• The stage of the opportunities in the sales process
• Next steps to move the opportunities through the pipeline
• Likelihood of winning the business based
• Future sales revenue of all the opportunities in the pipeline

There are typically three challenges associated with the use of CRMs and pipeline management:

1. Validity – The true accuracy (validity) of the predictive nature of the CRM depends on ensuring that a milestone-centric sales process has been mapped and integrated into the CRM being used.

2. Credibility – Even if the right sales process is mapped and documented, there is still the element of GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out. If the sales team is entering opportunities into the pipeline just to appease management, without ensuring that the opportunities meet the criteria for each step in the sales process, companies will still face predictive problems with their pipeline. Furthermore, sales team engagement with using the CRM can often be a struggle.

3. Lack of helpful business intelligence – Entering data and obtaining raw numbers is one thing, but building the CRM for reporting that informs sales leaders on how salespeople are performing against their Sales Success Formula is another. Without comparative data, managers are merely monitoring activity without identifying whether there are problems in the process.

What a company should seek for sales process improvements are sales stage critical numbers and ratios, enabling sales managers to clearly and more accurately identify choke points in the sales process for each individual. Additionally, the data can and should inform managers and the organization if training and coaching are required to improve the sales team's effectiveness and results.

To make substantial sales process improvements, every company must invest in sales enablement tools, systems, and technology. However, data alone will not drive improvement. Solving these issues requires the following five steps:

1. Build a milestone-centric sales process that is part of the CRM and adhered to by the organization.

2. Create Sales Success Formulas for each salesperson based on their historical performance and agreed-upon sales goals. These formulas identify all the steps of the stage-based sales process and the sales team’s success in converting from one step to the next.

3. Monitor and update sales effort and execution data so that coaches can "catch issues early" for lead preservation and sales process improvements.

4. Use the data to develop intentional coaching strategies that help salespeople address specific challenges in either effort or execution.

5. Utilize metrics to measure success individually and collectively:

   • Percentage of salespeople hitting effort targets (outreach)
   • Percentage of salespeople improving conversion ratios at each step of the sales process
   • Average sale increases
   • Shifting the 80/20 rule to a 70/30 or 60/40 distribution
   • Improved validity and credibility of pipeline predictions
   • CRM adoption rates approaching or reaching 100%

Further validation: 87% of elite salespeople (the top 7%) follow a consistent and effective sales process, compared to only 20% of weak salespeople. To implement sales process improvements, start with these five steps.

Once you have identified your area of expertise, the next step is to develop and master a well-honed positioning statement. This is used in short conversations when someone at an event asks you, “what do you do?” An expanded version of your positioning statement would be used when making a call on a prospect to uncover their needs, to help them understand how you work with clients and how you help them. Your positioning statement should leave a prospect thinking, “that’s me!” or “how do you do that?” In other words, it resonates with them. Of course, the key to that is calling on the right target audience, those who specifically will benefit from your expertise and knowledge. That is when personal branding is most effective.

Developing your personal brand for sales success involves identifying your “Zebra” or ideal prospect persona. Don’t call on anyone other than those that fit the personas identified. Then research the best ways to reach your ideal prospect. Is it via email or phone call? Is LinkedIn, Instagram, or X their preferred social media platform? Knowing how and where to reach your target persona will positively impact your ability to hunt, qualify, and discover potential new business. Identifying your zebra will bring focus and clarity to your prospecting efforts so you don’t end up chasing or pursuing opportunities that aren’t the best use of your most important assets: your time and personal brand.

Of equal importance is to know, and clearly articulate, what isn’t a Zebra for you. If you know that as well, it helps to bring clarity to developing your expertise, personal brand, and prospecting efforts. Here are some reasons why knowing what isn’t a zebra is so important:

It Eliminates Ambiguity

• If you aren’t specific about who you serve best, it’s hard to get introductions; if you are vague in your prospect description, it will be more difficult to ask your advocates for introductions. Introductions have been proven to be the #1 way that top producers grow their business. Be specific and clear about what type of zebra you serve best.

It Reduces Confusion

• If you aren’t crystal clear on what you are looking for and what you are NOT looking for, your advocates might make an introduction for you, only to find out you can’t help the person they introduced. When working with introduction partners, tell them, “This is what type of business I’m looking for.” “Of equal importance, I really can’t help these types of businesses… and here’s why.” That brings clarity to the conversation.

It Reduces Your Opportunity Cost

• Your opportunity cost is simply this: if you called on Company ABC, that means you aren’t working on Company XYZ. Your opportunity cost is what you aren’t working on that may offer more value to you and your organization.

If you know what you don’t want and the reasons why, it will likely reduce the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. Once your expertise, personal brand, and zebra are clearly defined, your ability to find and win business will improve dramatically.

The first step is to recognize that motivation is an “inside-out” job. When the topic of motivation is discussed, we typically think about incentive compensation, sales contests, and recognition programs. All of these certainly encourage sales teams to focus on selling because they are rewards. However, you will gain true engagement and enthusiasm if you create an everyday environment that encourages each individual to identify and visualize their own internal motivation.

Do you remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid? The bottom two largest tiers are Physiological and Safety because these are the most basic needs of every individual, including salespeople who are starting at the bottom and working their way up to self-actualization. They must first have income for food, shelter, safety, etc. Only once they have attained all of these basic necessities can they turn their attention to the higher tiers of Love/Self-Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. This still holds true and is an important concept in building a high-performance sales team!

To put it another way, salespeople do not care about corporate shareholder value unless they are shareholders themselves. What they care about is food, shelter, clothing, recognition, paying for college education or weddings, saving for retirement, etc. These are personal desires and make up the vast majority of things that are important to people. So, the solution is to create an environment where this internal motivation can take place. (See The Dream Manager book by Matthew Kelly.)

Creating a Culture of Goal Setting and Recognition

This means that it is up to you to help your salespeople identify what is important to them. Make the effort to set up time off-site that is dedicated to planning and spend time developing each individual’s dreams and goals. This is time that you will spend on your business instead of in it. Take a day or two to help you and your team take a giant step forward to plan for the future and help them achieve their personal best performance.

Create a process where people can establish personal goals because this is where the motivation comes from. This is also where the passion and desire come from. Hence, this is where the business plan must come from. Very few companies spend time understanding the personal goals of their people, yet they are the basis for any salesperson achieving their goals.

You might position this as though you are the coach and the salespeople are players on a competitive team. Each of you has a part to play so that the whole team wins. Salespeople will usually understand and relate to this because they are competitive by nature. If someone does not get this, they may not be suited for selling. Selling requires desire, commitment, and a need to win.

Create an environment where people get a chance to unplug and sit down to outline their goals and dreams, and establish timeframes, attaching financial values to these items. Once you have attached financial values, you know what level of prospecting and selling activity is necessary for each salesperson. You will also have a much better idea of what realistic standards look like.

Reward yourself and your salespeople when they achieve success. So, as your people go through and identify their goals, and as you sit down as an individual salesperson to identify your goals, be sure to identify how you will reward yourself when you achieve them.

In some ways, salespeople are like kids in that they want to be recognized for their successes. In almost every home in America, we have a kid’s Hall of Fame, otherwise known as the refrigerator door. Every time one of the kids does something great, they come home through the door and look for attention: “Look at this. Look at my art. Look at the A on my science test.” And what do we do? We put their success on the refrigerator door, where everyone can be reminded of this accomplishment.

Somewhere, you will want to create a theoretical refrigerator door for your salespeople to recognize their successes. A visual reminder, even a poster board with a graph and names that is posted where all can see, is a great way to keep everyone motivated and to reward those who deserve recognition.

A good sales manager will also have a system for helping a salesperson get back on track and correct problems that have led to failure. For instance, you must have a conversation with Jane, who did not reach her prospecting goal for the month. You will ask her, “How important is it for you to succeed?” “What do you need to do to fix this problem?” “What kind of process or program could you put in place to get on track to succeed?”

Assuming that Jane has desire and indicates she is willing to do the work, you will say, “OK. This is what we are going to do. Every Thursday at 10 a.m. for the next four weeks, I am going to come to your office and listen to you make prospecting phone calls.” Then, you must follow through each week. This is the kind of discipline and structure that will get Jane back on the road to success. This is also the kind of hands-on coaching necessary for building a high-performance sales team.

Read more in our free eBook - The Extraordinary Sales Manager!

The Rules of the Game for Your Sales Team

1. Take batting practice every day – Practice that first call, how to overcome objections, how to uncover the decision-making process. In other words, pre-call plan.

2. Take what the pitcher gives you – Focus on the problem your prospect needs to solve and ask lots of questions. Leave your product briefcase and brochures in the car.

3. Swing at YOUR pitch – Just like a batter faces lots of pitches and only a few are ones they can really connect with, you will face many prospects, but only work with those you can truly help.

4. Take it base by base – When the 1st base coach is waving for you to keep going, go to second base. When you find out that your prospect has a “must-fix” problem, that doesn’t mean you should try to steal home. Go to second and make sure they have the money to fix the problem. Go to third to make sure they are committed to investing the time, money, or resources to fix the problem. Before you head for home, ensure you can score when you get there – and that means the prospect is committed to making a decision.

5. Shake it off – In the first inning, you might strike out, hit into a double play, walk to first, get hit by a pitch, or get stranded on first. You have to shake all of that off because you have 8 more innings to play. Our sales evaluation calls this handling rejection. Anything can happen as long as you keep going and getting at-bats.

In the end, selling is not for the faint of heart, nor is coaching. You and your team will withstand lots of pressure, demands, prospects who are not completely honest with you, rejection, and competition. Follow a sales process, love the process, and the process will love you back.

The definition of “psychology” is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. When we apply that to selling, as in the psychology of selling, we must understand the specific scientific characteristics and behaviors that apply to success in selling. Certainly, we can all think of people we have encountered in our own purchasing experiences that stand out. What is it that they do that makes them excellent and unique?

We utilize a sales evaluation by Objective Management Group that provides companies and individual salespeople with a peak into the science and the characteristics of great salespeople, (OMG assesses over 75,000 salespeople, sales managers, and sales leaders annually from more than 200 industries in 52 countries and is the pioneer and leader in the sales evaluation industry.)

Based on this science and psychology of selling, the graphic below defines 3 areas that salespeople must excel at in order to be top performers. They must have the Will to Sell, the Sales DNA and the competencies or tactical skills noted utilized daily in their sales process. Of course, no salesperson has them all mastered. We utilize this evaluation to help companies hire better salespeople and develop those they have.

One trait that is not on this list but is a bi-product of mastering many of the above is confidence. Great salespeople, due to their strengths, have the confidence in three areas that they can and will help those who choose to work with them.

The Psychology of Selling: 3 Areas of Confidence

First, they are confident in their firm’s value proposition (how their firm helps businesses or people solve problems). They believe their company can do everything they say they can do. They have “proof of concept” and share that with confidence. These confident salespeople rarely, if ever, think they need to have the lowest price. They position value, and they defend that value.

Secondly, they are confident in their approach. They know that they must interrogate reality, as Susan Scott says in her book “Fierce Conversations.” They must figure out whether the prospect is truly a prospect with a problem they have to solve, the money with which to solve it, and the conviction and clarity to make a decision when presented with a solution. Confident salespeople ask lots of tough questions.

Thirdly, confident salespeople do not have to be liked for the prospect to do business with them. They do subscribe to the philosophy that people generally enjoy business relationships with people they like. But they confidently believe that the buying decision is made because the prospect has trust and confidence that the salesperson can do what the salesperson says they can do – and that is to solve the prospect’s problem. Being liked has very little to do with any of that.

In the final chapter of his book The Psychology of Selling, Tracy shares the 10 keys to success in selling, which are of course worthy of including:

1. Do what you love to do
2. Decide exactly what you want
3. Back your goal with persistence and determination
4. Commit to lifelong learning
5. Use your time well
6. Follow the leader
7. Character is everything
8. Unlock your inborn creativity
9. Practice the golden rule
10. Pay the price of success

Understand more about the psychology of selling with our free eBook! Click below to download.