Bottlenecks are part of every business, and the sales pipeline is no different. When bottlenecks appear in a business process, they can cause severe damage. If bottlenecks are ignored, they’ll increase costs, bring down the revenue, and minimize innovation capabilities. In our new normal in sales, these bottlenecks can be less apparent but equally as costly.
For example, bottlenecks in a sales process can escalate the costs and introduce a whole new level of unpredictability that prohibits businesses from delivering their best performance. When bottlenecks exist for long, they pull a sales leader out of the driver’s seat.
Inefficient sales processes have many bottlenecks that may disrupt the flow of the overall sales funnel. In this blog, we will cover two bottlenecks that are commonplace in a sales process. Afterward, we’ll share one proven way of overcoming those bottlenecks and setting a sales funnel free.
Identifying bottlenecks that usually throttle a sales pipeline
Businesses should have the best-of-breed tools and technologies for helping them discover bottlenecks in a sales process. Most businesses believe that a cut-and-dried CRM tool will help them provide analytics that’d uncover bottlenecks. However, most CRMs may not be able to show real-time metrics related to the rate of stage-to-stage conversions; many CRMs may even fail in giving insights into stage durations. These metrics and insights help sales leaders discover bottlenecks in a sales pipeline and do course correction.
#1 Bottleneck: Coaching sales development reps
Most of the time, sales leaders have to organize coaching sessions for a newly hired rep. That way, they make sure that the rep is following the most optimal sales processes. Sometimes, the sales manager may presume that one sales rep doesn’t need coaching; however, it may also happen the rep—whom the manager thought could give the coaching session a pass—eventually required a lot of hand-holding. Identifying the reps who require extensive coaching and then spending time and costs on training them can disrupt even the most efficient sales processes.
#2 Bottleneck: Sales team making cold calls
Most sales managers commit the cardinal sin of giving their talented sales staff the responsibility to make cold calls and identify leads. Nevertheless, making sales teams do something as mechanical as cold calling isn’t the best way forward. Moreover, most in-house reps may still squirm at the idea of pitching a business’s offerings to complete strangers.
These top two bottlenecks have throttled the performance of many sales pipelines. As a manager, you’ll want to resolve these bottlenecks and improve the performance of your sales pipeline. Outsourcing sales development reps, or SDRs, is one proven way of getting rid of these bottlenecks and building an efficient sales pipeline.
Resolving bottlenecks in a sales pipeline with LeadJen’s outsourced SDRs
Most businesses from diverse industrial backgrounds swear by LeadJen’s outsourced SDR services. The SDRs from LeadJen will do the due diligence to understand your business and its target audience. That way, they’ll be able to cold-call and approach the clients more professionally and confidently. By having a team of outsourced SDRs with you, your sales team will be free to focus on building and executing high-level growth strategies. Get connected with a sales expert from LeadJen and discover how outsourcing SDRs will help you streamline your sales pipeline.