Sales reps have to hit the ground running, and sales leaders like you have to set them up for success.
However, most reps spend more than 70% of their week on non-selling duties like deal management and administrative tasks.
These competing priorities impact productivity at each stage of the sales process.
Not only does admin work disproportionately consume your reps’ valuable time, but it also makes generating pipeline and coordinating CS handoffs difficult — much to the detriment of customer satisfaction and retention.
We interviewed top revenue team leaders about how to optimize each stage of the sales process, from prospecting to customer acquisition. In this guide, we highlight their insights on introducing automation to reduce friction, empower reps to successfully close deals, and improve handoffs between the sales and CS teams.
Start on the right foot: Prep pipeline for your team
Any sales leader can tell you it takes tremendous planning and airtight strategies to identify qualified leads and seamlessly move them through the pipeline. But figuring out the right formula puts your company head and shoulders above the competition.
Some sales leaders depend on outbound prospecting, such as referral programs, and team connections to generate pipeline. Douglas van Oijen, VP of Sales at Foleon, uses referral programs to generate qualified leads. “To enable our AEs, we created a referral program and offered incentives for each referral,” he says “This helps us [warm up] more lukewarm prospects for the AEs.”
Ultimately, prospecting requires good teamwork, strong coordination, and clear communication across the business.
"Elevating prospecting must be a total company effort, with the right mindset and accountability to pipeline health being a shared responsibility."
For example, Chris recommends leveraging executive and board networks for warm introductions.
Of course, sales and marketing alignment is integral to a fruitful prospecting process — especially when it comes to defining MQLs.
"My best advice is to just start somewhere. Defining MQL scoring can turn daunting and complex with multiple data points – but for your first version, start simple (think title, company size, etc).
As you learn from your scoring model (both data-driven and from sales partnership), you can slowly add complexity to improve your conversion rates while maintaining the volume sales needs."
The marketing team’s understanding of the buyer’s needs at the top of the funnel helps sales qualify leads more precisely. Also, an aligned inbound strategy enables sales to engage prospects on a more personal level and meet them where they are.
The marketing team’s understanding of the buyer’s needs at the top of the funnel helps sales qualify leads more precisely. Also, an aligned inbound strategy enables sales to engage prospects on a more personal level and meet them where they are.
Here are three tactics for preparing a robust pipeline for your team:
Clarify your ICP and prospect lifecycle
An ideal customer profile (ICP) is crucial to any pipeline generation strategy, and should be your primary criteria for lead qualification. A precise ICP is crucial for identifying prospects that are a right fit, and in determining the correct messaging.
"You need to begin with the end in mind. Who is your ICP? What are the negative consequences they're experiencing by not having your solution, and what are the positive business outcomes you help them achieve? Get specific!"
With that ICP in mind, sales and marketing can collaborate to develop a prospect lifecycle. This includes deciding when sales engages vs. when marketing engages.
“With both automation and processes, you can reduce any overlap in engagement to create a pleasant experience for the prospect,” Koppes says. “It’s also crucial to make sure sales has the ideal level of insight into their prospect’s engagement with marketing. ... This relationship and coordination will help guide your prospects through the funnel with a great experience with your brand.”
Hit the prospecting bullseye
Clarity around your ICP springboards a more targeted approach to prospecting and to prioritizing high-value leads. You can only tailor your messaging and discovery questions to prospects’ specific needs when you understand the problems they’re trying to solve, and how your solution helps them achieve their goals.
Determining criteria ahead of time puts your team in a position to quickly and accurately qualify and prioritize prospects. The goal here, according to Thompson, is to test alignment and fit with your offerings. If you have to pitch the prospect at this stage, then you aren’t precise enough in your targeting efforts.
Set up meetings with interested prospects faster
Once a prospect is interested in your solution, it’s important to make contact as soon as possible. Delaying by even a few hours gives the prospect an opening to find a solution elsewhere.
In fact, best practice is to respond to a prospect within five minutes. Data shows even a 30-minute delay makes success 21 times less likely.
This is why technology like chatbots and automatic scheduling software help improve your time to close. Automation can remove roadblocks and keep your sales process moving forward.
But this is just the beginning. Once you’ve qualified and formally entered your prospect into your pipeline, it’s imperative to keep engagement high so your prospect becomes a customer.
Optimize the sales process to build and sustain momentum
Now it’s your sales rep’s job to get the deal over the line. They can gain and keep momentum by creating a smooth and enjoyable customer experience and providing value to the prospect throughout.
Yet, it’s easy to fall prey to the kinks in the sales process when customer fit hasn’t been established. Prospects are more likely to drop out of deals when they’re not engaged or they’re not absolutely certain you can solve their problem.
To address — and hopefully prevent — this issue, here are a few steps you and your team can take to give you a better shot at success.
Continue the discovery process throughout the deal
As Bondarenko points out, the discovery process continues throughout the sales cycle. At any point in the process, either you or your prospect can realize that your partnership may not be a good fit.
A solid discovery process requires your sales rep to continuously perform ICP research during the sales process. Bondarenko says, “The discovery process should start prior to the actual first prospect interaction and continue throughout the entire sales cycle, gradually building up and reaffirming an understanding of the prospect's current state, needs, pains, ideal future state, etc."
"A great rule of thumb: a seller should never ask a question to seek information that they could find on their own online."
As your reps present case studies, ROI calculations, and demos to prospects, they should continue to accurately assess whether or not the solution is right for the prospect — and if the prospect is right for the business.
Adapt to the buyer’s journey
While you might be tempted to prescribe a seller’s journey to streamline your sales process, that approach can alienate your buyer. Today, most buyers do a chunk of the legwork themselves, spending as little as 5% of their time talking to sales reps. That’s all reps, not just yours.
To stand out and impress your potential buyers, orient your sales process to the buyer’s journey. Thompson advises salespeople to use this opportunity to outline what an ideal engagement looks like for you and your buyer.
“For many sellers this will represent a shift in how they engage,” Thompson says. “But if you really believe that you are the expert, then you owe it to your prospect to lead them through the process.” This way, you’re able to become a trusted partner to your prospect — making the transition to customer smoother.
Automate meeting scheduling
A key tactic to maintain deal momentum is to automate meeting scheduling. Engaging with a prospect at the moment they show interest is crucial to conversion. Van Oijen’s team sends an automated meeting link that shows their availability, which allows prospects to schedule at their convenience.
Scheduling meetings quickly is only one part of the meeting lifecycle — equally important is getting your prospect to show up and keeping them interested in your solution. Scheduling automation technology allows you to stay engaged with prospects before, during, and after the meeting. Specifically, it lets salespeople easily send meeting reminders, follow up with requested resources, and schedule future appointments to keep momentum going throughout the entire sales cycle and increase the likelihood of conversion.
Even though your team considers the deal to be “done” when the sales rep hands over the reins to CS, this leg of the customer journey also lays the groundwork for account expansion and renewal.
Coordinate cross-functionally to create lifetime customers
At this stage in the sales process, your business moves from promising to proving the value of your solution. In addition to increasing upsell and cross-sell opportunities, a smooth handoff is crucial to an excellent customer experience.
"Getting [the handoff] right can have a significant impact on metrics like churn, customer satisfaction, and net dollar retention."
In an uncertain market, churn reduction is critical for businesses. Moreover, happy customers unlock new business opportunities. Research shows the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60–70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is just 5–20%.
Unfortunately, sometimes the handoff between sales and CS can be sloppy. This can happen when the AE doesn’t update your CRM (or source of truth) with accurate account information, makes promises CS can’t fulfill, or completely ghosts after closing the deal. This lack of coordination sours the customer, undoing all your hard work.
Here are some tips for smooth handoffs:
Get sales and CS on the same page
From the start, sales and CS should agree on what makes a prospect a good fit and whether or not your product can solve their problems.
To get your teams on the same page, set customer expectations early — well before the handoff. Work with CS to determine when the hand-off process will start and what it will look like, so that internal and external teams are on the same page. Together, sales and CS can establish joint processes for determining customer needs, integrate their tools to reflect the same data, and ensure that key customer data is transferred between teams. This way, CS can empower clients starting from day one.
Document your process
For better internal collaboration and alignment, maintain up-to-date documentation that outlines the handoff protocol. Clear instructions on the steps in your process eliminate confusion about what to do after a customer has signed a contract.
Van Oijen’s team at Foleon keeps account information in their CRM up-to-date using the SPICED framework with Winning by Design. “We are really strict on filling out that information because if we don't, we can't onboard the customer efficiently to set up the CS team.”
Bondarenko says unifying the revenue team and company around the customer requires clearly outlined documentation around who does what, key transition points, and what happens with the customer.
"More tactically, key information handoff between sales and CS is really the most significant transition point [because] it's the point at which the customer has signed on the dotted line; committing budget, resources, and trust in the vendor. Those first 48 hours after signature are critical to making that positive first impression."
Integrate your tech stack
Since each department has preferred tech tools, it’s crucial your systems talk to each other. Integrating your tools makes your data sources more robust, and keeps each department aligned.
Specifically, you can increase the efficiency of your inbound and outbound strategies by integrating your CRM and your marketing forms with your scheduling tools. This helps automate your workflows and improve team hand-offs.
A good scheduling automation platform integration with your CRM should let you schedule meetings without ever leaving your CRM, create or update objects as soon as a meeting is scheduled, automate meeting reminders and follow-ups, and create events or tasks for any object once a meeting is scheduled.
Ideally, that scheduling platform also integrates with your existing marketing forms. That way when a prospect hits the “Submit” button on your online forms, you can qualify those leads in real time, and automatically route known leads and existing customers to the correct scheduling pages.
Automations like these reduce friction internally and with customers, and significantly reduce your sales reps’ admin burden. This speed and precision help you maximize every revenue opportunity, speed up your sales cycle, and win more deals.
Take revenue generation one step at a time
Optimizing your sales cycle with automation and process improvements can enhance all stages of your sales process — pipeline generation, lead qualification, and CS handoff — to streamline the customer experience and close more deals.
Implementing these efficiencies enables your sales reps to spend more time doing what they do best: presenting your solutions, overcoming objections, and generating proposals for your future customers.
One major way to move the needle on your deals is to remove the unnecessary back-and-forth of scheduling meetings and initiating follow-ups. More than 93% of sales teams achieve shorter sales cycles with Calendly, and 89% close more deals.
Ready to speed up sales and drive more revenue?
See why over 100,000 companies rely on Calendly to simplify scheduling.
![Resource Card - [Guide] - Qualify, route, and book sales meetings instantly](png/-gated_pdf-_calendly_for_mktg_teams__revops__gated_guide99ae.png?q=85&fm=webp)
