What we know about closing sales

Companies that use Salesforce CRM have tools for managing the sales process that massively increase the likelihood of the success. A recent report published by Salesforce examined over 20,000 sales opportunities and highlighted some common characteristics of the deals that close compared to opportunities that don't.

Characteristics of sales opportunities that convert to revenue:

1. Less than one in three sales opportunities convert to revenue.

Adding new sales opportunities is the lifeblood of any sales team. Make sure that your advertising and inbound marketing activities add leads and early-stage opportunities regularly.

2. Selling is a team sport.

Sales opportunities with more that one person selling achieves higher conversion rates that deals with a single salesperson working on it. Look at the 'Opportunity Teams', and 'Revenue Splits' features of Salesforce to see how these can be automated

3. Buying is also a team sport.

Track all the key people that are involved in the buying decision. Record in the Salesforce opportunity record each of the people and their roles in the buying process (decision maker, technical evaluator, end-user etc.)

4. 'Closing' is time sensitive.

There's a 50% likelihood of the deal closing in the first 30 days, but only a 20% chance after 6 months. This means that we should concentrate our efforts on pushing new deals through the sales stages quickly, and also closing deals that are aged

5. It's good to talk (and send emails..)

Sales opportunities that close have on average 5 times more email communication linked to the deal that are lost. Regular, clear communication is a key factor in pushing each sales opportunity over the line

Take action:

Growth orientated SME's know how to manage the sales process, and use Salesforce CRM to track that their sales team are working the system and employing 'best practice' with each sales opportunity that they own.