How do you improve sales performance when you can’t see what’s working? And how do you forecast with confidence? A vocational education provider in Hampshire was struggling with this fundamental challenge, and it was costing them dearly.
The Challenge
When they came to us, this client was using a makeshift system of support tickets to manage potential customers in HubSpot.
- Sales team members had different understandings of how deals should progress
- Only obvious sales opportunities received proper attention; everything else fell through the cracks
- Pipeline forecasting wasn’t possible
- Their technology was getting in the way rather than helping
This approach was costing them real money:
- Potential customers who weren't immediately ready to buy were being forgotten
- Interested prospects qualified by marketing weren't reaching the sales team
- Early-stage deals were being missed altogether
Our Approach
We replaced their improvised system with a structured solution using HubSpot's customer management tools. We:
- Aligned the sales team and leadership on how deals progressed from first contact to closed business, implementing clear pipeline stages
- Built a clear process for determining which prospects were worth pursuing
- Moved sales conversations out of their tickets system into a proper customer tracking system, differentiating between leads and deals
- Created reports to keep track of every potential customer, ensuring none were forgotten
- Gave the team visibility of early-stage opportunities with estimated values to show what was at stake
The Transformation
Before this change, the business was losing potential customers and revenue without any visibility of the situation. Now they can see every opportunity, measure what works, and focus their efforts where they'll have the greatest impact.
- They can prioritise effectively, and deploy the right salespeople and techniques to progress the opportunity
- Their sales forecasts are reliable because only qualified deals enter the pipeline
- They can distinguish between existing customer growth and new business
- They track information about customer type and potential value, revealing which sectors are most profitable and close fastest, enabling continuous improvement
The sales team was delighted with the results, and for good reason. The biggest win for this business is that they gained clear visibility of potential business that was previously invisible. With this foundation in place, they are positioned for ever-better performance based on real data.
If you're in the dark about what's working in your sales process, request a free no-obligation call with one of our team below, or learn about our Sales-Ready CRM Service.
