In this article we’re going to go through the main things you need to know about sales project management.
You’re in sales. You don’t need us to tell you that time is money. Solid project management is going to save you time so that you can focus more on selling.
This helpful guide covers the importance of sales project management and 5 key steps for the best project management in sales.
What is project management in sales?
Sales project management is the process of planning, organising, and managing sales projects in order to reach your targets. It involves tracking leads, managing client communications and documentation, monitoring your schedule, booking calls and meetings, and so much more to ensure successful outcomes.
The importance of sales project management
Sales is a game of numbers, but it’s also crucial to make prospects feel like individuals. You’re juggling so many different people and you want them all to become customers. Project management can help you to save (and easily access) that all-important information that will help you add the personal touches needed to close a sale.
Plus, leads can all be at different stages. Project management can help you manage them effectively while you gently nudge them along your pipeline.
Another reason why project management is so important for sales teams is…targets! Sales teams have targets to hit on a regular basis. With project management, you can understand how close you are to hitting those targets and more effectively plan out ways to help you reach your goals.
Project management for sales: 5 steps
1. Understand your goals
The first step towards project management for sales teams (or anyone!) is to understand what your goals are. When you know where you’re headed and you have a destination, then you can begin to figure out how you’re going to get there in the most efficient way.
As a sales person, you probably have many different goals and targets to hit. Some personal and some that are part of company-wide initiatives.
2. Set your tasks
The next step is to break everything down into tasks – all of those stages that take you a bit closer to reaching your goal.
Using a project management tool, you can set tasks for yourself in order to monitor your progression towards reaching your goals.
Give your tasks a name, a due date, and add in any important notes, client information, or reminders you need. If you’re part of a sales team, you can also assign tasks to different members so that everyone knows exactly what they need to do to play their part in making your goals a reality.
3. Document management
There’s a lot of documents to keep track of in sales. You’ve got client contact info, invoices, SLAs, and more.
Project management can help you keep all of this important stuff together in one secure and easy to access place.
4. Log everything
Another important part of project management for sales is making sure that you keep track of everything.
If you want to manage your sales effectively, you need to log calls, emails, meetings, attempted contacts – everything!
5. Generate reports
Finally, an important part of sales project management is generating reports that allow you to review your sales performance.
When you start managing your projects more intentionally, then you will naturally build up a paper trail of really important data that you can use to help you evaluate your performance and improve future projects.
Manage your sales pipeline with Project.co
You can manage every aspect of the sales process directly within Project.co. Start by adding new sales opportunities as tasks:
Within each task you can add information about the lead, including any relevant images or files. You can also assign the task a due date so you know when to next follow up.
You can also use custom task statuses to track your leads as they move through your pipeline.
This can help you to easily organise your leads so that you can see, at a glance, all of your opportunities in one place.
This is great for managing the performance of your sales team, too. If you work on, or manage, a sales team, the discussions tool can be an easy way to stay connected on your leads and projects
Plus, with our embeds tool you can even add your monthly sales report to your project so that everyone has easy access.
Project.co is super easy to use and you can customise to your heart’s content to really make it your own. Prefer to get a headstart? Check out our Sales Opportunities template or our Lead Tracking template – both are free and come pre-populated with the tools you need to begin.
Final thoughts
We hope you found this guide to sales project management helpful. Sales is all about making connections and hitting targets, but it’s also about being organised enough to keep this up at pace for a long time.
A great project management platform can be exactly the tool you need to help you work more efficiently and close more deals! Get started with project.co today.
