In the recent Salesloft on Salesloft webinar titled "Building a Winning Pipeline," James Peacock, Charlotte Johnson, and John Older shared insights on how Salesloft's tools and processes help teams build stronger pipelines, enhance team collaboration, and close more deals. Here are some key takeaways and best practices discussed during the session:

1. Adapt to Market Dynamics

With the current challenges posed by what’s being called the "Great Growth Squeeze," organizations are seeing elongated sales cycles and increased difficulty in building predictable revenue. This means it’s critical to adjust your engagement models and update outdated sales practices to remain competitive.

Best Practice: Leverage data-driven strategies to enhance the efficiency of your sales processes. Identify where your engagement model may be falling short and work on updating your approaches to match today’s market demands.

2. Streamline Reps' Workflows to Focus on High-Impact Tasks

Non-customer-facing activities take up 67% of a rep’s time.

Sales organizations often find themselves paralyzed by data silos and sprawling systems.

Solution: Salesloft integrates various systems and signals (like third-party data and marketing insights) into a single platform to create a more unified experience for reps. This ensures that reps can prioritize the most impactful tasks, helping to shorten sales cycles and increase win rates.

3. Collaborate Closely Between SDRs and AEs

John emphasized the importance of strong collaboration between SDRs and AEs. The traditional divide between SDRs focused on generating opportunities and AEs focused on closing business is often counterproductive.

Best Practice: SDRs and AEs should work together from the beginning by jointly identifying key accounts, planning outreach strategies, and maintaining ongoing collaboration throughout the sales cycle. This ensures a smoother transition between SDR-led and AE-led calls, leading to higher quality opportunities.

4. Leverage Technology for Pipeline Progression

Salesloft’s AI-powered tools (like Conductor AI) help reps prioritize tasks and actions based on real-time signals. This technology brings together first and third-party data to help reps better understand which prospects to engage with and how.

Best Practice: Use AI to enhance your pipeline management by identifying the most critical tasks and following up strategically. This can lead to improved deal progression, higher average deal sizes, and better close rates.

5. SDRs Should Tap into AE Expertise

SDRs should not operate in isolation. Instead, they should actively collaborate with their AEs to gain insights from past successful deals and align on the accounts that are most likely to close.

Pro Tip: Build shared strategies with your AEs from the start. By aligning from the key account identification stage, you can jointly plan and execute more successful outreach and follow-up tactics.

For more in-depth strategies and insights, check out the full webinar Salesloft on Salesloft: Building a Winning Pipeline, where the team dives deeper into practical approaches to drive pipeline success.