While qualifying a lead might be relatively simple, opportunity management is a bit more complex. Selling today requires flexibility, judgment, and a focus on results—not process. There comes a point when the salesperson knows best when to take a particular action. In other times, flexible, intuitive CRM solution is the backbone of your opportunity management.

2. Nikolaus Kimla
n.kimla@pipelinersales.com
www.pipelinersales.com
CEO at Pipelinersales Inc.
Written
by...
Based on the ebook:
Opportunity Management

3. Sales Techniques:
Opportunity Management

4. The stakes are higher:
a well-paid salesperson is now going to invest
valuable time into working the opportunity,
engaging key people at the target company,
making presentations, and utilizing all
possible sales techniques.
Sales Techniques: Opportunity Management
While qualifying a lead
might be relatively simple,
opportunity management
is a bit more complex.

5. Sales Techniques: Opportunity Management
The salesperson isn’t dealing with the actual
decision maker or makers. The budget isn’t
there. Someone in the prospect company
sours enthusiasm for your product or service.
The prospect’s buying pattern isn’t fully
understood. A competitor comes in under the
radar and undercuts you.
Despite the best sales
techniques, a sale can
go off the rails for any
number of reasons.

6. Sales Techniques: Opportunity Management
By accurately evaluating the risk factors:
● knowing all about your target
prospect company
● knowing which employees within a
company are vital for you to engage
● having an understanding of your target
company’s buying process
● knowing all the qualifying questions to
ask and get answered
How can the odds be
improved in your favor?

7. Knowing the Buyer

8. Knowing the Buyer
Once an opportunity has been basically qualified
(with a method such as BANT—Budget, Authority,
Needs, Timeline) the salesperson must know about
everyone on the buyer’s side that will be influencing
the purchasing decision.

9. Knowing the Buyer
The salesperson must also be well-versed in the
buying pattern of the target company. What route
does a purchasing decision take through the
organization? Is there a seasonal aspect to their
buying that could influence your sale for better or
worse? How long does a purchase normally take?

10. Knowing the Buyer
Another very important
element of knowing the
buyer is understanding any
possible relationships or
potential relationships that
company might have with
your competition.

11. Knowing the Buyer
Tracking all of the above requires a
flexible, intuitive CRM solution.
Every possible bit of required data
should be readily available in CRM
for a salesperson to access and run
with, so that he or she is well-armed
for any unexpected events that may
occur on any particular sale being
worked.

12. Sales Rep Flexibility

13. Sales Rep Flexibility
According to a recent Harvard Business Review
article entitled “Dismantling the Sales Machine,”
"Selling today requires flexibility, judgment, and a
focus on results—not process.
Process-driven sales machine approaches fall short,
because they give sales reps no room to exercise
judgment and creativity in dealing with highly
knowledgeable customers."

14. Sales Rep Flexibility
It can certainly be of great
assistance to a sales rep to
have a sales process to follow.
But there comes a point when the
salesperson knows best when to
take a particular action and what
that action should be, and it’s not
always the one called for in the
sales process.

15. Analysis of Lost
Opportunities

16. Analysis of Lost Opportunities
If sales management or even
members of the sales force can
statistically analyze past losses as
part of opportunity management,
such analysis can yield plentiful
data that is helpful to the creation
of new sales strategies, helpful to
the improvement of closing ratios
and helpful to taking time out
of sales cycles.

17. Analysis of Lost Opportunities
The actual problem comes about when information
about past losses is not readily available. In the
absence of such information people will naturally
make assumptions. When incorrect such assumptions
can obviously be quite destructive and will not lead
to any meaningful correction of relevant issues.

18. Analysis of Lost Opportunities
The key comes about in saving
detailed records of past losses.
When a potential sale becomes a
failed close, all the information
relating to it should be archived in
such a way that it can be retrieved.
The answer is a leading-edge CRM
solution that contains such an archive,
and allows access to all of the key
data relating to failed closes.

19. 6 Vital Qualities of a CRM
Solution

20. 6 Vital Qualities of a CRM Solution
A CRM solution is crucial to sales. As a sale
travels further up the pipeline, the
precision of that CRM application increases
in importance. By the time you’re well into
opportunity management, your CRM
solution had better be fully supportive or
you run the risk of losing those
opportunities.
Here are 6 qualities a CRM solution should
possess for it to fully empower opportunity
management.

21. 6 Vital Qualities of a CRM Solution
1. It should allow complete and accurate rating of
leads.
2. It should allow for complete data about the
prospect company.
3. It should allow for flexibility of salespeople.
4. It should contain full facility for the analysis
of lost opportunities.
5. It should be completely adaptable to your sales
process—and any changes in your process that may
occur in the future.
6. It should allow for placement of applicable
documents in each pipeline step to which they
apply.

22. A flexible, intuitive CRM solution is
the backbone of your opportunity
management. Make sure yours
allows your sales force to proceed
rapidly, confidently and
successfully.

23. Pipeliner CRM meets all of the
requirements laid out in this
presentation.
Download it today.

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