sales, and grow your brand.

4. Be Efficient

During a recession, you must be extra careful and efficient with your spending. Marketing budgets are often one of the first areas to be cut, but this can be a mistake.

Maintaining Employee Morale is also Important

It can be hard to keep your employees motivated when the economy takes a downturn.

To maintain morale during a recession, keeping employees engaged in their work and focused on the company’s goals is important.

There are a few keyways to do this:

• Communication is key. Make sure employees are aware of the company’s financial situation and what measures are being taken to weather the storm.

• Keep employees engaged in their work. This may mean offering more training and development opportunities or giving employees more responsibility.

• Focus on the company’s goals. During a recession, it’s easy to get sidetracked. Keep employees focused on the company’s mission and what needs to be done to achieve it.

Recession-Proof Your Business

Fortune predicts that the dot-com crash is on the cards again, and all signs indicate an economic recession. Businesses need to be resilient during a downturn. To do this, they need to understand their strategies and planning clearly.

While a recession can be difficult for businesses, there are ways to weather the storm and come out stronger on the other side.

B2B companies can create a recession-resilient business by diversifying their customer base, improving their products and services, cutting costs, sales outsourcing, focusing on customer retention, and investing in technology.

Key Takeaways:

We’ve often heard the term outsourced sales floating around in multiple meetings within various verticals of all industries but seldom given any thought to what it is and what it can help us achieve.

Churn is inevitable in every customer-centric business – be it a darling of Silicon Valley or a daring startup in a small town. Churn usually refers to the exit of customers in a given period. It can also refer to the loss of business from an existing customer. What matters is how the company identifies and addresses it to minimize the adverse impact.

Key Takeaways: 

• Dropping dead leads and prioritizing high-value and sales-ready ones can help you gain more efficiency 

• The more control you have over your sales pipeline, the better your revenue generation 

• Combining your sales and marketing teams can pave the way for your business’s growth 

• To increase sales, provide more relevant content to your product/service and business 

• Identify and cross out possible bottlenecks in your pipeline to keep your potential customers moving through the sales pipeline smoothly 

Are your sales declining or not growing as you expected them to? The issue could be in your sales pipeline. 

Your sales pipeline is the backbone of your overall sales process and is vital to your business’s success. It delivers a stable feed of qualified leads and enables your sales team to convert those leads into valuable customers.  

However, if you’re unsure about how your pipeline is built or are looking for the best practices to build your sales pipeline – don’t worry; we’ve got you covered! 

Before we get moving, you must be clear on understanding what a sales pipeline is.  

“A sales pipeline is a visual way of tracking a potential client’s status in the sales process. It is a set of actions taken by salespeople to convert a lead/prospect into a customer”. 

According to Harvard Business Review, “there was an 18% difference in revenue growth between companies that defined a formal sales process and companies that didn’t. Businesses that adhered to best pipeline practices saw 28% higher revenue growth.” 

It is imperative that your company, B2B in particular, has a healthy sales pipeline as it enables you to: 

• Improve the entire sales process 

• Predict your business results 

• Analyze the best sales strategies for your business 

• Evaluate your company’s progress 

• Close more deals 

6 Best Practices for Building a Powerful Sales Pipeline 

We’ve listed below six best practices to help you transform the way you manage your sales pipeline. These tips can help improve your sales process and generate more revenue. Let’s explore. 

1. Define Your Pipeline Stages 

The first step to follow in managing your sales pipeline is to break your pipeline into stages and then define them. Each stage needs to be clearly defined with actionable steps for the sales reps to take.

If you haven’t created a sales pipeline yet, our experts can help you create one.

Map your customer journey by understanding how a lead moves and makes its way through the sales process.

Also, understand what your sales team is already doing. Modify the existing approach if needed and build a new pipeline for better management. 

Related Read: 4 Must Have Tools to Manage Your Sales Pipeline Efficiently 

2. Put Your Customers First 

“Never put the cart before the horse while building your sales pipeline.”

One of the biggest mistakes most sales managers and teams make today is they don’t put their customers’ thought processes first. Instead, they just build their pipeline around arbitrary decisions.

But your product/service exists only because of your customers. So, build a customer-centric sales pipeline that runs alongside your buyer’s journey.

We recommend you break your buyer’s journey into the following stages:

• Recognize the problem 

• Realize the economic impact 

• Specify decision standards 

• Check alternatives

• Select the vendor 

Each of these five stages require a specific action to be taken by your sales reps.

For instance, let’s say your potential customer has reached the fourth stage (checking for alternate sellers/vendors). They might be weighing up your product/service against your competitors. This is the right time for your sales team to quickly jump in and send a brief comparison video or a similar asset to them, which can help them sway back to your side.

Remember, these stages need to be flexible so they can be tweaked later per the customer journey.

3. Bridge the Gap Between Sales and Marketing 

Bridging the gap between sales and marketing may sound cliche or like an adage, and you just shrug it off. But, you might want to reconsider your thoughts as it is crucial for your sales team to be aligned with the marketing.

Yes, their main objective is to forward good and qualified leads. What if they don’t know what a good lead or SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is? The very thought haunts you, right?

However, the good news is that it can be fixed by working closely with experts who can help you identify the problem, fix it, and overcome your lead generation challenges.

4. Identify & Focus on the Best Leads 

It takes about the same time to close each deal in every sales process. It is best practice to avoid getting distracted by leads that won’t move the needle.  

Instead, concentrate your time and efforts on high-value and sales-ready leads. View the activity of your leads, identify the most engaged ones, and focus on them.

It is equally important to drop a lead when you need to!

After spending weeks or even months nurturing a lead, letting it go can be hard. But, when they are not interested and can’t be pushed through to the next stage, it is better to drop them and focus on others.

Don’t waste your time trying to convince leads that simply aren’t interested. Identify dead leads quickly so you can concentrate on the following opportunities in the pipeline.

5. Review and Update Your Sales Pipeline 

Top sales companies know that a technique that works today may not work tomorrow. So, they review their sales process and strategies regularly to ensure things are on point for maximum efficiency. 

Every sales pipeline changes constantly – new leads come in, move from one stage to another, and finally, deals get closed. If you are not prudent, your pipeline can get helter-skelter and lead to lost deals. You must keep your details and information in your pipeline reviewed and updated for each process stage. 

Related Read: 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Sales Operations 

6. Deliver More Content 

Emails and phone calls are indeed the pillars of sales communication. However, people require more; in-depth information that can help them better understand your product/service and is helpful for their business. 

Create content that showcases your brand, product/service, and offerings. Send them to your prospects – this will enable your team to take your potential customers to the next stage. A study by Marketing Charts reports that only 27% of sales reps who talk to prospects collaborate with the marketing team on content creation. But, the sales and marketing teams need to work together to create content your potential customers want to consume.

Optimize Your Sales Pipeline Today 

Not heeding your sales pipeline can negatively impact your business growth.

The aforementioned six sales pipeline best practices can help you drive your sales process, focus on sales pipeline growth, gain better control over sales data, and eventually boost your profits.

You need the right sales pipeline management tools, technology, and expert guidance to achieve this, close more deals, and gain more revenue. 

Key Takeaways

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced B2B sales organizations to reinvent themselves at an unprecedented pace. While sales reps are in the relatively unchartered territory of remote selling, organizations must contend with providing training and coaching to the sales teams remotely. Virtual training methods have been steadily gaining ground as the preferred mode for imparting sales training even before the current crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has made this transition more urgent.

Key Takeaways

• Sales operations are a critical component of any top-performing sales organization, helping the business reach its revenue target 

• A sales ops team is well-poised to help sales teams close more deals while alleviating salespeople of non-selling sales activities 

• Despite its increasingly critical role, many sales leaders struggle with building a sales ops team 

• Certain practices can make the process easier and help organizations bring transparency and clarity to their processes

Like most sectors and departments across industries, sales operations were disrupted and reshaped by the pandemic.

Digital solutions are offering new paths to sales operation strategy where the key is building better connections, both with customers and the workforce.

The increasing importance of utilizing data to drive decision-making has made sales ops more important than ever.

According to the Trends in Sales Ops Report, 75% of the sales ops professionals now have new responsibilities with 64% expecting their role to change.

Despite its increasing scope, sales operations is also an area that many sales leaders struggle with. But done right, sales ops can help companies improve their sales performance and boost revenue growth.

This article attempts to answer this. Deep dive into why sales ops is such a critical piece of your sales puzzle and how to build a stellar sales ops team for success.

Let’s get started.

Why is Sales Ops So Important?

According to a survey, sales ops teams drive up to a 10% increase in sales productivity each year.

Simply put, your sales operations team is responsible for helping sales professionals sell better, hit goals faster, and lead smoother sales processes.

Senior leaders of organizations can leverage their sales operations department to synthesize data about the sales experience to make it more effective.

Here are four more ways how sales ops help organizations boost their performance. 

• Sales operations free up time and energy for organizations as they analyze and streamline internal processes so sales teams are not as distracted or bogged down. If any given task takes more time as it’s being done manually, the sales ops team will research ways to automate that task. The result is that your sales team is better poised to serve customers.

• There’s a clear gap between companies that scale and those that don’t. The answer is the absence of a clear and effective sales operations strategy which could have helped build a repeatable sales process that is codified across the sales team. Smart sales ops leaders help their companies to establish best practices across teams, making results predictable. 

• The sales operations team demystifies the sales process for other departments so data-driven decisions can be made which helps achieve revenue targets. Sales ops professionals make use of CRM data to paint a holistic picture of the customer journey which can help leaders gauge if the pipeline is healthy or not. 

• Your sales operations department will be in a better position to notice risks that heads of sales may miss as they are more focused on closing the deal. With the sales team busy executing the plan, sales ops leaders will dig into data and use those insights to design incentives and create a killer sales ops strategy. 

How Do You Structure Sales Operations for Success?

While sales operations continue to grow as a strategic imperative in a dynamic marketplace, the current structure and roles are not without limitations.

The State of Sales Operations Report by LinkedIn highlights that 36% of sales ops professionals struggle with balancing strategic and operational responsibilities.

The answer lies in having a well-planned sales operations structure in place.

Once established, you have more consistency and control over your sales process while your tasks managers and sales reps have better clarity to complete goals.

Here’s how you can structure your sales operations team. 

1. Determine Operational Scope

Your operational scope for sales ops corresponds to your plan for sales and strategy.

For instance, if online advertising and content marketing are part of your sales plan to generate leads, your sales ops structure will be different.

This is your operational scope. It defines your sales process, core metrics, supportive tasks, and roles.

It’s essentially a top-down approach where you start with a strategy, set up a sales ops structure that incorporates the strategy, and then, implement resources and practices to optimize the system.

2. Define KPIs for Sales Operations

Since sales ops encompasses both strategy and execution, it is important to evaluate how the team is performing relative to its goals. KPIs will help you with that. 

• Average Win Rate: Your sales ops team is working hard to ensure that your sales department closes more deals. You can measure the efficiency of your team by monitoring the average win rate. 

• Average deal size: This is the average dollar amount for every closed deal or contract. It’s an important metric to understand the financial health of the organization and its pipeline. 

• Average Sales Cycle Length: Your sales ops team is hard at work to slash the time it takes a prospect to close after entering your sales pipeline. Monitoring this cycle can make your team more efficient.

• Lead Response Time: Also known as speed to lead, this measures the amount of time it takes for you to follow up on clients after their first contact with your business. 

3. Establish a Sales Process

A sales process will include repeatable steps to get prospects from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. These include various activities such as cold calling, lead qualifications, and hosting a client meeting to present a pitch.

Both sales funnel and sales pipeline can help strengthen this process.

Your funnel represents the lead’s buying journey with your business. The pipeline involves all internal activities you can take up to move the lead through the funnel.

4. Establish a Strong Leadership

Your sales operation structure should have a direct line to the executives. 

Make sure that your team is led by a vice president, director, or senior manager. These leaders should report to the president or a high-level sales leader. 

While sales ops and marketing work closely together, your sales team is the one that understands the overall sales strategy. This team should be part of sales rather than marketing.

5. Get More Team Members for Supportive Sales Tasks

According to the State of Sales Report by Salesforce, 75% of sales reps have taken on new responsibilities at work. Supportive tasks should not throw your sales ops team members off track. These are the administrative tasks that ensure sales process optimization.

For instance, recruitment, training, and onboarding of new members are all supportive tasks in sales as they don’t directly impact the sales process.

Similarly, invoicing and billing a customer to collect revenue, tracking sales commissions for the payroll team, and creating sales forecasts and sales contests are all supportive tasks for your sales operations team.

A proper pipeline on how these tasks are completed can help to strengthen your sales ops structure.

6. Make Use of Technology

78% of customers expect a consistent customer experience at every touchpoint and digital channel.

It’s essential that your team is not burdened with manual tasks that take their time and energy from critical activities. Use technology as much as possible to automate tasks.

CRM software, email automation software, lead prioritization engines, and sales software are just a few of the tools that you can make use of.

However, it will also be counter-productive if your sales ops team is toggling between 10+ tools. Figure out the role a new software will play in your sales process and only then implement it. 

7. Who to Hire

According to one report, 36% of sales ops professionals agree that it’s hard to recruit and retain good hires in sales ops.

Putting together any new team can be challenging, but more so in the case of your sales operations team because of the central role they play in your revenue growth.

Keeping in mind certain qualities can help you make the right choice. This includes the ability to analyze data. They should have excellent communication skills so they can help the larger team understand the significance of the data.

As the sales ops team is linked to almost all parts of the organization, they need to be able to build relationships.

Succeed with an Effective Sales Ops Team

Building a sales operations team is one of the most critical steps of your enterprise sales cycle. Done well, it can improve productivity and deliver a stellar customer experience. 

More than anything else, sales operations will help you create a robust system of selling where data, insights, and technology play an important role in driving performance and sustainable growth.

Key Takeaways:

• The risk of recession is slowly but surely rising as global turbulence continues.

• B2B businesses are more likely to realize outsized gains before, during, and after a recession if they prepare to take advantage of opportunities, particularly in periods of more volatility.

• As terrifying as it may seem, some great sales strategies can be implemented to ensure your business is recession-proof and in a better position to move forward quickly when growth returns.

The next recession may be on the horizon.

By August 2023, it is projected that there is a 25.15% of probability that the United States will fall into another economic recession. 

That doesn’t mean your business must suffer. Following the right sales strategy can keep your business afloat – and even grow during a recession.

This blog post will explore how a recession can affect sales and provide some recession-proof strategies for B2B businesses.

By the end, you’ll have a game plan for tackling a recession – and coming out on top.

Is the Next Recession a Threat to B2B Businesses?

In the US, the last recession officially ended in June 2009. However, many businesses felt the effects long after that. Some companies are still struggling to recover.

So, is the next recession a threat to B2B businesses?

There are several factors to consider when evaluating this threat. First, let’s look at what causes recessions.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, recessions are caused by “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.” This can be caused by various factors, such as an increase in interest rates, a decrease in consumer confidence, or an increase in oil prices.

Any of these factors could have a significant impact on B2B businesses.

For example, an increase in interest rates would make it more expensive for companies to borrow money for inventory or expansion. A decrease in consumer confidence could lead to a reduction in demand for products and services. And an increase in oil prices would likely lead to a rise in transportation costs.

Of course, not all recessions are alike. Some are more severe than others.

The last recession was particularly brutal, with many companies going out of business altogether. It’s important to remember that even during less severe recessions, some companies struggle while others thrive.

So, what can B2B businesses do to recession-proof their organizations?

Most organizations do not prepare for an upcoming recession. According to a Bain survey,

• Only 43% of sales organizations develop plans for a recession well in advance

• Some 86% of companies that create a plan well in advance focus on using the downturn to gain market share

• 50% of companies make their plan shortly after the recession hits

The fact that many businesses survived the last recession did not happen by chance; when necessary, the companies shifted course and their approaches to weather the downturn.

Businesses that are adaptable, future-ready, and willing to change will be able to survive any economic downturn. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are some strategies that can help.

First, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of your customer base and your place in the market.

During a recession, customers may be more price-sensitive and less likely to make large purchases. Knowing your most loyal customers and their needs during tough economic times is essential.

It’s also essential to have a flexible pricing strategy.

During a recession, you may need to offer discounts or promotions to compete on price. But be careful not to cut costs too deeply – you don’t want to erode your profits or damage your brand image in the long run.

Finally, despite the economic environment, focus on generating sales, even during recessionary times. The response from the consumers may be slow and delayed; however, the demand for the goods will always be there, so don’t cut back on your sales operations. 

These measures can help ensure that your business will weather any future economic storms.

How Does a Recession Affect Sales?

A recession can significantly impact sales, as businesses are typically more conservative with their spending during economic downturns. This can lead to reduced demand for goods and services, leading to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.

While a recession doesn’t necessarily mean people will stop spending money altogether, they may be more selective about where they spend their money. This is where having the right sales strategy for business growth can make all the difference.

If your business can offer products or services that are seen as essential or that offer good value for money, you may weather the storm of a recession better than those who don’t have such an offer.

Of course, it’s not always easy to change your sales strategy mid-recession. But if you’re able to adapt and adjust to the current climate, you may be able to come out of the recession stronger than ever before. 

7 Successful Recession-Proof Strategies for B2B Businesses

1. Diversify Your Products & Services

Investing in diverse products and services is crucial for any business.

By spreading your risk across different areas, you can protect yourself from potential downturns in any one particular area. Diversification can also help you to tap into new markets and reach new customers.

By offering various products and services, you can appeal to a wider range of people, increase your chances of success, and increase sales during recession.

It might also mean cutting down on some of your less profitable products and services to focus on the ones doing better.

Recessions can be challenging for businesses, but diversifying your offerings can increase your chances of weathering the storm.

2. Review Your Pricing Strategy

When reviewing your pricing strategy during a recession, you should keep a few things in mind.

First, you need to make sure your prices are still competitive. This means you may need to lower your expenses to stay competitive with other businesses in your industry.

Second, you must ensure your prices align with your costs. If your expenses have gone down, you may be able to lower your prices without sacrificing your profits.

Finally, you need to make sure your prices are still sustainable. This means you need to be sure you can still make a profit even after lowering your costs.

It’s also worth considering offering discounts or promotions to boost sales.

3. Gather Customer Reviews & Testimonials

As the world economy shows signs of a recession, it’s more important than ever to ensure your business is in good shape. One way to do this is to gather customer reviews and testimonials.

Customer reviews are a great way to show potential customers that your business is reputable and trustworthy.

They also help to boost your search engine rankings, which can help you attract even more customers. And during a recession, customers are more likely to research businesses before making a purchase, so having positive reviews can help you stand out from the competition.

If you don’t have customer reviews or testimonials, now is the time to start collecting them. You can post a call for reviews on your website and social media channels or reach out to customers directly and ask them to leave a review.

4. Invest in Data-Driven Insights

Now is the time to rethink your business strategy and make data-driven decisions to help you survive and thrive during the next recession.

Investing in solid insights will give you a competitive advantage when the recession hits. Keep your team focused on making data-driven decisions before, during, and after the recession. This can be accomplished by reinforcing a data-driven approach throughout business interactions.

Data-driven insights are an effective way of creating growth strategies by identifying trends and patterns among customers.

So what are you waiting for? Start investing in data-driven insights and position your business for success in the next recession.

5. Increase Your Marketing Spending

Some businesses immediately cut marketing spend when they see a recession on the horizon.

However, this can be a mistake. While it’s true that discretionary spending is usually the first to go during tough economic times, businesses that maintain or even increase their marketing spend during a recession can see significant growth.

During a recession, customers are more likely to be value-conscious and look for deals. Your marketing campaigns should reflect this by emphasizing your company’s value proposition.

You can also use targeted marketing to reach new audiences who may be looking for products or services like yours.

Lastly, don’t forget that your competition will likely cut back on their marketing spend. This presents an opportunity for you to gain market share and improve your position in the marketplace.

6. Focus on Customer Retention & Success

According to Business.com, returning customers spend 67% more than new customers.

As we enter a period of economic recession, businesses must focus on retaining and increasing sales from existing customers and ensuring their success.

Now more than ever, investing in your existing customer base is crucial and ensures they remain loyal to your brand.

So how can you keep your customers happy and engaged during a recession? Here are a few tips:

Keep communication lines open. Let your customers know what’s going on with your business and how you plan to weather the economic downturn.

Offer discounts and specials. When budgets are tight, customers are looking for deals. If you can offer incentives that help your customers save money, they’ll be more likely to stick with you during tough times.

Go above and beyond. Excellent customer service is even more critical during a recession. Go out of your way.

By focusing on your customers and their success, you can weather the storm of a recession and come out stronger on the other side.

7. Build Your Email List

Adding more quality leads to your email list should always be a priority, regardless of whether we’re in an economic recession.

However, it can be challenging to maintain a consistent flow of fresh leads during tough times.

You can use a few strategies to help keep your email list growing during a recession.

First, ensure you consistently create quality content that will attract new subscribers. You can also offer incentives for signing up, such as discounts or freebies.

Finally, stay active on social media and make it easy for people to find your sign-up forms.

Following these tips can help ensure that your email list continues to grow even during a recession.

Final Thoughts on Sales During a Recession

Without being original, competitive, and creative, it’s frequently impossible to expand and scale a firm during a recession.

As a B2B business owner, it’s critical to be ready for crises, economic downturns, and other dangers to your company. Recession-proofing your firm is always a good idea, regardless of whether a new downturn is imminent or you want to be ready “just in case.”

Key Takeaways:

• Effective sales pipeline management can help you organize your sales process efficiently and make better business decisions

• A sales pipeline represents the complete journey of a buyer – from coming in as a lead to becoming a customer

• Sales pipeline software helps track each stage of your pipeline, monitor the process, and helps in understanding the next steps

• Sales pipeline CRMs offer customizable pipelines that help manage leads, opportunities, and customer relationships throughout the sales process

• A CRM tool helps you understand if a lead is responsive and if they’re interested in your product or service

In today’s competitive marketing world, businesses need innovative sales strategies to attract leads. And the sales process plays a vital role in attracting those leads and converting them into customers quickly. 

From generating leads and building a contact repo to following up and closing the deal, your sales process requires systematic planning to help the team close the deals faster. 

However, managing it manually can be time-consuming and tedious. To help manage things efficiently, you can empower your team with effective sales pipeline tools.

This blog will cover everything you need to know about sales pipelines and the top tools to manage them.

What is a Sales Pipeline?

A sales pipeline includes several stages, and the leads are moved from one stage to the next as they move through the process. The stages include lead generation, lead nurturing, marketing qualified leads, sales accepted leads, sales qualified leads, closed transactions, and after-sales.

Today, organizations employ technology to move, monitor, or evaluate prospects through the phases of a deal, and this technology is called sales pipeline software. It enables businesses to keep track of their prospects and clients and know where they are in the sales funnel.

With a sales pipeline enabled in your work process, you will know how many deals your salespeople need to close in a given time.

The importance of maintaining your sales pipeline is straightforward – to stay ahead of the game and manage your salespeople. It also helps to improve your sales operations process, get a picture of your targets, and better revenue forecasting. 

Are you looking to be more successful in your business? Identify the changes that can be made within your sales pipeline, so your prospects move from one stage to the next faster.

How to Build an Effective Sales Pipeline?

We’ve listed down the steps to help you build a successful sales pipeline:

• Understanding your target audience is the first step to building an effective sales pipeline.

• Next, set up your sales cadences for the best accounts by identifying and targeting them from your database.

• Group those accounts based on product interest, location, and previous interaction with your brand.

• Finally, set up a successful sales pipeline with the right tools and software.

Read on to explore the best sales pipeline management tools that can help you set up an efficient sales pipeline.

Sales Pipeline Tools

Sales pipeline management tools help you organize your entire selling process.

It gives you a clear view of your pipeline by tracking every stage, streamlining the complete process, enabling your team to function better, and helping in understanding business growth.

These tools can also accurately evaluate your leads, predict sales, and track key metrics. Stay informed of your prospects, enable your sales team to follow up with them, and make better decisions with an effective sales pipeline.

How a Sales Pipeline Tool Can Help Your Business

By using a sales pipeline tool, you can organize all the processes in your pipeline efficiently.

You can understand where your leads are coming from and where they are in the pipeline and automate scheduling meetings, sending emails, and more.

Apart from minimizing human errors and saving time in repetitive tasks, it helps your business with the following:

• Understanding customer behavior: Sales pipeline tools can track conversations and metrics, which helps in understanding your customers and their pain points better.

• Making better decisions: The tool offers insights regarding leads, conversions, and processes, helping you make better decisions and understand where your business is headed.

• Generating more revenue: It helps you understand which leads are cold/potential, and how interested they are in your product/service while translating into more conversions and revenue generation.

The 4 Essential Tools to Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Let’s look at the top sales pipeline management tools, their features & benefits, and why customers prefer using them for managing their sales processes.

1. Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the top CRM software providers as it redefines the way businesses connect with their customers.

It is designed for marketing, sales, and customer service ops to create meaningful customer relationships by understanding their requirements.

This CRM helps in creating an effective sales funnel to nurture customers. It provides excellent automated features and customer service tools to help manage good relationships with your leads/customers.

According to Salesforce customer success, companies that switch over to Salesforce see an average of 25 percent increase in revenue.

Benefits:

• Salesforce helps communicate with customers/leads using automation tools

• Gives a 360-degree view of your customers and engages with them accordingly

• Removes the burden of using various applications by syncing data from them all

• Positively impacts online customer support by providing chat assistance

• It helps your brand have a unified approach with an omnichannel feature

• Collects insights to understand your customers and business better

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a fully functional, cloud-based CRM tool for managing sales effectively throughout the pipeline. It helps you stay focused on hot deals, track leads, and predict business revenue.

Pipedrive offers custom web forms and chatbots to automate repetitive tasks. It helps you get the most important deals fed into your pipeline and track calls/emails/contact history for each deal. Control your sales pipeline through a mobile device and boost your work by integrating Pipedrive with your business tools.

Benefits:

• Pipedrive is easy-to-use and customize

• Can track the number of active deals and give detailed information for each open deal

• Guides you with the deals that need prioritization

• Adaptable and cost-effective plans

• Offers machine learning-powered sales assistant for all plans

• Workflow automation for most plans

• Pipedrive doesn’t have all the features that Salesforce does, but it is perfect for small businesses with smaller budgets.

3. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a cloud-based tool that supports sales, marketing, customer service, and content management with better resources and strategies. You can avoid your sales falling through the cracks and easily manage your deals.

HubSpot CRM helps you to design attractive brand profiles and organize all the important communication details with your leads/customers. It allows you to add new deals directly from the CRM with up-to-date details.

Whether you already have an established sales process or are just starting, HubSpot CRM eases your work by creating an ideal process. With HubSpot, you don’t need the help of a technical team to edit, delete, and add deal properties and stages. 

Benefits:

• It allows you to create visual dashboards and design a sales funnel the way you want it.

• It can be connected to your social media handles.

• The website integration feature will notify you when a lead visits your website.

• The features of HubSpot CRM are not as complex as other CRMs’

• It also offers a clear view of all the tasks/activities of the team in a single dashboard

4. Lusha

Lusha is a data enrichment tool that enables you to retrieve phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information quickly and easily. It helps you to access your leads’ contact details and B2B company info within seconds.

Marketing and sales professionals can use Lusha to drive business growth, boost campaigns, and improve revenue.

Benefits:

• It helps gather accurate B2B contact information

• It allows data enrichment at scale

• One-click CRM integrations

Bottom Line

The goal of any company is to increase revenue and generate leads. However, most leads are lost in the pipeline due to irregular/negligent follow-ups. 

An effective sales pipeline management system can help convert your leads into customers. If you haven’t implemented sales pipeline management for your business, it is high time you do it immediately with expert help. 

That’s where You need MarketStar as your sales and revenue accelerator. MarketStar is a pioneer in the sales outsourcing industry. With over 50+ world-class clients served, we create growth and drive results for companies of all stages and sizes using tailored solutions to help you hit your specific business goals.