How to Build a Steadily Increasing Pipeline for Learning Software Sales

Learning Management System (LMS) sales is a relentless process of prospecting, constant outreach, even more outreach, closing more sales, and then repeating. One of the best ways to keep the “sales pipeline” full is by building a constant circulation of qualified leads and managing your CRM. According to a Technology Advice report, companies that use pipeline monitoring experience 28% more development compared to those that do not.

Here are some ways to gradually boost your sales pipeline to improve your sales:

Understand how your consumers buy

The phases of your sales pipeline must be lined up with those of the Buyer’s Journey. The Buyer’s Journey includes the following phases:

Awareness Phase: Your potential customers know they have a problem/challenge and are trying to figure out what it is.

Consideration Phase: Your leads know what their problem/challenge is and are looking for potential options to fix it.

Decision Phase: Your leads have decided which approach to use to solve their issue, and are looking for companies who offer this solution.

Define each sales phase

With the Buyer’s Journey in mind, the sales phases are:

Identify: A visitor to your site takes an action like filling out a form, attending a webinar, or asking a question in the comment area of your blog. You could also proactively prospect and build a list of optimal leads.

Lead Nurture: In this phase, you could start engaging by sharing regular content through strategic Lead Nurturing Emails every week. These don’t talk about your company or service, but help your leads understand their issue. Use monitoring software tools to further engage leads who respond to topics on certain subjects.

Engage: Start a conversation about the difficulties and objectives over email or calls to help you determine if the prospect has a problem you can help them with. After making the connection, continue to build a rapport and trust with the contact, and try to set up a meeting.

Discover: Ask questions and discover more about your prospect’s unique difficulties, objectives, and roles. This phase is about learning more about them, not selling.

Prepare Presentation of a Tailored Solution: Create a personalized presentation based upon exactly what you’ve discovered about the prospect. Use information they have supplied.

Suggest a Tailored Solution: Your potential customers agree to have a conference with you by phone or face-to-face where you can review their challenges, needs, and goals.

Agreement Review: When the prospect requests your service, prepared a contract to go over with the potential client and resolve any issues.

Close: Your clients authorize the agreement, sign it, and make a payment.

Develop your objectives

You should have detailed objectives for every phase of the sales process. This will help your salespeople stay encouraged and improve the opportunities for success. For example, you might have a goal of closing 120 big sales a year. This means ten a month.

Create a dashboard

Once you have developed the phases of your pipeline and set your goals, create a sales dashboard that will help you track your development. The dashboard should be updated every day with new details about your sales pipeline. At one glance, you need to be able to see where you are and what your strategy is. You can build a dashboard using a spreadsheet or advanced CRM software like HubSpot. See HubSpot’s Advanced Sales Dashboard. The dashboard should show:

Top Priorities: Which tasks and jobs are the most important?

Schedule: Does my schedule reflect my top priorities?

Activity Goals: For example, how many proposals do I need to send every week?

Revenue Goals: Am I on track to reach my revenue goals?

Leads: Do I have enough leads in my pipeline?

Keep your sales pipeline full

According to sales pro Colleen Francis, many salespeople find themselves caught up in the “sales trap.” This happens when you spend a lot of time making sales but not enough time getting new leads. Over time, this causes your pipeline to dry up. To prevent this, you need to be constantly filling your sales pipeline. Here are a few ways to keep a steady flow of leads:

Buying lists: Many salespeople find this tactic to be a crapshoot, but in some cases, lists can be a great way to supply a pipeline of leads.

List generation services: Similar to buying lists, this can be hit-or-miss, but specialized services can help you bring in enough names to add to your lists.

Build your own list: Using professional networks like LinkedIn, you can build your own list of ideal companies and people who work there. Then, try to find their contact information to help you further qualify leads.

Inbound lead generation: Getting leads to come to you is what everyone wants. These leads have some understanding of your brand and some rate of interest in your option. Their rate of interest could vary from seeing your website, opening up an email, downloading premium content, asking for a demo, or completing a contact form. To find out more about these leads to load your pipeline, take a look at this short article: “Generating Leads Online: The Birds and the Bees.”

Maintain your pipeline

As you send out more proposals and close more sales, take time to find new leads to load the top of the funnel. This is an everyday task to make sure your pipeline is constantly moving. Determine the number of potential customers you need in the Engage phase in order to meet your sales goals. Luckily there are many sales monitoring software options available that can help you monitor the activity of your potential customers in the sales pipeline.

Clean up your pipeline

If you know a potential customer is no longer a good lead or stays in the same phase of the pipeline for a long time, it’s time to take a closer look at them. Cleaning up your pipeline will help you concentrate on leads that are more qualified. It will also give you the chance to prepare more and make better sales projections. Keeping your pipeline current also includes making sure its information is correct. For example, if a prospect leaves your target company, remove them from the pipeline and find the person who has replaced them. Review your goals frequently to make sure they are challenging but attainable.

The final word

Even for the best salesperson, building a steady sales pipeline can be tricky. Completely understanding your potential customers and where they are in the Buyer’s Journey will help you create a well-flowing pipeline. This process belongs to a bigger marketing and sales strategy called the Inbound Methodology.

It could be really tough to do this all alone. We at Responsify work with Learning Management System (LMS) sales and business development pros to offer strategy, support, and help in developing an inbound leads pipeline. By collaborating, we help marketing and salespeople tactically draw in brand-new site visitors, convert them to qualified leads, and then happy customers.

We’ve helped many sales pros integrate Inbound right into their existing sales process. Do not hesitate to schedule a complimentary strategy session to help you review your tactics for maintaining your sales pipeline and find ways to make them even better.