You only have so much time in a day. So, closing more deals more quickly is a win for everyone — sales representatives, sales managers, the finance department, and a company’s leadership. How do you make that happen? Say hello to the sales acceleration process.

What you’ll learn:

• What is sales acceleration?
• Why is sales acceleration important?
• Understanding the sales acceleration formula
• Types of sales acceleration
• Best practices for crafting an effective sales acceleration strategy
• How to choose the best sales acceleration tools

What is sales acceleration?

Sales acceleration is a collection of strategies using automated tools and workflows to help sales representatives move leads through the end-to-end sales pipeline faster, engage with customers more effectively, and close more deals in less time.

Why is sales acceleration important?

The top challenge for sales teams is changing customer expectations, according to the Salesforce State of Sales Report. Additionally, 57% of respondents said the competition was trickier than last year. As a result, 84% of sales representatives missed their quota last year, and 67% expect to miss it this year.

In today’s competitive market, businesses must make every effort to build relationships with customers to provide personalized service. Through an acceleration framework that focuses on empowering sales teams, organizations can understand and meet customers’ needs more accurately. With this level of engagement and support, customers build trust both with their sales representative and the organization as a whole. By building a solid relationship through sales acceleration, businesses typically give themselves a significant competitive advantage over competitors.

Common benefits of sales acceleration include:

Increased sales efficiency

By streamlining the sales process through artificial intelligence (AI)-based workflow automation, businesses move leads through the pipeline more quickly. Your sales representatives can spend their time building relationships with customers instead of getting bogged down in administrative tasks such as scheduling meetings and creating invoices.

Higher conversion rates

One of the best ways to increase productivity and revenue is by improving your conversion rates. A sales acceleration strategy that includes using tools such as Einstein Sales Cloud for lead scoring and management helps sales representatives prioritize leads more accurately. Spending time on leads that are more likely to close often means a higher conversion rate and more closed deals.

Smarter data-driven decisions

Sales leaders and representatives are faced with many seemingly small decisions every day, such as which customers to reach out to first and how to engage with them. However, each decision often adds up to the difference between landing a deal or not. Organizations that turn to analytics, such as new leads in the pipeline and lifetime customer value, can gain greater insight into sales performance and customer behavior.

Improved customer experience

Every customer wants to feel valued by the organization. Teams that create personalized outreach workflows and respond quickly let the customer know their needs are important. The State of Sales Report found that business buyers say they’re more likely to buy when their sales representatives take time to understand their goals during the sales journey.

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Understanding the sales acceleration formula

The Sales Acceleration formula is a framework that helps businesses enhance their sales processes and increase revenue. It works by optimizing various factors across the sales pipeline.

Here are five key factors:

1. Lead generation: Organizations that generate qualified leads can more effectively earn the respect of your customers and keep connections positive.
2. Lead scoring and qualification: By using scoring based on multiple signals, such as those that are AI- or machine-learning-based, organizations can determine which leads are most likely to convert. Sales teams that prioritize leads with higher scores can focus on potential customers more likely to convert, saving time and money.
3. Sales process optimization: Finding ways to streamline the sales process can lead to decreased cycle times and improved conversion rates. When the sales journey is optimized, customers often feel more engaged than they do going through a convoluted and disjointed process. That can increase the likelihood of a purchase.
4. Performance tracking and analytics: Organizations turn to comprehensive tracking and reporting capabilities to help measure performance and find areas for improvement with real-time data. Look for tools that include integration with business intelligence (BI) tools and dashboards and are easy to configure and use.
5. Sales training and enablement: Sales teams can improve retention by using enablement and sales training programs that help representatives speak the language of their customers, address the root causes of their pain points, and communicate value more clearly. The State of Sales Report found that the top three training activities include sales strategy reviews, performance reviews, and account reviews.

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Types of sales acceleration

The umbrella of sales acceleration includes numerous strategies. Each targets a specific area of the sales process to enhance efficiency and effectiveness, and companies typically combine them to address certain needs and goals.

Basic sales acceleration strategies include:

Lead generation acceleration

Lead generation falls into two main categories — inbound and outbound. Inbound marketing focuses on catching the attention of the target audience via channels such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media. With outbound marketing, the organization actively reaches out to potential customers through cold calls, emails, and direct mail. Salesforce research found that 98% of sales leaders say lead prioritization will be improved by AI, with 40% expecting major improvement.

Lead qualification and scoring

By using scoring systems, organizations can help sales representatives prioritize leads. The scoring system calculates the leads’ likelihood to convert using criteria such as demographic information and engagement. To further improve accuracy and efficiency, teams can also turn to automated qualification tools that use AI and machine learning to assess lead quality and readiness.

Sales process optimization

Often, simple changes can significantly improve the overall sales process. Organizations are increasingly turning to technology to automate repetitive tasks, such as follow-up emails and scheduling meetings, with automating workflows ranking in the top five of IT leaders’ data priorities, according to the Salesforce State of Data Analytics Report. And customer relationship management (CRM) integration also significantly improves the sales process by centralizing customer data and sales activity. Companies using CRMs typically have improved workflow and communication.

Sales training and enablement

Sales representatives without the proper training and support can often struggle with effectively moving customers and prospects through the sales process. Organizations should create onboarding training programs to get each new representative up to speed on the products and processes. Additionally, sales teams need continuous learning opportunities, such as hearing about the latest trends, sales best practices, market conditions, and technology.

Businesses are increasingly turning to AI to help provide support with Agentforce. This digital labor platform acts as the assistant that never sleeps (or takes a vacation or has a bad day) by nurturing leads 24/7. Your representatives also get personalized coaching powered by AI to help them reach top performance.

Sales engagement strategies

Customers increasingly are looking for personalized experiences. The State of Data Analytics Report found that 65% of them expect companies to adapt experiences to match their changing needs. However, 80% of business leaders say personalization is difficult to scale. As part of sales acceleration, many organizations are using sales acceleration tools to improve personalization. For example, a multichannel approach employs tactics such as email, phone calls, and social media to reach out to each prospect on their preferred channel.

Performance tracking and analytics

Successful sales acceleration requires monitoring the results of all strategies and then making changes as needed. Sales teams are increasingly using data analytics tools to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and sales metrics, with the Salesforce State of Data Analytics Report finding that 79% of IT leaders plan to invest in data analysis and visualization tools. Dashboards and reports also provide insights into sales performance. However, organizations must then take the next step of acting on their data and insights.

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Best practices for crafting an effective sales acceleration strategy

Many organizations jump into sales acceleration methods without proper planning. However, this often results in a disjointed approach with lackluster results. Sales teams should start by creating a holistic and comprehensive strategy.

Here are tips for creating a successful strategy.

1. Define clear goals

Because each organization has unique goals, your sales acceleration strategy should be customized to your current business needs. Otherwise, your approach may not solve your specific challenges. Start the sales acceleration strategy process by reviewing your organization’s and your sales teams’ goals. Make sure each member of the team creating the strategy understands where the organization is today and where it hopes to go in the short and long terms.

You can then determine what you want to achieve with your sales acceleration framework. For example, if your sales department is experiencing high turnover, and leaders want to increase retention, your sales team should focus on sales enablement and the sales processes. The State of Sales Report found 76% of sales representatives say that enablement strategies, such as support materials, product training, technology training, and one-on-one coaching, prepare them to make quota. The report also found that advancement and pay are top deciding factors for retention, so improving representatives’ ability to make quota can help there as well.

2. Understand your target audience

Your sales acceleration goals must be focused on your target market, which is a group of people who are a good fit for your product or services. While your target market is the overall market landscape for your organization, the target audience focuses on individuals. Most sales teams have primary markets, secondary markets, and other relevant market segments.

Sales teams can use multiple strategies to learn about their target audience. Start by collecting data from customer behaviors, such as purchasing history, interactions with marketing campaigns, and social media sentiment. You can also gather valuable data from customer surveys and market research about your broader industry. With deep customer knowledge, you can then craft messaging that resonates with your specific customer segment.

3. Leverage technology

Instead of immediately purchasing the latest tools to solve your sales issues, carefully consider those that will help reach your specific goals. For example, sales teams struggling with customer data in multiple systems and locations can significantly improve their process by using a CRM to consolidate all customer data in a single platform. Many teams looking to improve productivity are turning to generative AI to improve sales processes such as researching prospects and accounts. Representatives are also using generative AI to write personalized emails for specific targets as well as create close plans for their markets.

4. Optimize lead generation

While your sales team needs leads to close deals, they really need prospects who are likely to purchase a particular product or service. The State of Sales Report found that low-quality leads were more of a challenge for sales teams than even just a year ago.

Effective lead generation includes creating content, such as blogs, events and webinars, that addresses your target market’s pain points. Additionally, a lead scoring system for opportunity qualification makes it easy to determine quickly which leads should be passed to the sales team. Other strategies include creating an effective call to action for all channels and using A/B testing on lead generation campaigns to determine the best approach.

5. Invest in sales training and enablement

Your sales process only works when representatives are familiar with the organization’s sales tools and the most effective sales strategies. A sales enablement program that focuses on improving reps’ individual performance and boosting revenue is the top tactic for growth, according to the 2024 Salesforce State of Sales Report. Start by focusing your enablement program on outcomes, such as reducing sales cycle length. Next, integrate sales enablement into the representatives’ workflow, such as providing training for applications your team uses regularly. Additionally, personalize sales enablement tips for each representative.

6. Monitor and analyze performance

Before you launch the sales acceleration framework, your team must set key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine success. Your team’s specific KPIs should relate directly to your current and future goals. Common KPIs include customer lifetime value, new leads in the pipeline, conversion rate, sales representative retention rate, and customer retention.

After putting your strategy into action, your team must collect data and measure success. While it’s easy to focus on revenue and conversion rates, making changes that affect other metrics often requires significant training. For example, reducing sales representatives’ ramp-up time through sales enablement can improve representative retention, which typically leads to increased revenue.

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How to choose the best sales acceleration tools

With numerous sales acceleration tools on the market, it’s important to select the right one for your organization’s specific needs.

Here are things to consider when choosing a sales acceleration tool.

Company reputation

With many new tools entering the market, organizations should look for a time-tested tool with a reputation for quality products and support. Look at online reviews and talk with sales representatives who used tools at their past jobs to find the company with the best reputation.

Integration

For the most effective improvement in the sales process, your sales acceleration tool should integrate with your organization’s current systems. Start with a list of your technical stack and then compare it to all integrations offered by tools you are considering. Custom integrations are possible, of course, but those usually increase required time and expense.

Customer experience

After you purchase your tool, your team will need support from the vendor to help implement it and streamline your sales process. Find out as much as possible about the vendor relationship management program, service options, and customer support.

Time to implement

Every week that passes without your sales acceleration tool means money left on the table. Ask prospective vendors for a timeline from purchase to implementation.

Speed time to close with sales acceleration

Organizations with an optimized and streamlined sales process typically enjoy a wealth of benefits, from increased revenue to high sales representative retention rates. By creating a comprehensive sales acceleration strategy, organizations can select the strategies that best align with their goals. Make the right small changes in your process, and you may find yourself with big gains in conversion rates and revenue.

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