Whether you currently use a sales leads scoring system, statistical analysis, a time machine or meet with a clairvoyant, we all find it difficult to predict accurately which of our sales prospects will buy and when they're likely to do it.
The quickest way for a business to grow is to take charge and effectively manage the sales pipeline. The more up-to-date and accurate your sales pipeline, the more likely you are to increase revenue.
Most sales teams know these things yet still find it difficult to manage the sales cycle. Fortunately the team over at HubSpot have been busy compiling a free resource that we can all leverage to help us with our sales forecasting.
As HubSpot Partners we got an exclusive first look at what the team have come up with.
The next best thing to a CRM
There are three template resources on offer, all of which are free which is an added bonus. They fall into three categories; managing your sales funnel, forecasting your probability of closing and a management template where you can monitor the progress of each deal. Each one is a simple to use file neatly structured with built in calculations so all the hard work has been done for you.
We decided to take a look at the sales template as this is the one that will immediately help you on a day to day basis.
Sales Pipeline Template
As with all things HubSpot, ease of use seems to have been the driver behind the creation of this template.
In a single view you can see the status of a deal and the probability of it closing. There are no complex or fancy calculations, just a simple, easy to use layout so you can quickly see where your sales team need to put their efforts and where the reward for this effort will fall.
Click on this link for your copy of the template at HubSpot then read through our tips below.
Using your template
Take a look at your current sales pipeline and ask yourself:
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How is it structured?
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How is it measured?
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How is it used to drive your company’s sales performance?
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What data do you currently monitor
“71% of sales reps say they spend too much time on data entry” (Toutapp)
With the answers to these questions begin migrating your data across to this new template. If you already use Excel for your forecasting, run your existing template and the new sales template side by side for a week so you can see the difference.
How this sales template will help you:
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It enables you to forecast revenue (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly) with up-to-date accuracy.
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You can follow the status of every deal in your pipeline.
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Know exactly the number of opportunities you have open at any given time.
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Keeps your team organised and focussed on the right deals.
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Create new deals with a single click.
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The template automatically estimates the probability of every deal for you.
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No advanced technical skills or training are needed for your team to start using the template.
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Customisable to your business; industry, size of team.
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Just click, drag and drop to produce multiple pipelines that can be viewed separately.
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Enables you to create filters by name, owner, amount or buying stage giving you actionable insights in a fraction of the time.
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Helps you to prioritise tasks, track individual and team performance.
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Gives you an overview of your current sales process and the length of your average sales cycle so you can continually improve over time.
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Allows your team to spend less time on admin’ and more time communicating with opportunities so speeding productivity and revenue.
“50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting” (The B2B Lead)
I would encourage all businesses that are serious about growth in 2018 to take charge of their sales pipeline and this template is the perfect way to start.
Download the template today, fill your pipeline with leads, let the template estimate the actual potential of each opportunity and start to draw conclusions and decisions to steer your sales activity. Use the template to continually improve your sales process over time.
Read our article "Helping is Selling" to inspire your sales methodology in 2020.
Photos and images courtesy of Freepik
