5 Golden Rules
of Sales
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
2
5 Golden Rules of Sales
We all know sales success doesn’t just happen
overnight. Luckily, there are a few secrets to close
more deals, meet quotas faster, and grow your team
with ease.
For any sales leader, data should be running the show —
however, only 0.5% of available data is taken advantage
of, as the sheer volume often intimidates many teams.
Many believe that only large enterprises have the
resources to utilize big data, but small businesses can
easily take advantage of it too. Because the information
surrounding a prospect helps you make or break a deal,
here are 5 Golden Rules to ensure your team is well on
its way to increase sales.
Table of Contents
Rule 1: Declutter Your Contacts, Declutter Your Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Rule 2: Establish a Clear and Repeatable Sales Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Rule 3: Monitor How Your Process is Working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Rule 4: Create a Culture of Transparency and Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Rule 5: Make Data-driven Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
3
5 Golden Rules of Sales
For any growing business, getting organized immediately sets you up for
success. If you have an email address for one person, a Twitter handle
for another, and a LinkedIn connection with another, it’s time to consider
putting everything in one place. Having a broad network is amazing, but
if your contacts aren’t organized, you risk losing some really important
business relationships.
A CRM can be your saving grace
CRMs make it easy to import contact details from a variety of sources.
Customer information (name, company, contact info, social links, etc.) is all
recorded automatically. Most programs also integrate with email so that every
interaction is attached to the contact. From there, you can analyze and track
your communication across the team to stay organized and engaged with
your customer base. In turn, you’ll be grateful next time you need to contact
“Joe Schmoe” and can’t remember how you’d usually connect with him.
Take customer relations to the next level
Customizing fields within a CRM is the best way to analyze the information that
you need for your specific customers. Say you run a cupcake shop. You could
add a new field that would allow you to track your customer’s favorite flavor
of cupcake that they normally purchase from your bakery. Imagine the look
on your customer’s face when the employee asks if they’d like their favourite
cupcake by name! This is the kind of customer service that’s lacking in today’s
world, which will keep your customers coming back to your business.
Keeping notes on customers — birthdays, favorite products or brands,
places they’ve traveled, what city they’re from — via custom fields allows you
to create a better customer experience. Unless you have a brilliant memory
and/or a small customer base, custom fields are a great way to remember
these details.
Rule 1
Declutter Your Contacts,
Declutter Your Life
“If your contacts aren’t organized, you risk losing some
really important business relationships.”
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
4
5 Golden Rules of Sales
Once your contacts are organized, ensure your reps are in line as well.
Sales process may be one of the most overused terms used by businesses
today, but it’s important for you to have a clear understanding of what
yours looks like.
While every business is different, most follow a progression with comparable
sales stages. From lead to close, to onboarding and beyond, make sure your
sales process is repeatable and that it can be optimized for success.
Start by observing
Look back at the last 5 or 10 deals that closed. What were the major steps in
the process? What did touchpoints with the customer look like? How long did
the entire process take, and how much time elapsed between each step? The
more examples you have (and the more people on your team those examples
are coming from), the better.
From there, tackle the basics. Map your observations to a generic example and
formulate a plan around how you can best execute the following:
Hunting & gathering
Prospecting is the process of sourcing new people/companies/organizations
to begin your sales process with. This may involve online research to find new
prospects, or looking into an existing database of contacts.
Saying, “What’s up?”
Initiating contact with early stage leads (via phone or email) allows you to
gather information and judge their worthiness for moving forward.
“Sales process may be one of the most overused terms
used by businesses today, but it’s important for you to
have a clear understanding of what yours looks like.”
Rule 2
Establish a Clear and
Repeatable Sales Process
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
5
5 Golden Rules of Sales
Doing your research
As an opportunity moves through the pipeline, you should be learning
more about the prospect and their company. This allows you to offer
an experience that is better tailored to their needs, which improves the
likelihood of a deal closing.
Showing them why they need you
During any sales process, the demo is your company’s time to shine. This
stage typically comes after a few conversations, as it’s only for well-qualified
prospects. Highlight all the ways your product/solution fits your prospect’s
needs and why you’re there to help.
Sealing the deal
Closing involves any late-stage activities that happen as a decision is made.
This varies from company to company, but may include delivering a proposal,
negotiation, receiving the buy-in of decision makers, or any other related
actions.
Iterating over time
For each stage, make sure you know why a prospect moved from one area
to the next. Use yes or no questions, or questions with quantifiable answers,
to determine what worked. Ideally, that reason/cause will be based on the
customer’s own actions, and not on the perception of the rep.
At the end of the day, determining which process works best will become an
ongoing project. As you begin implementing new ways of doing things, you’ll
want to continue making changes based on feedback from your team.
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
6
5 Golden Rules of Sales
A critical component of optimizing your sales process includes thinking about
the key metrics that you should be measuring at each stage. These include:
Adoption
Are 90+% of your reps using the process? This shows that you’ve removed
friction and extra cycles from the process.
Deal Size
Are average sales prices increasing? This is a strong indication that your
process is helping customers recognize needs — you’re selling on value,
not price.
Forecast Accuracy
Is your pipeline-based forecast within 10% of reality? This is a great indicator
that you are in step with the buyer. Solid forecasting is also a sign of
consistent use of the process by your team.
Win Rates
Like deal size, win rates should improve in a measurable way. Your process is
helping you beat the competition — even if the competition is the status quo
where the buyer takes no action.
Sales Cycle Length
A good process will drive opportunities through the pipeline faster. This
illustrates you haven’t introduced friction and extra cycles into the process.
Rule 3
Monitor How Your Process
is Working
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
7
5 Golden Rules of Sales
Common mistakes & tips for success:
Don’t leave your sales process steps open to interpretation
It’s important to define specific actions made by the prospect that caused
them to be moved from one stage to the next. Leaving it up to your sales team
to interpret will leave you with a less accurate understanding of where things
are and aren’t working in your sales process.
Your sales process will always be a work in progress
As we mentioned above, establishing your sales process won’t be a one and
done project. In addition to watching performance metrics on a daily basis,
get in the habit of stepping back to review how you think about your sales
process every 4-6 months with the reps who are selling every day.
Building a sales culture of transparency and accountability is a new concept
for most sales teams. An open culture of communication makes for happier
employees because everyone knows what is happening and why.
In an environment filled with strong personalities, this can be a difficult thing
to accomplish — however, technology makes it easier.
Ensure everyone is on the same page
Is your team aware of how much revenue they’re earning this quarter/month/
year? Does each sales rep know how much they need to contribute to make
this a reality? Shifting the conversation from rep-centric quota attainment to
team success helps open everyone’s eyes to what is happening in the room.
In order to achieve this, you don’t need to make major changes to
compensation plans — a small bonus or the promise of a team trip at the
end of the quarter is often enough. What you might find is that by publishing
and highlighting the team goal, you as a leader implement and exemplify
transparency.
Rule 4
Create a Culture of Transparency
and Competition
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
8
5 Golden Rules of Sales
Share data with the team
Take your transparency a step further by highlighting the data that matters
most. Make sure everyone knows the number of marketing leads that you
expect each month. Set targets for the number of meetings you expect your
Sales Development team to set, as well as how many calls and emails they
need to send to get them booked. Likewise, set targets for the amount of
pipeline you want your sales team to create themselves, as well as the amount
of revenue you expect them to close.
Don’t be afraid to add in the number of meetings your CEO or your VP of Sales
has with customers, or the number of new leads your Customer Success team
has generated through referrals. By mandating accountability for everyone
across the board, you lift the burden on your sales team and they won’t feel
like they are the only ones who need to be transparent to the company.
Win and Lose Together
Celebrating wins is easy — accepting that a sales pitch isn’t working, or that a
new pricing strategy is driving down your deal sizes, is not.
Part of maintaining an environment of transparency includes sitting down
with your team and running an analysis on all of the deals that you lost. This
should not be time spent dwelling on past failures, but rather time to address
them as a team.
One way to to go about this? Run sessions where each salesperson presents
one to two deals that they lost. Provide them with constructive insight on
how they can improve moving forward. And if it’s pricing or messaging that
needs to be changed, explain why you’re doing it and the rationale for the
new approach.
Be upfront with customers
Being transparent also extends externally, especially to customers. There’s
nothing worse than coming across hidden fees while they’re trying to
purchase something new.
Consider building a pricing tool where customers can find out exactly how
much your service will cost for their business. Or, when a customer is not
a great fit for your product, recommend another provider — no matter how
painful it is to lose their business. By being clear and upfront, you’ll have a
happier customer for the long term when you are a great fit.
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
9
5 Golden Rules of Sales
To make analytics part of your daily operations, you must view them as central
to solving problems and identifying opportunities. You must also possess the
muscle to transform your organization so that data and models actually yield
better decisions. At the end of the day, data means nothing if you’re not able
to turn it into actionable insights.
Finding the right tools
An organization cannot be data-driven without the right technology. Invest
time and money in the resources that will make your sales reps more
successful and empower your team with the right tools to help them do their
job efficiently. Collecting and analyzing the proper data can quickly uncover
opportunities for improvement and allow for more informed decision making.
Using data to improve forecasting
For many sales leaders, their number one pain point is forecasting. Even if you
know how many touches it takes to close an opportunity or what the average
sales cycle looks like, are you leveraging the right insights to determine how
you’re pacing towards goals?
Consider what your conversion rates look like from beginning to end. How is
the data around an opportunity flowing through the pipeline? Are there any
gaps? If you can predict how your team will perform, you’ll know what you
need to do along the way to ensure your goals are met.
Making data easy to consume
Use dashboards to visualize trends and gain valuable insights into sales rep
activity. This type of data-driven sales strategy will replicate the behaviors of
top performers and help the average performers improve.
“Data means nothing if you’re not able to turn it into
actionable insights.”
Rule 5
Make Data-driven Decisions
www.copper.com / (415) 355-4776 / sales@copper.com
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5 Golden Rules of Sales
If you’re building your own dashboard, don’t just incorporate random data. The
most helpful dashboard includes a visual overview of your lead funnel, pipeline
status, conversion rates, win rates and sales activity so that you can see how
you’re pacing towards goals. These metrics will narrow your focus to what will
actually move the needle for your business, while allowing you to course correct
if things have fallen off track.
Setting a precedence for data can also improve communication across the
organization, while helping employees build a business case for functions
such as new hires, new technology, or different processes. High-quality data
makes it easier for others to follow the decision-makers’ logic and align to
the decision.
Start by researching a CRM. From there, evaluate your sales process — and
if you don’t have one, figure out what will make your team most productive.
Finally, determine which metrics that matter most, and how you can maintain
visibility among your team.
Apply these Golden Rules, and you’ll be selling more in no time!

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