One stress that a lot of sales managers have is the fear that they aren’t able to accurately stay on top of their salespeople’s efforts, and the deals that are currently in the pipeline. This can be an issue with many B2B companies, and usually the culprit is an outdated, or misused CRM.
With most sales teams working from home in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is something that is likely to be playing on your mind. Your team is separated from the office, far from each other, and if they have a CRM that they are reluctant to use, then it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on. This might be a sign that it’s time for a change - and with working from home looking to be the norm for a while, it’s a change that you need to make now, not later.
HubSpot is a popular choice for many sales teams, mainly because of the sheer transparency that it has to offer when it comes to staying on top of your sales pipeline. From detailed custom reports to at-a-glance dashboards, it’s a complete solution for any frustrated sales managers, as well as a helpful tool for salespeople. We’ve put together a list of some of the ways it can help you track your pipeline, analyse your sales processes, and ultimately impact your bottom line.
The only way to begin keeping track of your pipeline is to understand each stage. . It’s important to know the difference between your sales forecast (your predicted revenue)and your actual pipeline, which highlights opportunities throughout the sales pipeline that could ultimately become wins or losses. It seems like an easy distinction, but it’s an easy mistake to make in many B2B companies. Your pipeline should align with the journey of your opportunities - from the first moment they engage with your business, right through to becoming a customer, they are a part of your sales pipeline. Using HubSpot, you can effectively track this journey.
This is down to the contact record, which has the useful feature of letting your team know which pages your prospects have visited, when they have been contacted, and essential notes about what their specific pain points are, and what they’re looking to achieve from your business. With the tool, you can also define the stages of the pipeline, and use this to sort contacts into lists. These lists are a great way to understand exactly how many opportunities are in each stage, and as long as your team is consistently updating contact records, it offers an easy way to check how many deals you actually have in the pipeline, and what stage they’re at.
This is a big one if you want to analyse and optimise your sales pipeline. Using HubSpot, you can pull up a graph that shows you exactly how many deals are moving from one stage to the next. This also shows you the percentage of deals that are dropping out, and what is causing them to do this.
For analysis, this is essential. Are your deals dropping off by nearly 50% when they’re given pricing? It might be a sign that the sales team haven’t accurately described the pricing of the service or product, or it could highlight an issue in the way your company’s products or services are being marketed. You can use this feature to accurately understand where the holes in your traditional sales funnel are, and then move to patch these up. You can utilise this report to feed back to your team, adjust your sales processes, and have a complete overview of how your team is engaging with leads.
Don’t have time to fully analyse your sales activities? HubSpot’s dashboards are a great opportunity to see the important information about your pipeline in a matter of minutes. You can set these up to accurately check how many deals you have in your pipeline, how likely they are to close, and even check on previous activity to highlight patterns in the way that your leads are interacting with your team.
This ‘at-a-glance’ overview streamlines your analysis process when you need it. You can identify trends, sudden downturns in closed deals, and adjust accordingly, without having to go through a lengthy process to find out what the issue is.
In 2020, automation is key. It’s an essential part of using HubSpot, and it can revolutionise your sales process. Using automation, you can eliminate boring administrative tasks that take up so much of your time, and increase productivity for your sales team. Using HubSpot’s workflows, you can set up your portal so that deals are automatically assigned, and you can also assign reminders so that older deals don’t slip through the cracks, or so that you know when to quit.
For example, if your lead keeps pushing your call back over and over again, you may decide that according to your process, after two weeks it’s time to give up. If this is the case, then you can set a time-related rule within a workflow, ensuring that once two weeks have passed with no communication, the sales rep receives a notification to either move the deal to closed, or engage with the lead ASAP. This is the kind of automated task that seems small, but can drastically improve and streamline the way that your sales pipeline functions.
HubSpot is a great CRM for any sales team, and with an easy-to-use interface and the ability to see all reports in a matter of minutes, for many it is the only choice. On top of this, HubSpot CRM is free, so B2B companies think of it as a good way to start using a CRM without having to put down large amounts of money or commit to a lengthy contract. It’s also built to scale with your business, with updates and new features being added constantly to create a smoother process in your sales, marketing and customer service efforts. With the base CRM, you can effectively keep track of all your deals, without trawling through spreadsheets, out-of-date systems, or dreaded paperwork.
Still not sure if HubSpot is a good choice for your business? We’ve created a handy guide detailing how it stacks up against the competition. There are plenty of CRMs to choose from, and before moving to a new system you should do all the research you can. Download the guide below, or get a free demo of HubSpot to see more about the features and benefits it can offer.