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Eric is in charge of content and SEO at La Growth Machine. A specialist in Outreach topics for over 8 years, Eric has written for numerous French and English blogs, sharing his experiences, hacks, and other use-cases. A trainer and speaker in his spare time, he is a reference for all topics related to B2B prospecting and automation.

The main goal of a sales team is to capture more leads and ensure higher final conversion. Having an elaborate sales workflow plan is the best way to achieve more sales. A workflow in sales defines the detailed activities that happen in the sales funnel to attract leads, increase converts, and make more sales. 

A sales team engages in repeatable sets of activities to qualify a prospect and guide them through the stages toward closing a deal. Repeating the same activities on and on can be tedious and tiresome. Sales workflow automation leverages software to automatically complete the processes. Teams can automate sales workflows such as assigning leads, stalled deal workflow, nurturing leads, and lead scoring.

Source: Tallyfy

Knowing What Sales Workflow Automation Is 

A sales workflow is the repetitive set of processes that sales reps make to nurture a lead from the early phase of the funnel toward the conversion phase. The phrase can also be referred to as a sales funnel or sales process.

A sales workflow focuses on paying attention to what happens at each phase in detail. It includes lead identification, qualification, need identification, making offers, and follow-ups. Sales reps use a workflow flowchart to ensure no step is overlooked in the process of nurturing leads to convert them.

Examples of sales workflow automation may include: 

  • Onboarding new leads
  • Updating of lead fields
  • Sending out automated emails
  • Automating reminders for appointments
  • Automating appointment outcomes
  • Automating lead qualification
  • Automating won deals

Research shows that globally, sales teams spend only 35% of their time selling. That means they spend 65% of their time on manual activities such as researching leads, doing follow-ups, entering data, and scoring leads.

Automating sales workflows help sales reps to record higher sales with lesser effort. They leverage different types of software to create automated workflows. 

The process helps your team to eliminate a lot of manual processes and create personalized interactions with valuable leads.

Automation workflow tools help do the manual tasks with little or no sales reps’ intervention. It uses AI algorithms to gather data and launch the most relevant actions. It can send an alert after clicks, an automated follow-up email after signup, reminders to complete the cart, and lead scoring. 

During sales automation workflow implementation, your choice of work device matters. It affects your workflow productivity in many ways. Many modern brands are increasingly adopting corporate usage of MacBooks, mainly because of their efficient and ultra-modern features. The laptops come with a trendy design and a friendly interface. 

Why Brands Should Consider Automating their Sales Workflows

The need for automation of sales workflows is increasing due to the benefits it offers. Many organizations lose a lot of sales opportunities due to a lack of automated workflow processes. Sales reps fail to qualify leads on time or close deals when necessary. Automation provides sales teams with a better view of the funnel and they take action when most needed. Brands should consider automating their sales workflows due to the benefits that come with its implementation. 

Increase in quality leads

In the lead generation process, automation helps increase the number of quality leads. Lead routing automation workflow software helps distribute leads among the sales reps. It eliminates manual lead forwarding, qualifying, and scoring. The software uses AI algorithms to evaluate and rank leads consistently. It sends them relevant messages to guide them through the funnel. Sales reps benefit from an increase in quality leads that can be nurtured to conversion. 

More closed deals

Sales teams can automate email workflow and schedule follow-ups, gather information about prospects, and provide seamless communication. Sales reps get alerts when prospects click on links, abandon the cart, or search for certain products. They can then do the necessary follow and close more deals. 

Increased efficiency

Sales workflow automation streamlines the sales process. Reps use less effort and complete more tasks. Efficiency helps a business waste lesser resources and have smoother processes. Sales reps use their selling time to the maximum which increases sales yields. 

Greater collaboration among sales reps

Workflow automation tools distribute tasks among different sales reps. They use tools to distribute leads, avail data in one place, and send alerts and reminders. Sales teams work as one unit which benefits a business with growth and a positive reputation. 

Saves time and money

Sales reps use less time doing manual activities. They focus more on increasing conversions to increase sales. Brands save time and money which is important for growth. 

Figure 2 – learnworlds

Step-by-step Process to Automate your Sales Workflows

Effective sales workflow automation involves preparing the groundwork in advance. It ensures you do not omit any step and that every step has been implemented correctly in the right sequence.

The main purpose of workflow automation is to reduce manual processes to the maximum and increase automated processes as much as possible. Automation streamlines processes and reduces manual interventions. Follow the right steps for a smooth workflow automation process. 

Step 1: Decide what workflows need automation

The workflows that need automation are those that demand repetitive activities. For instance, to manage a result-oriented lead-generation drive, sales reps must do several repetitive activities. They must:

  • Create content consistently
  • Research for relevant audiences
  • Send promotional messages
  • Do testing and lead analysis
  • Do lead scoring and nurturing

Lead generation workflow is one of the repetitive activities that sales teams can consider automating. It streamlines the process and enhances its success. 

Step 2: Decide on the goals that must be achieved

After identifying the repetitive processes that need to be automated, the next step is to define your sales goals. One of the goals of automating sales workflows is to reduce the customer journey cycle. It also seeks to reduce data entry time and focus more on optimizing insights and leads to success. You must however justify every goal that your brand wants to achieve. 

Step 3: Decide what workflow solutions are most relevant to your brand

The sales automation solutions you choose are based on the goals of your brand. It might be that your brand wants to generate more leads, close more deals, launch email campaigns, promote a specific product, and much more. You can choose a solution based on factors such as:

  • Features: Will the features meet your workflow automation needs?
  • Cost: Is the cost within your budget?
  • Integration capabilities: Can the solution allow integration with other tools in your company?
  • Total users: How many users do you have?
  • User interface: Is it easy to navigate the dashboard in a friendly way?
  • Support: Does the vendor offer quality support?

Step 4: Train and measure KPIs

Train your team to use the solutions for maximized benefits. For instance, your sales teams can use workflow automation tools to improve sales copywriting and generate higher-quality content. Have a plan for measuring the performance of your automated sales workflow system. 

4 Sales Workflows You Might Want to Automate!

CRM is a great tool that requires automation to improve sales workflow processes.

The tool allows integration with thousands of other workflow automation tools to offer an all-rounded view of processes in one place. The processes that demand a lot of repetitive work should be considered for automation. It allows the activities to be done automatically so that your sales teams redeem time and effort. 

Sales Workflow 1: Automate prospect’s workflow nurturing

To nature leads, your sales teams need to use multiple strategies. They may decide to use:

  • Emails
  • Social media
  • Do surveys
  • Product Promotions

The team must also score the leads and nurture them to begin converting and making sales. The entire workflow process can be automated to make it smoother and more effective. Automation software will help sales reps to gather lead preferences and drive visitors to sales content. Using human efforts to nurture prospects is not scalable. Automation will help you leverage the prospect’s data you already have.

Example 🔍

For example, a prospect can visit your website and download content such as an eBook or case study. An automation tool will automatically add them to your lead nurturing system. The tool can then send the prospect emails encouraging them to take another action based on the content they downloaded.

Depending on their persona, the tool can also redirect them to a different route to receive tailor-made messages specifically for them. Next, the prospect may fill out a form to subscribe to your emails. They may even sign up for a free trial, add something to their cart, or request a meeting. Based on their action, your automation tool may send them further emails or update them in the system for push notifications.

All these steps require no human intervention. The automation tool can guide the prospect from one step to the next until they convert. The tool sends large volumes of emails and manages subscriptions and signups, and downloading eBooks. If a prospect delays action, the tool sends a further email to remind them to take action. It may suggest some offers such as discounts, and free eBooks. 

Sales Workflow 2: Automate Contact Segmentation and Update Workflow

A repetitive activity that sales reps do is to segment contacts and update them in the CRM. The process takes time and might require hiring extra teams. It makes it harder to coordinate with teams to begin follow-ups and guide the prospects through the funnel. 

Some of the contacts might be lost. Automating contact segmentation and updating workflow saves a lot of time.  The automated updating tool can segment the contact into emails, telephone, and mailing addresses. After every new contact, the tool automatically updates the entire contact database.

First, you need to gather contacts from various sources. You must then create your custom fields and add your conditions.

Usually, the segmentation system is preprogrammed based on specific fields. You can program it to segment based on customer journey phase, or online behavior. You can also segment based on engagement level, lead scores, lead source, or sales conversations.  

For example, if one of your segmentation conditions is online activity-based, the automation tool learns the behavior patterns of the prospect and analyzes their activities. It might record behaviors such as actively engaged, disengaged, inactive, engaged, and so on. The tool must then decide where to place the contact. 

It might be placed in the email list for reminders, product suggestions, or eBooks. Once the contact is segmented successfully, the tool then updates the entire contact system. This process can be repeated multiple times as prospect behavior changes.  

Sales Workflow 3: Automate Lead Status Workflow

Lead status is a strategy used to track leads’ progress in the sales funnel. It provides sales teams with an opportunity to guide the lead further into the funnel to the point of conversion. Brands lose a lot of revenue when leads leak out of the funnel. If their status in the funnel is correctly identified, sales reps can take the right actions to guide them. It provides a platform for sealing off revenue leakage caused by lost leads. Your sales reps need information such as:

  • We contacted or tried to reach out to the visitor
  • The visitor responded
  • They requested an information
  • We booked a meeting
  • The lead converted 

Example 🔍

For example, when someone interacts with your brand for the first time, the system marks them as a New Lead or Prospect. They are yet to be contacted by a sales rep. The system will assign the lead to a sales rep and mark them as Open. This means there is no activity done yet. Assume that the rep has started to get ready to contact the lead. The system will mark them as In Progress.

Next, the sales rep may try to reach them via an automated email or telephone call and fail to get a response. At this level, the system will mark them as Attempted to Contact. The rep may attempt to contact them again. If they respond, they are marked as Connected. This means they communicated or there is ongoing communication.

The rep may proceed to suggest a deal but the lead is yet to be qualified. In this case, they will be marked as Open Deal. At this point, the lead may lose or show interest. If they lose, they market as Unqualified. If they show interest, they are marked as qualified and can be redirected to the next steps. 

Sales Workflow 4: Automate Task Creation for Sales Reps’ Workflow

Tasks workflow for sales reps can be divided into several categories. Some could be tasked to work on stalled deals, create content, manage customer contacts databases, or manage converted customers. Workflow automation tools can help sales managers automatically assign tasks. For instance, if a tool sends alerts that a lead made a request, the sales manager may assign a specific sales rep to handle the issue. It makes the workflow process easier and smoother. 

Other types of sales workflow processes that can be automated include:

  • Welcoming and educating new customer workflow automation
  • Contact re-engagement workflow automation
  • Stalled deal workflow automation
  • Feedback and purchase reminders workflow automation

Example 🔍

An example of a sales rep’s task automation is lead distribution. Capturing and delivering leads follows several processes. Based on preset criteria, the system distributes B2B leads based on the expertise of a sales rep, availability, performance, and location. The system also adopts several distribution strategies.

One technique is called Round Robin – which is a push-based strategy. The system distributes leads equally among all reps. Another method is pull-based where the system places all leads in one place and lets sales reps choose the tasks they can handle.

 

There is also the Shark Tank technique, another pull-based lead distribution strategy. Instead of placing leads for sales reps to choose from, the system sends notifications to each rep. The rep who responds first receives the lead.

The entire process starts with solid lead generation pushed by the marketing team. The system then screens them for quality and sets the criteria distribution. The system maintains transparency in the entire process. 

Top 5 tools to Automate Your Sales Workflows

The entire process of sales workflow automation requires time allocation, tech implementation, and a decent budget. Sales workflow automation tools eliminate tedious and complex processes by automating routine processes that need human intervention. It builds a simpler and profit-oriented sales workflow. Almost all of the sales automation software can be easily integrated into CRM, lead capturing, and also email marketing tools.

The tool that you finalize for your business depends on your organization’s targets and customer-specific needs. 

LaGrowthMachine

LaGrowthMachine is an effective tool for automating your emails and LinkedIn outreach. The tool automates conversations with email contacts and reaches out to their LinkedIn account if they fail to submit their email to you. You can program it to import your prospects, engage and sync them. You can also program it to clean your prospect’s data so that you remain with a quality list. It has a multichannel messaging feature to send all your communication from one place. 

HubSpot 

HubSpot Sales tool is one of the most popular online tools that can be used with any CRM to automate various workflow processes. It automates emails to your contacts database based on preprogrammed requirements. For instance, if you use a form to encourage visitors to join your email list, the tool automatically sends communications once the visitor fills out the form.

It can be a thank you message, an eBook, a follow-up, or a promotion message. The tool helps automate lead nurturing workflows and contact segmentation. 

Woodpecker

The Woodpecker tool is used to enhance cold email workflow campaigns. When sales reps work on cold email campaigns, they seek to persuade prospects into the funnel at different stages so that they take the expected actions. It is programmed to identify triggers, specific searches, and actions.

Based on the trigger, the tool can add a prospect to a campaign, make an API call, search for leads, update leads, or remove unqualified prospects. 

GetResponse

GetResponse allows you to build sales automation from scratch or prebuilt templates. Prebuilt templates are used for a wide range of sales situations. You can program it to work based on specific conditions, actions, and filters attached to different sales workflow scenarios. 

It manages the prospect’s contacts and customer journey in the funnel. It can send welcome messages, post-purchase, and sales promotions messages. It sends alerts for abandoned carts and helps maintain retention and engagement. It also functions as a contract management software. 

Salesmate

Salesmate can be used to automate a variety of sales workflows. You can use it to automatically assign leads to sales reps and to automate your email sales workflows. It sends reminders for subscriptions, welcome emails, and birthday and anniversary quotes.

After a client adds to a cart or makes a purchase, it sends follow-up emails to build lasting relationships. It helps track activities in the pipeline and to track sales goals. 

Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder helps sales teams to scale their workflow automation. It can automate email notifications and send them at a preset frequency every time a prospect opens an email, clicks a link, or visits a site. It can be programmed to redirect leads to specific channels.

The tool can also be integrated with Salesforce to consolidate prospect contacts into one place. It is useful for qualifying leads, optimizing your sales workflows, and closing more sales. 

Conclusion

Sales workflow automation leverages software to manage sales processes on autopilot. Companies adopt various AI-powered software to do away with the repetitive manual workflow. Automation means a boost in final sales, increased reliability and greater productivity in your sales workforce.

Companies need to work on the right steps to follow when creating a sales workflow automation strategy.