Pipeline tracking is essential for any sales team that wants to stay on top of their customer relationships and close more deals.

It helps to ensure your sales process is as efficient, effective, and streamlined as possible. By tracking every step of your sales process, from lead generation to customer onboarding, you can ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

With that in mind, here are some best practices for pipeline tracking that will help you make the most of your sales process and achieve the best results. With these tips and tricks, you'll be able to maximize your sales process and close more deals with ease.

There are many habits that successful salespeople share. Some of the most common ones include:

• Setting clear goals
• Time management
• Planning
• Persistence
• Communication skills
• Empathy 
• Adaptability
• Continuous learning

Here are more detailed explanations from our experts at The Center for Sales Strategy.

Think of sales performance as a three-legged stool. When all three legs are strong, there's nothing sturdier. But if one of the legs isn’t holding up its weight, the stool can no longer do its job.

Just as you need all three legs on that stool, so too must a sales organization have three solid legs to carry the weight of the expectations placed on it. As we get closer to 2023, ensure your team is strong in all three areas and set your team up for improved sales performance in the new year.

72% of the population wants hybrid work for the future, so more businesses are forced to adjust to this new setup. But finding a balance between working from home and being social can be challenging. 

For instance, you still need to conduct regular team meetings and manage different personality types. Thankfully attracting sales talent is only one part of the puzzle when shifting to a remote staff management strategy. 

Here's how to ensure everyone's voice is heard at work, even through a screen.

This post was originally published on Startups.co

Ditch the "why" of your sales conversation and focus on the "how" to show prospects that you hear and understand their needs and can solve their unique problems.

Buyers want things to be easy. So easy, in fact, that 89% of buyers say that they choose vendors that made a return on investment easier to prove or that could be easily justified with a business case. They also preferred speed over price — with 80% of buyers citing deployment and ease of use as “very important.”

Your customers want to understand how to use your product — not sit through a pitch and wonder if it’ll actually fit their needs. Selling is less about explaining why buyers should buy and more about showing how an easy-to-use product or service will help them.

Every business needs a skilled sales team to generate a positive ROI, but on-the-job performance is rarely the product of training alone. In fact, a marketing novice could keep up with an unengaged expert provided they use the right motivation and productivity strategies.

However, it’s much harder to motivate staff than it is to train them. There’s no one size fits all approach to motivational tactics, as every employee is unique and requires wildly different incentives to sell. Understanding these differences will allow you to use your talent effectively.

As a sales leader, you often need to revamp your sales structure to improve your sales team’s or department’s effectiveness.

That involves carefully studying your current sales structure to determine what works and what doesn’t. In today’s rapidly evolving selling environment, many sales leaders have realized the benefits of shifting from a retained sales structure to a growth sales structure.

Companies that invest in sales training are considered 57% more effective than companies that don't. When it comes to selling a product or service, teaching workers sales training may be more beneficial than you thought.

Sales training is when you teach your employees skills and techniques for creating sales opportunities. When done correctly, sales training can boost your business' revenue. Failing to train your workers in adequate sales training can lead to negative customer experiences.

But it all comes down to this: How do you make sales training enjoyable for your workers?

Over 13 million people work in sales and related occupations. Yet, not all salespeople are created equal — some of them are better at the job than others. What separates a good salesperson from a great one?

Mainly being able to get past sales objections.

There is no salesperson who won't come up against these objections, so knowing how to handle them can make or break the deal. Here's what you should do when you meet the inevitable.