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A strong sales strategy plan creates the foundation for a cohesive and successful sales organization. Sales strategies and initiatives also align salespeople on shared goals and empower them to do their best work — keeping them happy and successful, too.

In this guide, I’ll dig into some sales strategies and initiatives that I’ve found can help you generate more leads and close more deals. But first, let’s define what a sales strategy is.

Table of Contents

• What is a sales strategy?
• The Most Effective Sales Strategies
• How to Build a Sales Strategy
• Sales Initiatives
• Why is a sales strategy important?
• Sales Strategy Types
• Sales Strategy Examples from Successful Sales Teams

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Most strategies involve a detailed plan of best practices and processes set by management.

Why is a sales strategy important?

A clear sales strategy serves as a map for the growth of your business. Your sales strategy is key to future planning, problem-solving, goal-setting, and management.

An effective sales strategy can help you:

• Give your team direction and focus. Strategic clarity can help your sales reps and managers understand which goals and activities to prioritize. This can lead to improved productivity and outcomes.
• Ensure consistent messaging. Your sales strategy can help your team deliver a consistent message to prospects, partners, and customers. This can increase both trust and effectiveness.
• Optimize opportunities. Strong sales strategies will help you target the right prospects and customize your approach. This can help your team make the most of every sales opportunity.
• Improve resource allocation. Your sales strategy outlines your priorities and resources. In turn, this can help your sales team use their time, effort, and other resources more efficiently, boosting your team’s ability to focus on high-potential deals.

Next, let’s cover some of the sales strategies that I’ve found can be most effective.

Sales Strategy Types

The customer is the most important element to consider when choosing your business‘s sales strategy. Once you’ve addressed their needs, you can start thinking about your sales team. Your sales strategy should offer a framework that attracts and engages prospects — while simultaneously enabling your team to build relationships.

Prospects‘ and teams’ needs and interests vary, so your sales strategy shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Every sales org should draw up the type of sales strategy that works best for its priorities.

Here are some frameworks you can reference when putting yours together.

Outbound Sales Strategy

Outbound sales strategies are the legacy approach of most sales teams. In these systems, companies base their sales strategy on the seller, not the customer.

Outbound sales processes often include cold calling, purchasing email lists, and engaging in other cold prospecting techniques. As a result, daily success metrics are often based on the quantity of connections, not the quality.

Outbound sales teams often rely on manually-entered data to monitor their sales pipelines and coach their salespeople. To enhance efficiency, outbound sales teams may utilize software to automate certain tasks, though the integration might not be seamless. They may also run sales and marketing independently, which can create a disjointed experience for buyers.

Inbound Sales Strategy

Inbound sales strategies are the modern methodology for sales teams. Companies following an inbound approach base their sales processes on buyer actions, capturing seller and buyer data to monitor their pipelines and coach their salespeople.

Inbound sales strategies connect reps’ activities to the three stages of the buyer journey — awareness, consideration, and decision — encouraging sales teams to map their tactics to each step.

The inbound methodology also aligns sales and marketing, creating a seamless experience for buyers. Check out this post to learn more about inbound sales and how to develop an inbound sales process.

Inbound vs. Outbound Sales Methodology

Nowadays, much of the information needed to evaluate a product is available online — empowering buyers and making them less reliant on sellers for product knowledge and insight. That means that if sales teams don’t align with the modern buyer’s process. If they fail to add value beyond the information already available online, then buyers will have no reason to engage with a sales team.

As I mentioned above, inbound sales benefits buyers at each stage of the buyer process, including:

• Awareness.
• Consideration.
• Decision.

Inbound sales teams help buyers become aware of potential problems or opportunities and discover strategies to solve those problems.

Then, buyers evaluate whether the salesperson can help with their problem, and if the buyer thinks they can, they’ll purchase a solution to their problem. Inbound sales reps are helpful and trustworthy, creating partnerships rather than power struggles.

Consultative Selling

The modern sales professionals should always act as helpful, consultative resources for prospects. Consultative selling is a strategy that leans into that trend. It places emphasis on leading with relationship building and positioning the right product after that connection has been established.

This brand of sales involves certain key actions, including balancing questions with insights, developing trust with extensive product knowledge, active listening, and letting feedback guide conversations.

Obviously, this is an extremely high-level overview of the strategy — for a more granular picture of how it works, check out this article.

Account-Based Selling

Account-Based Selling (ABS) is a sales strategy that’s rooted in locking in on key, higher-value accounts as opposed to casting a wide net for a broad range of prospects. With ABS, salespeople are expected to identify and pursue specific accounts that have high conversion potential.

That means salespeople are expected to conduct thorough, thoughtful research on prospects to more effectively meet them where they are. The strategy also places emphasis on collaboration with marketing — sales teams lean on their marketing departments to create personalized, targeted content for each account.

Ultimately, successfully executed Account-Based Selling rests on a sales team’s ability to take a granular approach to really lock in on individual prospects’ needs and interests. Salespeople leveraging the strategy also need to know how to prioritize the accounts they pursue.

ABS can be extremely effective if it’s done right, but it does come with its share of risk — if your sales org elects to forego reaching out to a wide range of prospects in favor of connecting with key accounts, you generally have less room for error.

Partner Selling

Partner selling is a sales strategy that requires forming strategic partnerships with adjacent brands. With partner selling, your company gains access to new markets through promotion from your partner.

Ideally, your partner will have their own client base. This is generally preferred because it means sales teams can tap into a new market without spending weeks or months researching potential leads and refining messaging strategies.

The downside of partner selling is that your in-house sales team may not be the ones directly selling to customers. This means you’ll need to rely on your partner’s sales teams to do the work and trust they’re portraying your company in the most favorable light.

Value-Based Selling

A smart salesperson knows that the best way to make a sale is to describe the benefits and value of the purchase. While most salespeople throw this strategy into their everyday sales conversations, it has a name: value-based selling.

Value-based selling focuses on selling the positives and benefits of your products and services. To effectively use this strategy, your sales team needs to dig deep into your ideal client’s pain points and understand their challenges.

When done correctly, value-based selling is effective. It helps build relationships with your clients, while also positioning your company as an industry solution.

For a look at some other key methodologies that can inform your sales strategy, check out this article.

Below, I’ll walk through how to create a sales strategy plan for your team.

The most effective sales strategies involve the entire organization. Sure, individual sales pros may excel in one strategy over another, but to really drive the point home and close more deals, you need everyone on the same page.

Check out these practical (and effective!) sales strategies. Choose the ones that best fit your brand and train your team on how to use them.

1. Increase online sales through social media.

Focusing on online sales is a great sales strategy, but it requires the help of your marketing team. To understand how effective social media marketing is for online sales, let’s look at some data from Statista. Statista surveyed marketers across the globe and found:

• 83% say social media helps increase their brand awareness.
• 73% say social media marketing helps increase traffic to their website.
• 65% of marketers say it helps generate new leads.

There’s no doubt social media brings about increased online sales. However, while it may be tempting to jump on the hottest social media trend or just go wherever your competitors are, that probably won’t be your best choice. Instead, be diligent about figuring out where your target customers are spending their time and meet them where they’re most active.

For some companies, that means advertising on TikTok. And for others, that means avoiding TikTok in favor of focusing on LinkedIn.

Pro tip: Social media was built for connections. You may need to adjust your tone and voice to match different platforms. You’ll want your content to blend in naturally with the platform and not seem out of place.

2. Become a thought leader.

Thought leadership is more than just a trendy buzzword. It’s a sales and marketing strategy designed to position your company as a leader in the industry. It takes dedication and cross-department collaboration. When done correctly, it helps build an undeniable brand narrative that attracts the right leads.

Sharing advice, tried-and-true best practices, and niche expertise are some of the most long-lasting ways to build a brand narrative and lend more credibility to your organization.

That’s what thought leaders do.

An Edelman report found that “Thought leadership is one of the most effective tools an organization can use to demonstrate its value to customers during a tough economy — even more so than traditional advertising or product marketing, according to B2B buyers.”

According to the study, 61% of decision-makers believed that thought leadership could be moderately or very effective in demonstrating the value of a company’s products.

So what’s the catch? Not all thought leadership content is created equal.

Thought leadership can have a huge positive impact, but poor thought leadership can be devastating to a company’s sales goals. So, before you plan a spree of LinkedIn posts to drive leads, consider:

• Who your audience is.
• What they need to know.
• How your organization can help.

Then, consider which of your employees should engage with your thought leadership strategy. Thought leaders can be anyone in your organization, including:

• C-level executives.
• Sales leaders.
• Marketers.
• Customer service representatives.

Also, it may not hurt to have a second set of eyes from your marketing, communication, and PR departments review your plan first to make sure everything is on-brand (and trackable!).

3. Prioritize inbound sales calls as hot leads.

You and your sales team know your process better than anyone. So take it from me — if you’ve seen success with pitching with pricing first, last, or somewhere in between, stick with what’s working for you.

Beyond that, your team should always prioritize the prospects who come to you. These hot leads are definitely interested in what you have to sell, and before they make a decision, they want to get the information they need about how it will benefit them.

By prioritizing talking to these prospects as soon as they call in or send an email, you’re putting your best foot forward and showing them that you’re helpful, solutions-oriented, and considerate of their time.

4. Implement a free trial.

47% of sales pros who offer buyers self-service tools are more likely to be over their sales goals compared to pros who do not offer those kinds of tools.

So, what’s the best way to get prospects interested in your offerings? A free trial.

Free trials give potential customers the opportunity to test your product out before committing to it. This sales strategy helps create interest while also nudging leads through the conversion funnel.

Pro tip: To encourage users to switch to a paid version, you can place restrictions on your free version, such as limited features or usage caps — but it’s important to ensure that people still have a positive experience with the free trial.

5. Don’t shy away from cold calling.

In sales, cold calling is unavoidable. But it doesn’t have to be miserable. There are a number of cold-calling techniques that really work, including HubSpot’s bulletproof cold-calling template.

I would also highly recommend using HubSpot Sales Hub‘s playbooks and conversation intelligence features here. Playbooks allow you to store call scripts for various scenarios along with other resources in a centralized database — it helps reps adjust their approach on the fly whenever needed.

Conversation intelligence records and stores calls directly within the platform. It then lets you examine each call and leave feedback on any given moment within a conversation.

Pro tip: If your reps are feeling nervous, have them practice cold calls with one another before making actual calls. In my experience, that can be a great way to boost a sales team’s confidence and get everyone comfortable with the script.

6. Offer a demonstration of the product.

Pitching can be the make-or-break moment in a sales strategy. The sales pitch has to be a powerful, compelling presentation, but it also can’t come on too strong — otherwise, you risk scaring away the prospect.

To strike this balance, study the elements of a successful sales pitch and craft a narrative that illustrates to prospects how they’ll benefit from making the purchase. Test your presentations on a few loyal customers and gather their feedback, helping you optimize your pitch and ensure it clearly demonstrates your product’s value-add.

Pro tip: Involve your marketing team to help you create a successful sales pitch. Your marketers understand your audience and can help you craft a better, more compelling message to share with your sales team.

7. Provide a personalized, clear end result.

Prospects want to purchase a means to improve their own operations. So, after you walk through your offering, you have to personalize your explanation of its benefits.

Remember how I mentioned value-based selling? It’s an effective sales strategy your entire team can implement. Focus on highlighting how your company can help each individual prospect in a way that’s valuable to them.

For example, if you’re selling customer service software to a small business that has no experience with similar tools, it’s your job to educate them on how your solution can add value in a small business setting. In this context, explaining how you’ve helped large customers manage hundreds of employees would be completely irrelevant and perhaps even confusing.

With this personalized approach, your prospects will have an easier time seeing how they can use your product or service, instead of getting stuck debating what they’ll even use it for.

8. Be willing to adapt your offering.

In sales conversations, you should expect to come across clients with unique demands. Every company has its own structures and needs, so encountering some variability is only natural.

As Marco Sandrone, a sales leader for the global staffing company Gi Group, explains, “Sales is a dynamic and competitive field that requires constant learning and improvement … that’s why one of the key skills that salespeople need to succeed in today’s fast-changing business environment is adaptability.”

Sandrone notes that adaptability allows teams to adjust to different situations and circumstances. Sales people can then “respond effectively to new challenges and opportunities. It involves being flexible, creative, and resilient in the face of change,” Sandrone says.

You can’t say yes to everything. But instead of immediately saying “we won’t” or “we can’t” to every customer requirement, make sure your sales strategy (and your reps!) is adaptable and able to accommodate your customers’ requests.

9. Close deals with confidence.

How your team closes a sale is just as important as how they start the conversation. Encourage clear, concise, and firm closing techniques to make sure your sales team sets the right expectations and delivers on their promises.

Keeping a list of proven, go-to closing techniques will help salespeople routinely win deals. Some of my favorite techniques include:

• The now or never close: “If you commit now, I can get you a 20% discount.”
• The question close: “In your opinion, does what I am offering solve your problem?”

Pro tip: 47% of sales pros use generative AI to write sales content or outreach methods. Consider giving your team access to an AI tool like Claude or ChatGPT to support their sales messaging.

To further improve your team’s closing techniques and learn to close deals with confidence, check out this free, downloadable Sales Closing Guide.

10. Nurture existing accounts for future selling opportunities.

Account management is an incredibly important part of the sales process, as this is how your team fosters loyal, happy customers and identifies cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

So, after your sales team sees success with its sales strategy, it’s vital to form a partnership between the sales team and customer service/success teams.

Remember: Ensuring customers’ continued satisfaction with your product or service will make them more likely to do business with your company again. You may even inspire them to advocate for it proactively.

Now that you have the template you need, let’s go over how you can build a sales strategy.

Your company needs a solid sales strategy to be successful. Adding AI to your sales strategy improves your sales processes while helping reps close more deals. In fact, Salesforce found that 83% of sales reps who use AI see revenue growth compared to 66% of sales reps who do not.

Below, I outline how to build a comprehensive sales plan and give you practical tips on how to incorporate AI to support your strategy.

1. Develop organizational goals.

Setting goals is a no-brainer for most sales teams. Otherwise, how will you know whether you’re executing the right activities or achieving the best results? There are three strategies that I’ve found can be particularly helpful in developing clear organizational goals for a sales strategy.

Involve cross-departmental stakeholders.

Avoid developing sales goals in a silo. Instead, be sure to get input from stakeholders across the organization, as every department is held accountable to the company’s bottom line.

Create SMART goals.

SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Setting SMART goals can help your team simplify and track complex, long-term sales goals.

For example, a specific, measurable, and time-bound goal could be to sell 150% of the projected sales quota in Q2. Your internal team can propose this goal and then decide whether it is both relevant and attainable (attainability is particularly important because setting unrealistic goals can harm team motivation).

Connect individual goals to organizational goals.

If you’re creating a team-specific strategy, you may also want to set goals for individual team members. Building ownership and accountability into sales goals can help keep your team aligned, and it also makes your sales strategy more cohesive.

Pro tip: Use an AI agent to help you further develop and refine your goals. For example, if you’re having trouble creating SMART goals, AI can help you develop a realistic plan for your sales team.

2. Create a customer profile that is tailored to a specific product offering.

A detailed profile of your target customer — a buyer persona — is an essential component of an effective sales strategy. Below, I’ve outlined the key steps to take when creating a buyer persona to ensure you come up with a useful profile:

Find target markets and segments.

First, look at your industry as a whole. Get a sense of your ideal customer’s company size, psychographics, and buying process. You may want to look at industry trends, too.

Conduct market research to understand customer needs and preferences.

Next, do some market research. This template can help you streamline the process and understand which types of research will be best for your business.

You may also want to do some competitor analysis at this stage. Once you know the strengths and weaknesses of competing brands, you can more easily find gaps that you can fill for specific customers.

Create a clear value proposition to attract your ideal customer to your product or service.

Finally, make sure your product offering outlines the benefits of your product for your target customer. It’s important to use insights from your customer profile to emphasize features that solve your target customer’s pain points.

Your business may already have a clear value proposition — but if not, you can use these free value proposition templates to draft one.

Be sure to schedule time to update and refine your buyer persona to make sure it stays aligned with current customer trends and expectations.

Pro tip: AI is a fantastic tool to help you create your buyer persona. Once you’ve conducted your research, consider using that information to create a CustomGPT. A CustomGPT can act as your ideal client, helping you refine your messaging and develop a sales strategy that better resonates with your audience.

3. Hire, onboard, and compensate sales team members adequately.

To develop an effective sales strategy, you need to have a powerful sales team in place. That means investing in hiring, onboarding, and retaining top talent. Specifically, I have learned that there are three key components of building (and keeping) a supportive, successful sales team:

Create great processes for hiring new members of your sales team.

First and foremost, create a list of criteria for sales managers to screen for when interviewing candidates. A well-defined job description and competency framework are also useful. These tools can help your team recruit and retain top talent.

Develop sales onboarding, training, and development programs.

Your training and onboarding program should prepare your sales team to sell effectively and efficiently. It should also help sales reps build advanced skills and industry knowledge.

But what if you don’t have the resources to develop comprehensive training in-house? In these situations, it may be worth considering combining organization-specific training with online sales training programs.

Create a motivational compensation and rewards plan.

Finally, once you’ve built a strong team, it’s vital to ensure your compensation plan is set up to motivate and retain them.

Many organizations connect sales compensation to organizational sales goals, but regardless of the specific compensation plan you choose, make sure that it meets or exceeds industry expectations. It should also inspire your team to celebrate individual and team achievements.

4. Create a plan to generate demand.

Now, it’s time to put together a detailed plan for how to target potential customers and increase their awareness of your offering. This may include using paid social acquisition channels, creating e-books, hosting webinars, and the many other strategies laid out in this article.

Featured Resource: Sales Plan Template

Download the Template for Free

As you create your sales plan, here are some of my top tips to remember:

Create targeted messaging and positioning for your target audience.

Targeted positioning will help your team create a foundation for reaching your top-priority audiences. It will also help you choose the best channels and tactics for each campaign, boosting your chances of increasing demand and identifying qualified leads with your sales strategy.

Add clear goals and KPIs to your sales plan.

In my experience, clear goals are critical both to help you stay motivated and to make sure you’re able to track the effectiveness of your sales strategies. Tracking these metrics can also help you change or update your strategies to increase their effectiveness over time.

Create processes for lead nurturing and follow-up.

Once you’ve generated some demand, it’s time to start converting. Of course, not every lead generation opportunity translates into a qualified lead or sales opportunity.

As you track your newly generated demand, find ways to align your processes with your buyers’ journeys. Then, use sales automation tools to manage your leads and create personalized follow-ups. This can help every rep on your team send the right message at the right time.

Optimize your sales plan and process.

It’s also essential to build in time to review your metrics. Then, you can use A/B testing, customer feedback, and sales team insights to refine your sales strategy plan further.

Pro tip: AI sales tools can help optimize your sales processes. Some tools can help your team quickly identify hot leads, while others help verify data, like phone numbers, to make cold outreach more effective. Review your strategy to identify areas of improvement, then look for an AI tool that can help fill in those gaps.

5. Measure individual and team performance.

Once you’ve set up your infrastructure, you’ll want to start creating procedures for tracking performance on the individual, team, and company levels. Tracking your efforts is imperative to optimize your processes and practices for future growth. Even if you’re just getting started with setting benchmarks for the team, write those goals down and track your progress toward them.

Build useful metrics to track sales performance.

This can take the form of quarterly KPIs, weekly dashboards, monthly reviews, or some combination of all three. Whatever cadence you choose, your process should also highlight the specific metrics that the team should focus on.

If you’re not sure where to start, these commonly-used KPIs can help you align performance expectations with sales goals:

• Revenue targets.
• Sales quotas.
• Conversion rates.
• Lead-to-opportunity ratios.
• Average deal size.
• Pipeline velocity.

Think about real-time performance tracking.

While business KPIs are useful for the long-term, fast-moving industries may need real-time tracking as well. To get an at-a-glance look at sales team performance, I’d suggest looking into tools that can give you instant visibility, such as HubSpot’s Sales Hub.

It’s also a good idea to consider using a dedicated AI sales tool. 52% of sales pros use tools like these for forecasting and analysis. Real-time insights can help you quickly find and address issues, creating opportunities for proactive sales performance management.

Create a process for sharing performance data.

Ultimately, tracking performance metrics gives you the data you need to offer constructive feedback and coaching to each member of your team. Whether you communicate via one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, or team huddles, it’s important to make space for these conversations. Regularly sharing and discussing performance data is a great way to understand performance gaps, offer guidance, and share best practices.

Pro tip: 40-65% of salespeople say AI saves them at least an hour of time each week. Consider implementing an AI tool with advanced reporting capabilities to cut down the time your team spends on data analysis.

6. Track sales activities.

Data is key to an effective sales strategy plan. With sales activity metrics, you can go beyond individual team performance to understand your entire sales operation.

Collect a range of sales activity data.

Sales activity metrics can help you understand how the team approaches day-to-day sales as a whole. I’ve found that it can be helpful to track everything from the sales presentation to closing techniques.

Specifically, collect data to see how your sales team performs beyond call or deal numbers in activities, such as:

• Meetings scheduled.
• Presentations delivered.
• Proposals submitted.
• Sales presentation success rates.
• Closing techniques.

Comparing this data to other goal metrics can show you patterns, best practices, and areas for improvement.

Track, lead, and prospect sources.

It’s also vital to make sure you’re tracking where your prospects are coming from. For example, if you’ll be publishing thought leadership content or sourcing leads from social media, make sure that any link you share is trackable with a UTM parameter.

Trackable links aren’t just valuable for learning which channels are generating the most leads. They can also help you focus your resources on the channels that generate the most relevant, qualified leads for driving sales.

Focus on continuous improvement.

Once you have a complete set of analytics to track your strategy, use that data to refine your sales strategies, team knowledge, and plans. A clear, data-driven process will make it easier to use customer feedback to grow your sales. It will also give your sales team the agility to adapt to industry and market changes that may impact your business down the road.

Businesses should always be looking for ways to innovate their approach to sales. Of course, it can be hard to know where to start — so here are some creative initiatives that can help sales reps and teams jumpstart their performance, stand out from the competition, and boost team productivity.

1. Refresh your buyer personas regularly.

Buyer personas inform all kinds of activity at your business, including (and most importantly) who your marketing and sales teams pursue as customers.

As your market and company shift, your buyer personas can become out-of-date, causing your sales team’s work to become stagnant and ineffective. As such, it’s critical to work with your marketing team to refresh your buyer personas regularly to best equip your sales team for prospecting and outreach.

Pro tip: If you’ve created a CustomGPT for your buyer persona, update your AI chatbot with new information as it becomes available. This can help you and your team create better sales pitches as your target audience evolves.

2. Actively align sales and marketing.

To align your sales team with your company’s marketing efforts, create and honor a service-level agreement (SLA) between your sales and marketing teams. This agreement will detail how each team can support each other, contribute to each other’s goals, and honor boundaries in a way that still moves prospects toward conversion.

Download our free SLA Template for Sales & Marketing to align sales and marketing goals and activities.

3. Use a CRM.

Successful sales teams and strategies require the right tools.

HubSpot’s all-in-one CRM eliminates manual work and streamlines your sales activity and data. It also keeps your sales team up-to-date about all relevant activity with your prospects, enabling new levels of transparency to motivate and align your team.

You can also use it alongside HubSpot’s marketing analytics software to get a complete overview of how prospects move throughout your sales funnels and streamline operations on both sales and marketing fronts.

Get HubSpot’s Free CRM

4. Listen to your prospects.

Just because prospects aren’t customers yet doesn’t mean they don’t have valuable feedback to offer.

As you move prospects through the sales funnel (and especially when they drop off), ask for candid feedback about their experience with your team and products. Even if they’ve lost interest, you may learn something that can help you convert your next prospect.

5. Invest in sales development and team-building.

The best sales teams align not only with their customers but also with their coworkers.

Sales is a difficult career, and without proper encouragement and camaraderie, people can easily become burned out. So, to keep your sales team feeling satisfied and supported, don’t forget to invest in sales development and team-building activities.

Sales Strategy Examples from Successful Sales Teams

Below, I’ve analyzed two incredibly high-performing sales teams to help shed light on how their unique sales strategies helped them achieve success.

1.HubSpot

Founded in 2006, HubSpot has grown to serve more than 184,000 customers in over 120 countries, bringing in more than $1.7 billion in annual revenue. HubSpot IPO’d in 2014, and the company is now valued at over $24.63 billion.

Here are a few pages from the HubSpot sales strategy playbook.

Hire the right people according to repeatable evaluation criteria.

HubSpot started by defining a list of attributes that made a successful sales rep: Strong work ethic, coachability, intelligence, passion, preparation and knowledge of HubSpot, adaptability to change, prior success, organizational skills, competitiveness, and brevity.

From there, the team established a repeatable process to evaluate candidates during interviews based on these weighted criteria.

Train the sales team by making them wear customers’ shoes.

Next, the team outlined its unique value proposition, target customer, competition, most common objections, product features and benefits, and so forth. Hubspot then created a hands-on training program. This curriculum would not only imitate the sales process for reps before they actually began selling but also allow them to experience their target customers’ pain points for themselves.

Today, a large part of HubSpot’s training program involves having reps create their own website and blog and then drive traffic to it. This exercise allows reps to better understand and support potential customers in the future. The organization also uses exams, certification programs, and presentations to measure each rep’s performance.

After employees are onboarded, HubSpot continues tracking their progress throughout the various stages of its sales process. The primary criteria the team looks at include leads created, leads worked, demos delivered, and leads won. Then, these criteria are measured against each other to create ratios such as leads created versus leads won.

Finally, HubSpot’s sales leaders track each stage in the process, so that if a rep is struggling with any particular metric, they can dig deeper to understand why that’s the case and what they can do to help.

Align sales and marketing.

In addition, HubSpot’s sales and marketing teams work closely together in a process affectionately known as “Smarketing.” This helps both organizations collaboratively generate consistent leads each month.

Thanks to this process, marketing teams understand which qualities a lead needs to meet before it’s handed over to sales, as well as how many of those qualified leads it must create each month to meet sales projections.

At the same time, the sales team understands how long they should wait before contacting a lead and how many attempts they should make to contact that lead. All of these decisions are led by data and science, rather than guesswork or gut feelings.

2. Shopify

Known for its consistent sales momentum and customer satisfaction, Shopify offers another great example of a highly successful sales organization. In a recent press release, Loren Padelford, a Shopify VP and general manager of Shopify Plus, shared his secret sauce for boosting sales.

Hire great people, not necessarily great salespeople.

Hiring is arguably one of the most essential components of a great sales strategy. Many sales managers, though, are misled into believing that they must hire sales superstars.

Instead, Padelford looks for six key traits when hiring salespeople: intelligence, work ethic, a history of success, creativity, entrepreneurship, and competitiveness.

The truth is that sales teams must first look for great people. Then, you can train them to help them become great salespeople.

Treat sales as a science, not an art.

Padelford describes how, thanks to modern digital tools, we can now measure sales down to the second. We can explain success with cold, hard data points, rather than turning to vague, qualitative assessments.

As such, every sales team today should be tracking their average deal size, average sales cycle length, lead-to-deal conversion rate, calls per day per rep, and the number of deals in the pipeline.

When tracked over time, each of these metrics can inform companies about the health of their sales process and help them pinpoint areas where they need to improve.

Build a smart, technological foundation.

Before Padelford took over the sales process at Shopify, sales reps would manually log phone calls and emails into a CRM, consuming five precious hours each week. With a sales force of 26 reps, that added up to 130 wasted hours per week.

Realizing this misuse of time and capital, Padelford led Shopify to adopt the HubSpot CRM. With this modern CRM, Shopify’s sales reps were able to receive notifications when prospects opened their emails, clicked links, and viewed document attachments.

In addition, its prospecting tool gave reps access to more than 19 million prospects, as well as detailed information about these prospects, such as estimated revenue, number of employees, suggested email addresses, and so on.

Maintain a high-quality pipeline by eliminating unqualified leads.

Shopify uses a 4/5 Threshold to filter out unqualified leads, thereby allowing its sales reps to focus on selling to leads who have a higher probability of becoming customers.

To evaluate whether a lead is qualified, a rep must have a concrete answer to four of the following five variables:

• Pain. Is the prospective customer experiencing a prominent business issue or challenge that requires them to make a change?
• Power. Is the prospective customer directly involved with the decision-making process? If not, who is?
• Money. Does our offering fall within their budget constraints?
• Process. What’s their buying process?
• Timeline. What stage are they at in the buyer’s journey? Will they purchase within a reasonable time frame?

Grow Better with Sales Strategies, Initiatives, and Templates

Every company can benefit from crafting a sales strategy plan. The free template below includes everything you’ll need to customize your strategy for your business and sales team.

Most importantly, regardless of what strategy you choose, always implement a buyer-first approach. With the strategies, initiatives, and examples described above, you’ll be on your way to leading a successful, high-performance sales team.

Editor’s note: This post was originally written in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Some sales managers hit their targets. Others build teams that consistently outperform, year after year. What makes the difference?

To find out, I spoke with top sales leaders, combed through expert interviews, and listened to hours of podcasts on leadership and performance. The best sales managers don’t just focus on hitting numbers — they build engaged, motivated, and constantly improving teams. They know how to develop talent, navigate challenges, and create a culture where people want to win.

In this piece, I’ll break down the key traits that separate good sales managers from truly exceptional leaders. These insights come straight from the experts, and they might just change the way you think about leading a team.

Table of Contents

• 5 Essential Sales Personality Traits
• How to Improve Your Sales Skills
• Tips for Selling Authentically
• Measure Leadership Impact Beyond Sales Numbers

5 Essential Sales Personality Traits

When I conducted my research and spoke to experts, I noticed something curious: the most successful leaders shared specific traits that had nothing to do with sales techniques. These five characteristics showed up repeatedly in how they handled problems, developed their people, and approached everyday decisions.

1. Coaching Mindset and Developmental Focus

This mindset prioritizes genuine development over basic metrics tracking.

According to Forrester’s Winter Sales Survey (2022), 62% of sales professionals in B2B organizations report that feedback and coaching from their first-line managers is effective and improves performance.

When coaching is done right — by focusing on skill development rather than just number monitoring — it directly impacts sales success. Instead of merely reviewing KPIs, high-performing managers take the time to guide reps through challenging objections, role-play difficult conversations, and offer constructive, real-time feedback.

If coaching isn’t translating into measurable improvement, it may not be coaching at all — it may just be oversight.

In a recent sales podcast, sales leadership expert Shane Gibson highlighted a common misconception. Many managers believe they‘re coaching when they’re actually just monitoring numbers.

“My goal is to really get out from behind the dashboard,” he said.

“Too many sales leaders say, ‘Are you coaching people on your team?’ ‘Oh, yeah, I am.’ Then, I sit on one of their coaching sessions, and they‘re just reviewing metrics. That’s not coaching, that’s compliance,” explains Gibson.

The distinction matters because reviewing metrics alone doesn’t make reps better. Real coaching pinpoints exact skill gaps — like weak objection handling — shows stronger approaches, and reinforces them with hands-on practice.

Later, in the same podcast discussion about building high-performance sales teams, Gibson elaborated on what good coaching entails:

“You need to add generative coaching, skills development, and deal-specific development to the mix if you’re really going to improve and grow the bench strength of your sales team.”

This requires blocking dedicated time for role-playing difficult calls, reviewing call recordings together, and creating personalized development plans for each team member.

2. Authentic Leadership and Vulnerability

Your team won’t follow who you pretend to be. They follow who you really are.

Too many sales managers try to project unshakable confidence, thinking it’s the key to leadership. But real leadership isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about being honest, adaptable, and showing up as your true self.

Our 2024 Sales Trends Report shows that 24% of high-performing sales teams highly rank the importance of building a culture of trust among reps, compared to only 13% of underperforming teams.

Top-performing teams actively cultivate an environment where authenticity, transparency, and trust are prioritized.

“Authentic leadership is the antithesis of imposter syndrome, in my opinion and experience,” says leadership coach Markus Neukom in the Sales Gravy podcast. “I help my clients empower themselves, and once they’re empowered, guess what? They can start empowering their people.”

This self-assurance allows leaders to show vulnerability rather than projecting false perfection. But how do you actually practice that?

Start by leading with transparency. In your next team meeting, openly share a challenge you’re facing and how you’re approaching it. When a deal falls through, instead of deflecting, break down what could have been done differently.

Neukom reinforces this: “You have to dare to be vulnerable. That’s what I basically said to that management team. You have to learn that vulnerability is the key.”

Vulnerability isn’t weakness — it’s a way to build trust. When leaders admit mistakes and limitations, team members feel safe doing the same.

3. Emotional Intelligence and Active Listening

Most sales leaders think they listen. Few actually do.

In tough coaching conversations, it‘s easy to start creating a response before the other person has even finished speaking. That’s not listening — that’s waiting for your turn to talk. “Observe, ask questions, learn to listen,” says Neukom. “When you get those two people in a room, and you ask questions, and you let them speak, half of the solution is already there.”

But active listening is more than nodding along. It means paying attention to tone, hesitation, and what isn‘t being said. “Really listening is an art of emotional intelligence,” Neukom explains. “It’s literally being open, focused on the other person, and here with all five senses.”

According to Jacob Wickett, Founder of Live Digital, a SaaS recruitment agency, “The strongest closers don’t just talk well; they listen well. They pick up on subtle buying signals and tailor their pitch accordingly.”

As a sales leader, this isn‘t just a skill to practice personally — it’s a cornerstone capability to develop in your team.

Try this in your next 1:1: After a rep shares a challenge, pause for three full seconds before responding. If they don’t add anything, ask, “And what else?” This forces you to stay present — and gives them space to share what they were really thinking.

4. Adaptability and Willingness to Change

New hires bring different expectations, industries shift, and buyers approach decisions differently than they did even a few years ago. A leadership style that worked in the past can quickly become outdated.

Markus Neukom has seen this firsthand.

“The question is not if. The question is when you have to adapt your leadership style,” he says. “In this room of 24 management team members, you already have 1/3 of Generation Y, and they ask you, ‘Why?’”

Leaders who struggle with adaptability often see change as a disruption. But those who embrace it recognize it as an advantage. When a team starts questioning the why behind decisions, that‘s not resistance — that’s engagement. Instead of shutting it down, turn it into a conversation.

This evolution extends beyond team management to the entire sales landscape.

“The industry is going through rapid changes, both when it comes to AI, prospect habits, and geopolitical factors that influence the market,” explains Mia Falls, Sales Development Representative from proposal platform Qwilr.

“It’s important to stay up to date and adapt to this month’s needs instead of relying on a yearly plan. In the past, sales has been like the misinterpretation of ‘survival of the fittest’. Those with the thickest skin and biggest bite got ahead. Nowadays, the actual meaning of Darwin’s phrase is true — those who are the most adaptable win.”

If you‘re leading the same way you did five years ago, it’s time to rethink your approach. Instead of giving instructions, ask your reps how they‘d solve a problem. Their response may point out hidden strengths, fresh perspectives, or gaps you didn’t know existed.

5. Strategic Vision and Effective Communication

A sales leader without a clear vision is like a team running plays with no strategy — disorganized, reactive, and unlikely to win. A strong vision shows up in daily decisions, team goals, and how leaders communicate priorities.

“90% of achieving any goals is knowing why, and 90% of getting your salespeople to shift their behaviors or implement new disciplines is often about effectively communicating the why,” says Shane Gibson in his sales podcast.

Telling your team what to do isn’t enough. If they don’t understand why it matters, they’ll resist, disengage, or go through the motions without real commitment. People don’t buy into change unless they see how it benefits them.

Gibson emphasizes this: “Are you inspired by it? If you‘re going to communicate your organizational sales vision or a major initiative, you’re the first person who has to buy into it, and have you connected it to their individual needs?”

Before your next team meeting, ask yourself: Would I be excited to hear this? If not, sharpen your message. Show them how the vision fuels their success — how it impacts their targets, growth, and daily work. If they see the value, they’ll own it.

How to Improve Your Sales Skills

Identifying what makes great sales leaders is just the first step — you need practical ways to build those capabilities in yourself and your team. The approaches below have helped sales professionals at every level sharpen their skills and deliver better results.

Each focuses on specific actions you can take this week, not vague suggestions that sound good but rarely translate to real improvement.

Implement regular self-assessment practices.

Day-to-day targets pile up, and it’s easy to assume experience alone drives improvement. Without regular self-reflection, small mistakes turn into bad habits, missed opportunities compound, and performance flatlines.

Self-assessment practices like structured reflection, peer feedback, and skill tracking help you improve your weaknesses and hone your strengths.

Our research found that 17% of high-performing sales teams highly rank the importance of making performance data available, compared to only 11% of underperforming teams. The ability to measure, track, and analyze performance transparently makes it easier to identify trends, correct weaknesses, and double down on successful strategies.

“Great leaders are great students. They’re highly coachable. They have coaches themselves. They seek mentors for growth in many aspects of their lives, and people want to follow people who are moving somewhere,” says Gibson.

Mia Falls recommends extending this practice across the team:

“Listening to the recordings of successful AE calls every week really helps you understand the product and customers on a deeper level. I’d also recommend finding a tracking system for positive prospect interactions that feels intuitive and works for you. Then, consult it frequently and learn from it. This helps me approach every month with new insights.”

By making these review sessions a regular part of your team’s schedule, you normalize the critical self-assessment process.

A structured approach helps here. Gibson suggests using a framework to measure progress:

“I’ve got a downloadable PDF that’s free. You can rate your sales coaching skills and your sales coaching process as an organization to see where you need to improve.”

Set a monthly habit: review recent calls, assess deal wins and losses, and get outside feedback.

Growth starts with awareness. Take 15 minutes this week to reflect: What’s one area where you struggled? What feedback have you been avoiding? Write it down, and set a small, specific goal to improve.

Build strategic relationship networks.

Strategic relationship building goes beyond random networking events. It’s about intentionally creating a web of relationships that generate opportunities, insights, and support when you need it most.

Think of your network as a living portfolio. Like any good investment strategy, diversification matters. You need connections across different industries, organizational levels, and functional areas. This diversity brings perspective you’d miss in an echo chamber of similar contacts.

For sales leaders, It’s not just about strong external ones, though. Internal ones matter just as much. It’s often down to how well you encourage collaboration within your organization.

“I’ve never had as supportive and motivating of a team as I had in Qwilr and it’s completely unleveled my sales game,” shares Falls. “Knowing that you can always ask a quick question, get some additional insight, and share feedback makes such a difference.”

But here’s where most sales leaders get it wrong: they focus on quantity over depth. Five authentic relationships with decision-makers who trust you enough to take your call will outperform 500 LinkedIn connections who barely remember your name.

Start by mapping your current network. Identify gaps where strategic relationships could open doors to new markets or opportunities. Then, develop a deliberate plan to nurture existing relationships and cultivate new ones by:

• Creating value before asking for anything.
• Following up consistently with personalized outreach.
• Connecting people within your network who might benefit each other.
• Sharing industry insights that address your contacts’ specific challenges.

When you genuinely invest in others‘ success, your network becomes not just a sales tool, but a competitive advantage that can’t be replicated.

Establish gold standards for key activities.

Creating gold standards forces you as a sales leader to sharpen your own skills first. You can’t define excellence without mastering it yourself.

In his podcast, Founder at Cerebral Selling, David Priemer discovered this developmental benefit:

“We told them what to do but never showed them a good version of what that narrative sounded like.”

When Priemer decided to fix this, he had to critically evaluate his own approach: “I had our VP of enterprise sales record what a good version—the gold standard—of that conversation with a customer sounded like.”

Identifying, recording, and analyzing perfect examples compels you to refine your sales techniques. You’ll spot gaps in your messaging, discover better transitions, and develop more compelling value propositions.

As Priemer notes, this self-improvement spans multiple skills: “If you have expectations of them — next steps, forecasting, objection handles — show them what good looks like, so you can hold them accountable.”

By clearly stating your standards, you’ll identify areas for growth and keep improving your sales skills.

Tips for Selling Authentically

Authentic sales leadership creates environments where teams can sell honestly and ethically without resorting to high-pressure tactics. As a leader, your job is to show your team how to match products with genuine customer needs rather than pushing whatever makes the biggest commission.

The approaches below help you build a culture where sales conversations focus on solving real problems instead of delivering slick pitches.

Connect personal values with organizational goals.

Don’t assume targets and commissions are enough to drive peak performance. Numbers alone rarely inspire sustainable excellence, and you need to connect company objectives with their team members’ personal values and aspirations.

Shane Gibson puts it bluntly: “If I’m communicating my vision in a way that’s top-down, not connecting to their values or explaining the overall why for them or their team, I’m already missing the boat. I’m not going to get buy-in from the team.”

This alignment process starts with curiosity: What drives each individual on your team?

For some, it might be financial security to support their family. For others, it could be professional growth, recognition, or making a difference for customers.

The reward for this effort is extraordinary: team members who see their success as connected to company goals approach their work with fresh energy. They solve problems more creatively, push through challenges, and become ambassadors for your vision.

Try these approaches to strengthen this connection:

• Hold one-on-ones focused solely on understanding personal motivations and career aspirations
• Reframe company initiatives in terms of how they support team members’ individual goals
• Create personalized development plans that serve both organizational needs and personal growth
• Celebrate wins in ways that recognize not just results but alignment with core values

When people see how their personal journey connects to the bigger picture, selling becomes less about transactions and more about shared purpose.

Embrace transparency and direct feedback.

Sales teams need clear talk, not careful phrasing.

Gibson champions this approach through specific frameworks: “Radical Candor is a great book on how to give direct and effective feedback. It’s important for not just the leader to read it, but their team to agree that we’re going to be candid and empathetic with one another in a way that creates trust and transparency.”

According to Dewey Thompson, Senior Account Executive at email platform Omnisend,

“I think that sales is, above all, about showing up every day. If something doesn’t work out, be persistent, but also learn to learn from your past mistakes. Ultimately, work on not taking rejection personally.”

As a sales leader, embracing resilience creates an environment where honest feedback feels helpful rather than threatening. When your team understands that feedback is meant to help, not criticize, they’ll be more open to direct guidance.

The real payoff comes when this becomes team culture, not just leadership style.

Gibson notes the real-world results: “If we can do this as a team, people are no longer going to be walking on eggshells or holding things back, but actually comfortable and confident to be vulnerable, but also direct.”

This balance — being both honest and human — creates psychological safety where innovation flourishes, problems surface early, and people grow faster.

Share your perspective on difficult topics.

Sales leaders who hide their true thoughts on tough issues undermine their credibility. When you dodge questions about compensation changes, territory shifts, or challenging quotas, your team senses the avoidance.

Priemer notes: “Your team does want to know what you think, and if they don’t feel you’re being honest, it becomes very difficult to lead them.” He suggests being transparent about your own feelings on topics like compensation changes.

This doesn’t mean complaining about company decisions. Rather, it means acknowledging realities while providing context.

When facing a compensation restructure that might disappoint some reps, skilled leaders might say: “I understand this change feels concerning. I had questions about it, too. Here’s my perspective on why it could benefit high performers like you…”

This honesty builds trust. Your team won‘t always agree with your viewpoint, but they’ll respect your sharing it openly. This transparency also improves your communication skills by forcing you to articulate complex positions clearly and consider potential objections before they arise.

Thoughtfully sharing your perspective on complex topics strengthens your ability to have challenging conversations throughout your career. This crucial skill distinguishes exceptional sales leaders from merely competent ones.

Measure Leadership Impact Beyond Sales Numbers

Great sales leaders build people who stick around and grow. When you coach your team well, speak plainly, and treat customers fairly, you’ll see it in more than revenue.

Look at who stays on your team, what new skills they‘ve mastered, and how customers talk about them. Years from now, your real success won’t be the deals you closed but the sales managers you shaped who still use what you taught them.

Every sales professional has the same experience: The end of the quarter looms, and you’re still waiting for leads to convert into paying customers. As a business owner, I’ve been there too — juggling multiple clients, pitching new writing projects, and managing endless follow-ups.

But, the days of manually managing business may be over. AI sales agents are reshaping the landscape, automating the sales process, and guaranteeing that no lead goes cold. These agents can even do your homework for you, finding prospects who match your ideal customer persona.

With lofty promises, I wanted to see what AI sales agents can actually accomplish today. Below I’ll talk about how AI sales agents work, their use cases, and how they can level up the sales process.

Table of Contents

• What is an AI Sales Agent?
• How AI Sales Agents Work
• Benefits of AI Sales Agents
• Types of AI Sales Agents
• Sales AI Agent Usecases
• The Best AI Sales Agents
• Optimize with AI Sales Agent

What is an AI Sales Agent?

A typical sales lifecycle requires an entire team to move through multiple stages — prospecting leads, qualifying customers, answering inquiries, and closing deals. Working through that process manually takes a significant amount of time. An AI sales agent is designed to automate and streamline this workflow, eliminating repetitive tasks and boosting productivity.

By leveraging machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analytics, AI sales agents can operate autonomously. This digital agency can engage with prospects, qualify leads, and even close sales with little to no human intervention.

Now, how is this different from workflow automation? Well, AI’s ability to learn from past interactions allows it to perform its functions independently. A human sales rep just needs to write a kickoff prompt (and offer optional additional guidance to refine the process). From there, AI can start research and do outreach without a human babysitter, a less cumbersome process for the human reps.

How AI Sales Agents Work

AI sales agents gather and centralize customer data from CRMs, website activity, and other digital touchpoints. The agent can then create a 360-degree profile of each prospect.

AI then uses natural language processing to interpret messages, detect buyer intent, and engage in meaningful conversations. With this data, machine learning models predict lead behavior, assigning scores based on engagement history and prioritizing high-potential prospects.

Once a lead is identified, the AI agent automates outreach, scheduling, and follow-ups to ensure continuous engagement. Throughout the process, the AI analyzes sales interactions in real time, providing insights and recommendations to optimize messaging. With multiple selling reps under its belt, an AI agent learns, refining their lead qualification and engagement strategies.

Benefits of AI Sales Agents

1. AI never sleeps.

Potential buyers can visit your site at any time of the day — their needs don’t stop after business hours. However, you may not have reps available 24/7. That’s where AI sales agents can help.

Your AI reps never “clock out.” They’re able to carry out the designated task (whether it’s to respond to inquiries or follow up with prospects) at any time of the day.

I have seen businesses lose potential deals simply because they did not follow up fast enough. Remember, most customers consider speed as important as price and are even willing to pay extra for “immediate service.” Any form of delay can make the difference between your offering and a competitor. AI sales agents can help you maintain that vigilance.

2. Human reps can spend more time on strategic tasks.

George Gallantree, director at Sterling Recruitment, notes that sales teams often need to choose between accurate reporting and high sales activity. That’s especially true when many reps hate burning hours on admin.

“Would you prefer your BDM to be 120% to target YTD or have Salesforce 100% accurate and up to date? You’re probably thinking, ‘I want both,’ but more often than not, you need to make a choice because that is reality,” Gallantree writes on LinkedIn.

AI sales rep can help teams get the best of both world. Agentic AI can take over repetitive, admoinistrative tasks so that human reps can focus on complex negotiations, relationship building and actually closing high-value deals.

The sales professionals we surveyed for our 2024 State of AI in Business and Sales agree. They reported that AI tools allow them to spend more time doing the one thing they were hired for — selling.

3. Customers leave happier.

As I mentioned earlier, today’s customers expect immediate, personalized service. Anything less can cost businesses valuable sales. Therefore, a smooth, tailored sales experience isn’t just a bonus. It’s a necessity for customer satisfaction.

According to Salesforce, 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs, and AI sales agents make this possible at scale. Agents can analyze customer preferences, anticipate questions, and provide instant, relevant responses. These tools can also research prospects and use that information to customize outreach.

This level of personalization makes interactions more engaging and builds trust. Goodwill ultimately leads to higher conversion rates and stronger customer loyalty.

Types of AI Sales Agents

AI sales agents come in different forms, each designed to automate specific parts of the sales process. Here are the three most popular agents used by reps today.

1. AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are already everywhere. Every time I shop online, I see a popup that asks me if I need any additonal assitance. I’ve also noticed new AI chatbots available on social media, so I can talk to a robot if I ever get lonely. I’m already primed for chatbot interactions, just like every other digital consumer today.

AI chatbots are designed to engage with potential customers in real time. They can answer basic product questions and even book meetings for a demo. Some of these conversational chatbots are also designed to qualify leads and transfer high-potential prospects to human reps to seal the deal.

Best for: If your business receives high volumes of inquiries, an AI chatbot would guarantee that your prospects receive instant responses. You can then set up workflows that transfer qualified leads to your human sales teams.

2. AI Voice Assistants

Even if you dread the phone, cold calling is still an important part of sales today. AI can help make the process more informed and efficient. In fact, 73% of salespeople who use AI/automation to assist with cold and warm calling say it somewhat to significantly improves conversation quality.

Most of the reps we surveyed use AI to help with research and outreach. However, AI agents can go even further. In fact, some agents can actually make the calls. Built on speech synthesis, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), and Natural Language Generation (NLU) technology, these agents can handle inbound and outbound calls using natural-sounding speech.

There’s still an adoption curve here. Robocalling and spam calls have left me and others unwilling to pick up the phone. If I received an AI call, I would be equally impressed and freaked out. So, use voice technology sparing.

AI voice assistants work best for impersonal or transactional calls, such as appointment reminders, order confirmations, or simple inquiries. For relationship-driven sales, I strongly believe it is crucial to maintain human touchpoints to build trust and rapport.

If your team uses this type of AI tech, make sure you communicate that the receiver is speaking with a voice assistant, as Josh Braun advocates in the image below. This transparency helps manage expectations and builds trust with the customer.

Source

Best for: Companies that rely heavily on phone-based sales and appointment scheduling, which are often transactional and repetitive.

2. AI Assistants

This crop of AI sales agents helps their human agents perform very specific tasks. They act as smart digital assistants rather than standalone agents, working behind the scenes to support reps with daily sales activities. That can include personalizing email campaigns, generating sales insights, streamlining the onboarding process, and much more.

I’ve found that AI assistants help the most with research. I can load my ideal customer persona into a chatbot like Google Gemini and ask the system to find me companies that match that description. From there, I can have AI help me find human decision-makers on those teams and craft a compelling message that catches their attention.

Best for: Sales teams looking to reduce administrative workload, improve lead prioritization, and gain AI-powered insights to enhance their selling strategy.

Sales AI Agent Usecases

1. Lead Qualification and Nurturing

With predictive analytics, AI sales agents can reduce the people-hours spent on sorting through unqualified leads. In our 2024 AI in B2B Sales report, we discovered that this was the second most popular AI use case in B2B sales.

“It used to be the case that dedicating an agent to an individual customer at each point of their sales journey was cost-prohibitive. But with the latest developments in gen AI agents, now you can do it,” stated Jorge Amar, senior partner at McKinsey, in an interview with the firm.

Now, businesses can integrate different types of AI sales agents across different levels of the customer’s journey. Additionally, AI-driven lead-scoring models, such as those offered in HubSpot’s Sales Hub, can analyze various inputs to determine the likelihood of the prospect becoming a customer.

2. Automating Follow-ups and Reminders

I can’t count how many times I’ve told myself, “I’ll follow up later,” only to realize days later that I completely forgot. It happens to the best of us — humans are forgetful.

But AI? It never forgets. It’s like having the most reliable assistant who always remembers when to send that follow-up email or text. And follow-ups matter.

Research shows that 93% of converted leads are reached by the sixth call attempt, yet 50% of leads are never contacted a second time. While the reasons may vary, I’d bet that forgetfulness — and just plain busyness — are big culprits.

This is where AI sales agents shine. They can send timely follow-ups and appointment reminders via email, text, or even voice calls to make sure no lead falls through the cracks.

With unlimited time and access to the right data, AI sales agents can catch intent signals that human reps may miss. Businesses can even set up AI-driven workflows that trigger automated follow-ups based on customer behavior — like when a prospect downloads a whitepaper or abandons a shopping cart.

2. Sales Analytics

AI-powered sales analytics tools analyze past sales data, market trends, and customer interactions to predict future revenue and recommend sales strategies. According to our report, data analysis is the second most popular task salespeople use AI for.

For example, let’s say an AI sales agent analyzes a CRM. The agent finds that teams who make the most of the CRM’s generative AI content creator have higher customer satisfaction and a lower attrition rate. Your team can then spotlight this feature in product demos and run a campaign to increase utilization.

AI sales agents will need access to the right data in order to make these real-time insights. CRMs like HubSpot offer these integrations to empower data-conscious decisions.

The Best AI Sales Agents

1. Breeze Prospecting Agent

AI sales agents aren’t ready out of the box. They need access to data to understand your team’s approach to selling. That’s why I love Breeze. If you already use HubSpot, your prospecting agent already has access to your CRM’s valuable data — no complex setup or training required. Breeze learns from your successful sales patterns and automatically adapts to those insights.

I demoed Breeze so I can show you how it works. I can select which account I want to research in my CRM. Breeze then pulls information about their interactions with my business from my CRM, as well as information from the prospect’s websites and recent news.

I can then open up the account and see an AI generated overview synthesizing that information. When I’m ready to reach out, an AI email writer can take the intelligence and write a first draft that I can send or tweak. AI-powered prospecting helps sales teams work smarter, not harder.

2. Roomie AI by Common Room

Roomie AI is designed to streamline prospect engagement by automating account planning, lead prioritization, and personalized outreach. It detects buying trends and fills in missing details to accelerate account planning.

With AI-powered personalization, Roomie crafts outreach messages based on real-time signals and enhances prospecting by surfacing high-converting contacts from its 200+ million database.

My favorite thing about this tool is its signal hunting feature. Rather than manually piecing together information on a company — who the decision-makers are, what their challenges are, and how to approach them — Roomie AI builds account plans 100x faster by pulling in the most relevant data.

Roomie AI also actively looks for signs that a prospect is ready to buy and then engages them autonomously.

Watch the 5-minute demo of Roomie AI below.

<iframe title=“vimeo-player” src=“https://player.vimeo.com/video/1059867530?h=9c446190dd” width=“640” height=“360” frameborder=“0” allowfullscreen></iframe>

3. Salesforce Einstein

In August 2024, Salesforce announced the launch of two autonomous AI sales agents called Einstein Sales Development Rep (SDR) Agent and Einstein Sales Coach Agent.

While the Einstein SDR Agent nurtures inbound prospects around the clock with minimal human intervention, the Einstein Sales Coach Agent helps sales teams refine their skills by facilitating role-play sessions tailored to specific deals. These simulations allow reps to practice pitching, handle objections, and sharpen their negotiation tactics before engaging with real customers.

I loved that Einstein Sales Coach Agent can adapt its training style to the learner. There’s no one-size-fits-all coaching method. Instead, the AI provides customized and contextual coaching that adapts to real deals, real objections, and real customer interactions.

4. Artisan

Artisan’s Ava is designed to act as a fully autonomous AI sales agent, handling everything from lead qualification to personalized outreach. Unlike other assistive AI sales agents, Ava operates independently without human intervention.

Ava mines data on the prospects, crafts personalized messages, runs email campaigns, and delivers qualified leads straight to your inbox.

My favorite part? The Artisan Sales platform already provides a built-in database of over 300 million verified B2B contacts. It also provides a simple LinkedIn automation that allows Ava to send connection requests and messages on your team’s behalf.

5. Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales

Embedded within Microsoft 365, Copilot is a role-based sales agent that simplifies tasks, personalizes interactions, and streamlines workflows. It can generate content, note insights during calls, and update records.

My biggest issue with this tool? Copilot for Sales feels too embedded within the Microsoft ecosystem. That may limit flexibility especially if a sales team relies on other CRMs like HubSpot. If you rely on data from multiple sources, you may need extra workarounds to get the platform’s full benefits.

Optimize with AI Sales Agent

Yes, even with advancements in AI, you still need human sales reps. However, AI sales agents can help those reps achieve extraordinary results. They can research faster, customize their messaging based on a prospect’s business, and leverage data from your CRM.

Teams that know how to partner with AI agents will have an incredible advantage, that’s especially true as adoption increases. Start working with AI as a partner today to stay ahead of the curve.

Ever since I stepped into the B2B SaaS world back in 2021, I’ve wondered why some companies with great products crash and burn while others thrive. I kept hearing the term “sales pipeline” thrown around, but I didn’t really understand just how important it was until I started seeing patterns.

I’ve seen companies with incredible tech and millions in funding shut down within a year. Not because the product sucked. Not because the market wasn’t there. But because they had no clue how to track their sales process.

In this guide, I’ll break down everything you need to know about sales pipelines — what they are, why they matter, and a step-by-step process to build and manage one that actually drives results.

Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• What is a sales pipeline?
• How to Build a Sales Pipeline
• How to Run a Sales Pipeline Review
• How to Clean Up Your Sales Pipeline
• Sales Pipeline Analysis: Key Sales Pipeline Metrics to Track
• An Easy Sales Pipeline Template
• Ready for Sales Pipeline Management?

Every company has its own flavor of a sales process. Even within the same company, pipelines can look different depending on the product or service you’re selling. That’s why there’s no one-size-fits-all setup.

Your sales pipeline should reflect the buyer’s journey in your specific business context. Otherwise, you’re just plugging leads into a system that doesn’t match how they actually buy.

I remember one time a rep on a sales team I worked with got an inbound message from someone who had already talked to three of our customers, secured budget approval, and wanted a demo that week. Instead of walking through the usual qualification steps, we jumped straight to decision-making and pricing.

Some prospects move fast — others stall. Some show up ready to buy, already sold on your product after doing their homework. Others need more nurturing. And that’s the beauty of a sales pipeline: it allows you to adjust your sales approach based on where someone is and how fast they’re moving.

A well-built sales pipeline also gives you visibility into your revenue. Sales managers can forecast more accurately by looking at where each deal sits in the pipeline, how long it’s been there, and how likely it is to close. It’s a simple tool, but when used right, it becomes a powerful engine for growth.

Typical Sales Pipeline Stages

While the specific stages can vary depending on your industry and sales process, a typical sales pipeline includes the following stages:

Prospecting

This is the first step, where you actively search for potential customers who might benefit from your product or service. If you’re selling software, that might mean identifying companies in a certain industry or size range that struggle with the problem your solution solves.

Lead Qualification

Once you’ve identified some leads, the next step is figuring out if they’re a good fit. You assess things like their needs, budget, buying timeline, and whether you’re speaking to someone with decision-making power.

Pro tip: I like to use a “reverse qualification” approach, where you actively look for reasons to disqualify leads. This saves time and helps your team focus on prospects who are actually worth pursuing.

Initial Contact

Here, you reach out to qualified leads via email, phone, or social channels. The goal is to start a conversation, learn more about their pain points, and provide enough value upfront to keep the door open for deeper engagement. This stage is about listening, not pitching.

Proposal

If the lead is engaged and there’s clear interest, you move to presenting a formal proposal. This should be tailored to their specific needs and include pricing, features, and key benefits. The proposal isn’t just a document — it’s your chance to make a strong case for why your solution is the right one.

Negotiation/Commitment

At this stage, both sides work through the final terms, such as pricing, contract details, implementation timelines, and any lingering concerns. Strong negotiation skills help remove roadblocks and move the deal toward a close without stalling momentum.

Closing (or Lost)

This is where the deal is either won or lost. If you close successfully, you move forward with onboarding or implementation. If not, you need to log why the deal didn’t go through. Those insights can help refine your messaging, improve your sales process, and increase your win rate over time.

Pro tip: I like to use this sales conversion and close rate calculator!

Sales Pipeline vs. Sales Forecast vs. Sales Funnel

Sales Pipeline vs. Sales Forecast

People often confuse “sales pipelines” with “sales forecasts,” but they are completely different.

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process. It tracks potential customers from initial contact through various stages until the deal is closed or lost.

On the other hand, a sales forecast estimates the future sales revenue for a specific time period, usually based on historical data, market trends, and current pipeline information.

For example, if a sales forecast anticipates missing your quota, you should double down on selling activities. But if it estimates a 150% growth compared to the last month, you’d want to scale back your efforts and start laying the groundwork for an equally successful next month.

While sales pipelines and forecasts are distinct, they are closely related. An accurate and well-managed pipeline is crucial for creating reliable sales forecasts. Once you’ve started tracking your sales pipeline, that data can allow you to create a forecast using sales forecasting software like Sales Hub.

Sales Pipeline vs. Sales Funnel

People also often use “sales pipeline” and “sales funnel” interchangeably.

However, a sales funnel suggests that the number of prospects you’re working with will drop consistently as the sales process continues.

This leads to a false belief that you need three times as many prospects at the top of your funnel as at the bottom. For instance, a sales manager following this philosophy would ask his rep to connect with 300 buyers to close 100 deals.

Sales educator and expert Jeff Hoffman clears this misconception by calling a sales pipeline a wide-mouthed cocktail glass instead of an evenly shaped funnel.

You may have a ton of prospects entering your pipeline, but the vast majority drop off after the qualification stage. After prospects have passed the critical point, most should become customers.

How to Build a Sales Pipeline

Building a sales pipeline is one of the smartest moves you can make if you want to grow your business. I’ve seen companies take different approaches to it, but the payoff is always worth it.

How long will it take to build your own sales pipeline? That depends on your product, audience, and team.

However, here are the key steps to get you started.

1. Define the stages of your sales pipeline.

While copying a template might be the quickest way to define your sales pipeline stages, taking the time to develop your own will pay off in the long run. Your pipeline should reflect your buyer’s journey, helping you track progress and accurately forecast revenue.

While every customer’s path is unique, they generally follow a similar process:

• Awareness. The buyer realizes they have a problem or opportunity and begins looking for a solution.
• Consideration. The buyer further defines the issue, establishes criteria for evaluation, and starts researching potential solutions.
• Decision. The buyer has narrowed down their options and compares vendors or solutions before making a final choice.

To illustrate, check out this hypothetical buyer’s journey:

Translating that journey into your sales pipeline stages might look like this:

• Connect. This is when a lead first interacts with your brand. It could be through an email from a salesperson, a webinar, or content they’ve engaged with on your site. The goal here is to make the initial touchpoint meaningful and relevant.
• Appointment Set. Once the lead shows interest, you schedule a meeting to dive deeper into their needs and how you can provide a solution.
• Appointment Completed. After the meeting, you have a clearer picture of their needs, and they’ve heard your pitch. This stage is about confirming the next steps and keeping the momentum going.
• Solution Proposed. At this point, the buyer is interested in using your product to address their pain point or capitalize on an opportunity. You propose how your solution fits into their strategy, highlighting key benefits and value.
• Proposal Sent. This is the stage where the buyer reviews your proposal or contract. They’re now evaluating the specifics of your offering, like pricing, terms, and implementation.

Note: These stages can vary based on your product complexity. A simple product might have fewer sales pipeline stages, whereas a more complex one will require more detailed touchpoints and longer sales cycles. As your product becomes more sophisticated, your pipeline stages should evolve to meet the needs of your buyers.

2. Identify how many opportunities continue through each stage.

You should know how long prospects spend in each stage, both across the board and for closed/won deals. For example, the average prospect may spend two weeks in the demo stage, while those who eventually buy spend three weeks.

You should also know the percentage of opportunities that advance to the next stage.

And it’s critical to establish yield probability (or conversion rate) per stage. Perhaps prospects are 75% likely to buy in the demo stage and 90% likely to buy in the negotiation stage. Once you’ve assigned these percentages to each stage, you can develop monthly or quarterly revenue estimates.

Knowing these benchmarks will help your reps and sales managers predict which opportunities will likely close.

3. Calculate the opportunities you need to hit your goals.

Now you can work backward to determine how many opportunities you need in each pipeline stage. Start with your target monthly or quarterly revenue divided by your average deal size, so you know how many deals you need to win.

Next, divide your target deal number by your yield probability per stage. If you need to win 135 deals, and your reps typically close 90% of deals in the negotiation stage, 150 opportunities must reach that stage in a month.

Repeat this process for every stage. Once you have total milestones, you can divide these goals by salesperson.

Here’s an example from Bob Marsh, CEO of LevelEleven. Assume you need 2,000 deals per year to hit your target bookings.

• 2,000 deals/year = 167 deals per month
• 8,000 proposals/year = 667 proposals per month
• 32,000 meetings/year = 640 meetings per week
• 64,000 calls/year = 256 calls per day

If you have a 100-person team, that translates to:

• 167 deals per month/100 reps = 2 deals per month
• 667 proposals per month/100 reps = 7 proposals per month
• 640 meetings per week/100 reps = 7 meetings per week
• 256 conversations per day/100 reps = 3 calls per day

Salespeople can use these benchmarks to measure their progress against the targets.

Keep in mind that every rep‘s conversion rates will vary by stage. For example, if one of your salespeople struggles to prospect but has an excellent demo-to-close rate, they’ll need fewer initial meetings than their peers to meet the quota.

4. Understand the commonalities between opportunities that convert.

Next, pinpoint the common characteristics of opportunities that convert for every stage. This means looking for patterns in both the actions of your sales reps and the responses of your prospects.

For example, you may notice that leads who respond positively to follow-up emails within 48 hours are more likely to move forward. Or maybe prospects who ask detailed questions during your demo tend to close at a higher rate. These patterns give you valuable insight into which actions and interactions drive conversions.

You might also discover trends in the types of prospects who convert. Perhaps companies in a specific industry are more responsive, or leads from certain marketing channels (e.g., referral-based or inbound leads from high-value content) have a higher chance of success.

Recognizing these trends helps you not only refine your targeting and lead generation efforts but also streamline the sales process itself.

5. Create or adapt your sales process around this data.

Once you’ve identified the key actions and behaviors that drive successful conversions, shape your sales process around these insights. If you don’t have a defined sales process yet, this is the perfect opportunity to create one; if you do, it’s time to update it based on what the data is telling you.

For example, if you’ve found that follow-up emails within 48 hours increase conversion, build that timing into your process. Or if you know that leads who engage with specific content are more likely to convert, create actions in your process that prompt reps to share this content at key stages.

By adapting your sales process around these insights, you set your team up for more success and ensure that prospects move smoothly toward a close.

6. Continuously add leads to your pipeline.

Establishing a sales process isn’t enough, though. As many reps aren‘t too big on prospecting, it’s easy to end up with a dry sales pipeline once you build one.

Since many sales teams focus more on closing deals, they tend to forget prospecting for the upcoming month, and when the next month comes, they’re way behind their schedule.

In an ideal sales pipeline, you should always have more opportunities in the prospecting part than in the closing part. That’s because the number of prospects in each stage progressively decreases while the probability of closing progressively increases.

Even if you have enough leads for a month, it’s good to have a diversified prospecting strategy, so you keep adding new leads for upcoming months.

It shouldn’t always include traditional methods like cold calling; you can encourage reps to try multiple strategies. For example, HubSpot research shows that 72% of sales reps use social media to find qualified leads.

Lead generation and prospecting tools can also help by aggregating potential leads and tracking their status. That way, you always know how many leads you‘ve got and what stage they’re in.

7. Maintain the health of your pipeline.

Of prospects, 60% say no four times before saying yes. Still, nearly half of salespeople never follow up. This indicates that you‘ll definitely lose leads if you don’t establish a five (or more) step follow-up process throughout your sales pipeline.

Give your team a system for following up with leads, including timing, cadence, and contact method. Set clear expectations like:

• Every inbound lead is contacted within six hours or less.
• Every lead receives 10-12 touches spread out over one month.
• Every lead receives various email, phone, and social media touches.
• Every touch includes new information or resources.

If there are any relevant digital assets your organization manages for this purpose, they should be easily accessible to the sales team. Making these resources readily available can streamline follow-up efforts and ensure consistency in communication.

A uniform follow-up strategy helps your reps maintain clean pipelines by telling them when to disqualify prospects. If a prospect hasn’t responded by the last touch, you can remove them from the pipeline.

Pro tip: If you mainly follow up with leads via email, check out our free email template builder to streamline the process of creating follow-up emails.

8. Clean your sales pipeline regularly.

Cleaning up your sales pipeline is essential if you want accurate sales forecasts. Most forecasts rely on the stage each opportunity is in to estimate how likely it is to close. However, this doesn’t always tell the full story.

Say, you sent a proposal for a $2,000 deal to a prospect a month ago, but since then, they haven’t responded to any of your calls or emails. Despite being in the “negotiation” stage, this deal is clearly losing momentum.

If your sales forecast still counts it as a high-probability opportunity, you might overestimate your expected revenue for the next month. In reality, this deal may be a lost cause, and your forecast could be off by thousands of dollars.

The longer stale deals remain in your pipeline, the wider the gap between expectation and reality grows. This is why regularly cleaning your pipeline is so important. Take time to remove opportunities that are no longer viable and re-qualify the ones that are still active. This keeps your sales forecast aligned with what’s actually happening, allowing for more realistic planning.

Another crucial step is keeping your communication organized. Your email inbox is a key part of your sales process, so it should reflect the current status of your deals. By maintaining an organized inbox (using an inbox zero approach, for instance), you can quickly identify stale conversations or opportunities that need a follow-up.

You can automate this process with tools like Clean Email, which helps declutter your inbox and ensures you’re not missing any follow-ups that could push a deal over the line.

How to Run a Sales Pipeline Review

Just like a regular health check-up helps catch potential issues early, reviewing your sales pipeline regularly helps spot bottlenecks and inactive leads before they derail your efforts.

Here’s how you can run an effective sales pipeline review to keep things on track.

1. Gather relevant data.

First things first — gather all the essential data from your CRM and sales tools. This should include information on your current leads, conversion rates, deal sizes, and how long prospects are spending in each stage of your pipeline.

In my experience, the best sales teams always have accurate, up-to-date data. Detailed reports and analytics give you a clear view of your pipeline’s health and allow you to pinpoint areas that need attention. If your data isn’t up to date, the review process won’t give you a true picture of what’s really going on, which can lead to missed opportunities or wasted efforts.

2. Prepare a clear agenda and structure.

Before the review, I suggest creating a structured agenda that outlines specific topics to cover. I recommend using a framework like the Create-Advance-Close model to organize the discussion.

For example, if I were a salesperson, I would allocate time to discuss new deals entering the pipeline (Create), deals progressing through stages (Advance), and deals nearing closure (Close). I would also ensure that clear time limits are set for each section to maintain focus. Without this, reps can easily go off on a tangent and turn the review session into extended coaching sessions.

This structure helps ensure the meeting stays on track and covers all crucial aspects of the pipeline, from lead generation to deal closure.

3. Review key pipeline metrics.

I recommend kicking off your pipeline review meeting by focusing on key pipeline metrics that offer actionable insights. Look at metrics like the number of qualified leads, MQL to SQL conversion rates, win rate, average deal size, and the length of your sales cycle. These metrics give you a snapshot of your pipeline’s overall health and performance.

I also suggest discussing any significant shifts or trends in these metrics compared to previous periods. For example, if you notice a dip in your win rate or a slowdown in the sales cycle, this could signal areas that need attention. A data-driven approach like this helps ensure that the conversation remains objective and focused on what truly matters.

When discussing these trends, dive deeper into any metrics that show concerning patterns or unexpected changes. This helps uncover the root causes and allows your team to adjust strategies accordingly.

4. Analyze deal movement and stagnation.

One of the most critical steps in a sales pipeline review is identifying where deals are stalling or getting stuck. These bottlenecks can significantly impact your ability to close deals and forecast revenue accurately.

Start by looking at where deals are stagnating in the pipeline. Are leads stuck in the “proposal” stage for weeks without progress? Are opportunities in the “negotiation” stage going quiet with no responses? Understanding why this is happening is key to fixing the problem.

There are a number of reasons why deals stall:

• Inadequate follow-up. If your sales reps aren’t following up consistently or at the right times, prospects might lose interest or simply forget about the deal. According to LeanData, 38% of reps take more than two weeks to follow up on newly assigned leads. You’ll want to look for patterns where opportunities might be slipping through the cracks and ensure there’s a clear follow-up strategy in place.
• Poor lead quality. Sometimes deals stall because the initial leads weren’t well-qualified. Maybe the leads don’t have the real need for your solution or lack the authority to make a purchasing decision. It’s essential to evaluate whether your lead qualification process is strong enough or if certain types of leads should be filtered out earlier in the pipeline.
• Issues with the sales pitch. If leads are dropping off after a pitch or demo, the issue might lie in how the value of your solution is being communicated. Perhaps your pitch isn‘t addressing the key pain points of the prospect, or you’re not showing them the full ROI of the product. In this case, adjusting your approach and providing your sales team with better tools or training can help move deals forward.

Pointing out these obstacles helps the team take targeted actions to resolve them, ensuring smoother transitions through each pipeline stage​.

5. Update and adjust strategies.

Based on the insights you’ve gathered, update and refine your sales strategies. Successful teams regularly adjust their approach — whether it’s revising lead qualification criteria, refining sales pitches, or adopting new tools to streamline processes.

For example, if you’re bringing in too many low-quality leads, it’s time to tighten your criteria. If your sales team struggles to close deals, maybe your pitch needs to better address objections or highlight key benefits.

Implementing new tools can also help, such as CRM systems or email automation, to improve efficiency and keep follow-ups on track.

Clear communication of these changes is key. Make sure your team understands why the adjustments are being made and offer training to ensure everyone is aligned. Regular strategy updates keep your pipeline dynamic and help you stay competitive in a changing market.

6. Create an accountability mechanism for reps and managers.

One major pitfall in pipeline reviews is the lack of accountability for both you and your team. To avoid this, make sure you establish clear action items for everyone involved before concluding the review. These should be specific, measurable, and time-bound.

I’ve noticed that business-savvy teams assign ownership for each action item and set deadlines. Additionally, they agree on how progress will be tracked and when these items will be reviewed next.

This step ensures that the insights gained during the review translate into concrete actions that move deals forward.

Sales Pipeline Reviews vs. Sales Forecast Reviews

While both sales pipeline reviews and sales forecast reviews are essential for your team’s success, it’s important to keep them separate.

A sales forecast review focuses specifically on deals that are likely to close within a given timeframe. The goal here is to help you and your team predict whether you’ll hit your quota. This review looks at the deals already in the pipeline and assesses their likelihood of closing, based on factors like the stage they’re in and historical conversion rates. It’s a forward-looking meeting that gives managers a clear picture of whether they’re on track to meet their sales targets.

On the other hand, a sales pipeline review is all about moving deals through the sales process more efficiently. This meeting should center around fresh sales opportunities — the leads that are still early in the pipeline. It’s a strategic look at where prospects are getting stuck or stalled, and how to help them move forward. The focus is on optimizing the pipeline, not just forecasting future outcomes.

I’ve noticed sales managers make the mistake of jumping in to help during the later stages of the sales process, often when it’s too late to make a meaningful impact. At this point, the deal is already in motion, and the outcome is harder to influence.

To truly make a difference, managers should be involved earlier on, during the initial stages of the opportunity, where their guidance can shape the strategy, address potential obstacles, and prevent issues from developing down the line.

How to Clean Up Your Sales Pipeline

I’ve always believed that a clean, well-organized sales pipeline is the key to maximizing efficiency and closing more deals. Firms with structured pipelines achieved a 16% higher win rate, indicating that a clear and organized pipeline directly contributes to closing more deals.

Over the years, I‘ve seen systematic approaches keep pipelines neat and tidy, and I’m excited to share these tips with you.

1. Review and remove stagnant leads.

Identify leads that have been in the same stage for too long. These stagnant leads are unlikely to convert and only clutter your pipeline.

Use your CRM to filter out these leads based on inactivity. Once identified, either remove them or move them to a nurture campaign if there’s potential for future engagement. Research shows that 80% of new leads never translate into sales due to a lack of lead nurturing. This means that if you nurture them, they might convert into a sale.

Regularly clearing out these leads keeps your pipeline dynamic and focused on active prospects​.

2. Requalify existing leads.

Over time, some leads in your pipeline may not have been fully qualified, or their circumstances may have changed. For example, a lead who seemed interested in your product a few months ago might now be dealing with budget cuts or a shift in company priorities.

It’s important to regularly requalify leads to ensure you’re focusing your energy on the right prospects. This process involves reassessing your leads based on updated criteria such as budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT).

Requalifying your leads isn’t just about weeding out the unqualified ones; it’s also an opportunity to gather fresh information. During this process, you can update outdated contact details, refresh notes on the prospect’s pain points, or confirm any new decision-makers.

This ensures your pipeline is populated with the most relevant and up-to-date information, which in turn strengthens your sales strategy.

3. Update contact information.

Many deals are lost when decision-makers change within an organization. As a sales rep, it’s vital to stay informed about any personnel changes in your prospect’s company. If a key decision-maker leaves, you may need to move the deal back to the qualification stage to identify the new point of contact and rebuild the relationship.

It’s also important to verify close dates and make sure they align with the reality of the deal. If the close date is too optimistic, adjust it to reflect the true timeline; if it’s too far out, you may miss the chance to push the deal forward sooner.

Don’t forget to double-check the opportunity dollar values as well. If they’re set too high, your sales forecast might be overly optimistic, while too low a value could make you think you’re farther from your goal than you actually are. Keeping these numbers accurate helps you stay grounded and better manage expectations.

4. Follow up with cold leads.

Leads can sometimes go cold if they haven’t been contacted recently. Implement a follow-up strategy to re-engage these leads. Send personalized emails or make follow-up calls to check in and revive interest.

If a lead remains unresponsive after several attempts, consider removing them from your active pipeline. This ensures you focus on leads that are more likely to convert​.

Pro tip: I recommend using automation tools to handle routine tasks like follow-up emails and data entry. Automation reduces the chances of human error and frees up your time for more strategic activities. Set up automated workflows in your CRM to ensure consistent follow-up and lead nurturing. This keeps your pipeline moving smoothly and ensures no lead falls through the cracks​.

5. Streamline your pipeline stages.

Over time, sales pipelines can become bloated with too many stages or overly complex processes that slow down progress and create confusion. To ensure that your pipeline remains effective and manageable, regularly evaluate and streamline your sales pipeline stages.

Start by checking if any stage is redundant or no longer aligns with how prospects move through the buying journey. Are there too many steps between qualification and closing? Are certain stages causing unnecessary friction or delays? For instance, if you have a “follow-up” stage after every meeting, but it’s not adding value or leading to more sales, consider eliminating it.

By simplifying your pipeline, you make it easier for sales reps to manage leads, ensure consistent follow-ups, and avoid confusion. A streamlined pipeline also helps reduce the risk of deals getting lost or stuck in overly complicated processes, allowing your team to focus on what really matters — closing deals and driving revenue.

Sales Pipeline Analysis: Key Sales Pipeline Metrics to Track

When reviewing your pipeline, you should know some baseline metrics to help determine whether your pipeline is healthy. Use these metrics to gauge the health of your sales pipeline — and, from there, the health of your team, department, and business.

While there are many sales pipeline analysis metrics to consider, I’ve narrowed it down to six key indicators that provide the most valuable insights for optimizing sales performance and forecasting.

1. Number of Qualified Leads

Tracking the number of qualified leads entering your pipeline each month is crucial. This metric shows if your lead generation efforts are effective. For example, if you receive 200 leads in a month and qualify 50 of them, your qualification rate is 25%.

This metric will help you understand the quality of your leads and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.

Use this metric to gauge the workload and identify if you have enough opportunities to meet your sales targets.

Pro tip: Ensure the deals are evenly distributed across different stages to prevent bottlenecks.

2. MQL to SQL Conversion Rates

MQL to SQL conversion rate measures the percentage of marketing-qualified leads that become sales-qualified leads. It’s a reliable way to assess lead quality and indicates the success of your lead generation campaigns.

The average MQL to SQL conversion rate across popular industries is about 16%. This means that for every 100 MQLs, a marketing campaign should aim to convert at least 16 into SQLs.

To calculate, divide the number of leads that advance by the total number of leads at the initial stage and multiply by 100.

You can use this metric to identify strengths and weaknesses in your sales process and to optimize each stage for better conversion.​

3. Win Rate

Win rate measures the percentage of closed deals out of the total opportunities. It helps gauge the effectiveness of your sales process and team performance.

The win rate percentage is calculated by dividing the number of closed deals by the number of leads, opportunities, or meetings. This can also be done for each stage of the sales process.

For example, if you had 50 opportunities and closed 10 deals, your win rate is 20%. This metric indicates your overall sales effectiveness.

4. Average Deal Size

Average deal size indicates the typical value of closed deals.

Formula: Total revenue from all deals / Number of deals. For example, if you have $500,000 in total revenue from 50 deals, the average deal size is $500,000 / 50 = $10,000.

Knowing your average deal size helps you set realistic sales targets and forecasts and can guide your focus toward higher-value opportunities. To increase it, focus on increasing this metric by upselling and cross-selling.

5. Sales Cycle Length

Sales cycle length measures the average time it takes to close a deal from the initial contact to closing.

Formula: Total number of days to close all deals / Number of deals. If it takes 1,000 days to close 50 deals, the average sales cycle length is 1,000 / 50 = 20 days.

This metric helps identify inefficiencies in your sales process and areas for improvement, aiming to shorten the cycle and close deals faster.

6. Sales Pipeline Velocity

Pipeline velocity is one of the key sales pipeline analysis metrics, and it measures the speed at which leads move through your sales pipeline.

Calculate it using the formula: (Number of Opportunities x Win Rate x Average Deal Size) / Sales Cycle Length.

For instance, suppose you have 50 opportunities in your sales pipeline. Your average win rate is 40%, and your average deal size is $10,000. The sales process usually takes 70 days, from the initial contact to the signed proposal.

Your pipeline velocity = 50 x .4 x 10,000 / 70, or $2,587.14.

That means approximately $2,587.14 is moving through your sales pipeline every day. Obviously, the higher your velocity, the better.

So, how can you increase the pipeline velocity?

You can pull four main levers, and unsurprisingly, they correlate to the four factors of the equation.

• The number of total opportunities. Increase your prospecting efforts to get more opportunities.
• Win rate. One-on-one weekly coaching helps sales reps deliver high performance. You can improve this metric by investing in sales training and enablement.
• Deal size. Help your reps sell bigger deals by teaching them how to upsell, cross-sell, or target larger customers.
• Sales cycle. Have a well-defined sales process and ensure reps follow it. Leave room to test new strategies like the growth of AI or buyers’ preference for virtual shopping, and adapt accordingly to reduce your sales cycle.

An Easy Sales Pipeline Template

A sales pipeline template lets you set up your pipeline in a spreadsheet. Simply plug in each deal, its expected value, and the probability of closing, and you’ll get the weighted average for that deal.

This sales pipeline template also has columns for the assigned salesperson, the prospect’s contact information, and the next steps.

Download HubSpot’s Free Sales Pipeline Template

While you can manage your sales pipeline in an Excel spreadsheet, using a CRM is much easier. The HubSpot CRM gives you an up-to-date view of your sales pipeline, multiple ways to sort your deals, automatic activity tracking (so you don’t need to log calls or emails manually), and detailed contact records for every lead.

Sales Pipeline Report

The next step in managing your sales pipeline is creating reports. Using reports, you can predict when opportunities will close and get a clearer picture of the pipeline’s health. But what should you include in your sales pipeline report?

• The number of opportunities in the pipeline. This is an excellent indicator of whether a pipeline has enough opportunities to meet revenue goals and quotas.
• Opportunity sizes. If an opportunity closes, how much value will it provide to the sales team?
• Close date for each opportunity. This tells you when an opportunity might close. It also allows salespeople and managers to forecast expected revenue.
• An overview of the pipeline over time. Is your pipeline growing? Zooming out and looking at the pipeline history will show you the answer.

Ready for Sales Pipeline Management?

Mastering your sales pipeline means mastering your results. The sales pipeline benefits the entire organization, not just the sales team. When everyone aligns around revenue goals, every team succeeds.

A well-managed pipeline is dynamic, requiring constant attention, regular reviews, and adaptability to market changes and customer behaviors. Successful sales leaders and reps view their pipeline as a strategic asset, not just a reporting tool.

Whether your business faces disruption from new competitors, major opportunities, industry shifts, or internal changes, use these tips and the sales pipeline template to forecast your deals and manage your sales pipeline effectively.