The Modern Guide to Building Your Sales Pipeline
Introduction
It’s a perennial must-do for every sales professional to bring qualified leads into the sales pipeline and nurture them carefully. However, everything else about finding and communicating with prospects—from conducting research, to making initial contact, to reaching out at events—has changed dramatically over the past few years.
In this article, we provide advice cultivated from sales engagement experts on the newest ways to research and connect with prospects, whether you’re doing it through email, over the phone, or at events.
Researching Your Targets: Accurate, Timely Data at Your Fingertips
There’s a plethora of research tools available to salespeople today. The research you can conduct into people and organizations is far more accurate and up-to-date, and more likely to foster engagement all the way along the pipeline. Use sites like LinkedIn and Google to determine if your prospect, and his or her company, belongs in your sales pipeline.
Research can uncover a lot of great information. It can provide salespeople multiple points of entry – having multiple senior contacts means more champions and lowers the risk of any single contact leaving the company. It also establishes credibility if there is shared investors and partners on the client list. Finding relevant tradeshows will provide info on who’s leading the market, other companies in the space, and who your competitors are.
Break-In Emails: Leave Your Sales Pitch on Your Hard Drive
Email is the preferred method of communication today for prospects and customers. However, sales professionals only have a split second or two to convince a prospect to read the email so an email’s subject line and first sentence must be compelling.
Make sure to only share high-value content such as relevant case studies, details on industry trends that might impact a prospect’s business, and/or advice on how to adjust and capitalize on trigger events. When sending content, less is more, especially with slide presentations. The first five slides to a presentation deck will typically have the greatest impact.
Video can also be a crucial differentiator. Emailing short, personalized videos to prospects can lead to a twofold increase in open rates for break-in emails. Be sure to include a specific call to action at the end of the video.
A robust sales engagement platform can measure the results of break-in emails by providing immediate visibility into how prospects are engaging, including how they are interacting with specific content and for how long. Knowing what approaches and content work best can help sales professionals fine-tune efforts and focus
energy on making connections with the most promising qualified prospects.
Cold Calling: Letting Go of the Numbers Game
Develop a multi-touch strategy for breaking in with a prospect. Use “cold emails” as warm-ups before making calls and vice versa. Make sure to research a company before picking up the phone, and have a brief and customized message at the ready for the almost inevitable first stop at voice mail.
Sales pros should be more strategic about cold calling to avoid wasting their own valuable time. A sales engagement platform provides sales professionals with opportunities to maximize cold calls that turn warm. For example, with the ability to initiate instant screen sharing, sales reps can stream and share dynamic content through a branded URL, connecting to their prospects and clients anytime, anywhere, on any device.
Churn, smile, and dial won’t work anymore; sales pros have to be honest, real and authentic about the value they’re providing.
Events: Turning Conversations Into Connections
Nothing beats in-person networking and the power of a handshake. But the key is making sure you’re spending time meeting the most promising contacts in the right venues.
Quick follow-up after an event is essential. Prepare your follow-up correspondence before the event – and if appropriate, send it from the event. Prepare an email template with information about your company, and include compelling content. That way, your follow-up will be preformatted and ready to go, so you can quickly customize and send.
Conclusion
Accelerating pipeline is a critical component of any salesperson’s quota success. Even one small improvement can deliver big results. Sales professionals who focus on thoughtfully engaging with prospects improve their productivity and win more throughout the sales cycle.
To download a full copy of the guide, visit http://www.clearslide-inc.com/resources-building-sales-pipeline.html 
About ClearSlide:
ClearSlide is the leading sales engagement platform that powers valuable, genuine business conversations and enables sales teams to close more business. ClearSlide improves customer communications (phone, email, face-to-face) by providing real-time visibility and analytics for both sellers and sales leaders. As a result, customers achieve higher seller productivity, increased sales management effectiveness, and stronger customer-facing messaging. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, ClearSlide serves thousands of customers, including Rackspace, Thomson Reuters, LinkedIn, Forbes, and more.
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