The 13 key sales activities that high-performing salespeople always do

1. Centralize your activities with a CRM

One of the biggest hurdles in identifying the most important sales activities is a lack of tracking.

If you don’t leverage sales activity tracking, you’re not going to know which activities are moving the needle closer to your revenue goals.

A CRM is an invaluable sales activity tracking tool. By keeping track of your contacts, deals and tasks, you can figure out which activities work best for you. Not only that, but it’ll make your work much more efficient and effective in the sales process.

Why? Because you’ll have an organized view of all your most important sales data in one place. Every effective sales leader needs a sales activity tracker that offers them real-time information on their individual reps' activities, on-going team performance and data to enable sales forecasting.

Here are a few ways you should be using your CRM on a daily and weekly basis to track your activities:

1. Track your deals. Every time a new deal comes through, add it to your CRM. Keeping an up-to-date, detailed view of your opportunities through pipeline management will help you see which activities and prospects you should prioritize on a daily basis.
   
   

2. Keep on top of your contacts. When you engage with a new lead or a new stakeholder within a target account, keep a record of them in your CRM. You can keep track of the conversation and set reminders when it’s time to follow up.
   
   

3. Track all deal stages. Every organization has their own sales process, which is why reflecting your pipeline with this process is key. Sit down with your team (and wider sales organization) to map out what each core stage of your sales process is. In other words, what are the individual steps that move leads closer to the deal?
   
   

4. Collaborate with teammates. Sales is a group effort. If your sales force is using several different platforms, then things can get messy. Most CRMs allow you to invite team members with ease, so make sure you take advantage of this feature.
   
   

5. Take advantage of custom fields. Like your sales processes, the data you collect is unique. Make CRM technology your own by adding custom fields for contact data, target accounts and pertinent information that will help you and your sales team onboard new sales reps faster, increase sales and boost conversion rates (e.g. average length of sales cycles, common pain points, KPIs and other key activity data).

Whether you’re a small business using an Excel spreadsheet or a small sales team using a powerful CRM platform, this foundational step should act as a hub for the following activities in this guide.

What gets measured gets managed, and you’ll find that by tracking your activities you’ll not only perform more efficiently, but find there’s a lot to be optimistic and excited about.

2. Keep a keen eye on your data

Using data to monitor how you are performing with prospects is key. Not only does data help you to achieve predictable revenue, it can also boost your customer’s buying experience and sales contribution margin.

How? Simple: by keeping a super close eye on what’s working and what’s not.

The data you need to monitor includes anything you and your peers are doing to close a deal. Start by monitoring the obvious sales metrics:

• Emails

• Meetings

• Phone calls

• Attachments sent

• Marketing campaigns

• Product demonstrations

• Lead generation activity

By monitoring your data, you’ll be able to track the days, weeks and months leading up to a sale. You can then use the figures to boost your entire sales bottom line, as a lot of fast-growing companies are doing.

For example, this report by McKinsey and Company notes that deploying analytics with purpose helps companies outperform their peers. Further, another report from the same company found that sales organizations that embed data and technology throughout their sales activities processes can radically improve sales ROI.

To make it easier, let’s break sales activity tracking down into a simple three-step process:

Step one: Measure your sales activity

Activities are the “inputs” that you can directly control. Ask yourself the following questions:

• How many emails have your team sent?
• How many meetings have they had with prospects?
• How many cold calls have they made to prospects?

Track everything you do on a day-to-day basis. This will help you to scope out your key metrics.

Step two: Analyze the quality of your sales activity

Focus on how many key decision makers you were able to reach through your sales activity.

How many of them were qualified for your product or service? Take these figures and look at whether or not your team is chasing the right prospects. This is also a good time to look at your list of leads to see if you can write any of them off.

Step three: Uncover the number of deals closed

Finally, look at how many of your qualified prospects continue through the sales process to be converted into a customer.

Use these three simple steps to pinpoint any leaking holes in your sales strategy, and to see where your strengths are.

Using a CRM is a time-savvy way to correlate action-based data from your sales activities. Use it to keep an eye on your:

• Forecast analysis. Do you have a low volume of prospects in your sales pipeline? Low prospects equal low sales opportunities.

• Territory coverage. shows how well your sales team is performing in their assigned sales territories.

• Quota analysis. Sometimes a sales rep fails to meet their quota. Keep an eye on the sales productivity of everyone on your team.

Keeping an eye on your data will help you make faster decisions, as you’ll have an informed idea of the challenges you’re up against (and how to overcome them).

3. Schedule your follow-up activities

In a sales role, you’re likely to be juggling a number of different tasks and priorities, so you need to have a schedule to make sure every task is executed properly.

Don’t fall down the rabbit hole by concentrating on a specific activity. If you don’t set yourself a schedule and limit the time spent on activities, you could find yourself wasting hours looking over metrics and spreadsheets while not achieving results.

Your most valuable asset is time.

If you plan to spend an hour generating leads on LinkedIn, move on to your next sales activity once that hour is up.

Prioritize the outcomes you want to achieve that day. Start by deciding what the sales outcome is that you want and then decide exactly what you or your team needs to do to get there.

4. Warm prospects to advance deal flow

Got a prospect sitting on the fence?

Make a point to focus on warm leads in your pipeline to advance deal flow. After all, you already know they’re interested in your product—they might just need a little push to get them over the line.

One of the best ways you can warm up a prospect is to build a trusting relationship with them. This means attracting them and keeping them interested not only in your product but in you as a sales rep.

Once a prospect is in your pipeline, keep them hungry by offering them value. This could be anything from an email with a link to a blog post your prospect might find helpful, to keeping them in the loop about how much your product could potentially help their business goals.

Show them that your existing customers love your product with referrals and make it easy for customers to refer you on social media by adding share buttons to your confirmation page, product or service description pages and blog posts.

Social proof is one of the best ways to build trust with your prospects and, if you want to be a top performer, you need to be getting referrals wherever you can:

5. Qualify inbound leads

Qualifying leads is one of the best ways to save time. Putting effort into qualifying leads properly means your pipeline will only be filled with prospects that are interested in your product.

When you’re qualifying a lead, strip the process back and start with their first interaction with your product – how did they reach your website or find you?

Then, look at their engagement on the website. Did they visit your pricing page, or did they jump straight to your free ebook? If a prospect has visited a pricing page, they’re going to be more valuable than a prospect that stumbled on your website to read top-of-funnel content.

Don’t spend too much time trying to decipher their movements on your website. Instead, have a conversation with them. The best way to figure out if they are a qualified lead is to build a simple checklist you can tick while you’re talking to them:

• Need: Does the lead need your product or service? Are there any problems your product can solve for them?
• Budget: Does the prospect have any budget allocated for purchases like your service?
• Authority: Does your prospect have the power to make a buying decision within their company? How much influence do they have and are they the right person to focus your time on?
• Fit: Does your lead have a commitment to a competitor or another product? On the flipside, do you think the prospect is a good fit for your company and your product?
• Timing: Timing is everything. How quickly does your lead expect to make a decision about buying your product? Is there anything that might affect their timing to make a buying decision?

Ticking boxes on your checklist is the quickest and most painless way of either putting a prospect into your sales pipeline, or flagging them as a cold lead and putting them on the backburner.

Qualifying leads is the best sales activity you can invest in before proceeding with the rest of the sales process. Not only does it make you more effective as it allows you to spend less time chasing dead end leads, but it also increases your win rate and your overall sales performance.

Read our article on How to Develop a Lead Qualification Machine for a guide on getting the best leads into your sales funnel.

6. Batch time for cold calling

News flash: cold calling in the sales world is far from dead.

If you aren’t making time to cold call prospects, you’re missing out on a big chunk of the revenue pie.

Make sure you’re making time in your schedule every week to make cold calls to highly targeted or “dream” prospects.

Cold calls have a notorious reputation for being unsuccessful, but you can change that by making a great first impression with your prospect. The first few seconds of the call are crucial to its success, and the longer you are able to hold your prospect on the line, the higher the chance you have of booking a meeting with them:

7. Email outreach activity

Staying at the front of your prospect’s mind is crucial if you hope to land them as a client.

Why not keep a steady stream of emails landing in your prospect’s inbox to make sure they don’t forget you?

Don’t make these messages about your product or service. Surprise them by sending something of value that will teach them about a relevant challenge (or even entertain them). This might be a whitepaper on relevant topics or just a message to say congratulations if their company celebrated a recent milestone.

Don’t send out “just checking in” emails to your prospects. They’re boring, bland and add little value to their inbox. Make your email outreach personal, too. You’re not the only sales rep vying for your prospect’s attention, so make sure whatever lands in their inbox is enough to perk their interest.

Emails that are personalized get opened more often. A lot more often:

8. Experiment with your timing

Timing is everything. If you aren’t hitting the targets when it comes to emails and cold calls, try experimenting with when you’re sending them.

For example, when making cold calls, make sure you’re reaching out to your prospects at the right time so every conversation counts. Making calls either mid-morning or mid-afternoon will give you more chances of landing a meeting with your prospect:

9. Nurture customer relationships

If you want to win in today’s sales world, you need to be nurturing your customer relationships. On average, repeat customers spend 67% more than new customers—so it’s worth keeping them happy.

Show your prospect that your main goal is for them to reach their goal.

Start by showing them some love on social media. Celebrate their wins and interact with their posts; share valuable content of theirs and give them any updates about your product you think might spark their interest. Social media is an epic way to respond to customer queries or concerns, too. It shows them that you are listening and care about their problems.

Chances are, like the majority of the population, your prospect also suffers from FOMO (fear of missing out). Keep them sweet by letting them know first about any new product releases, services or deals your company has before they’re released to the wider public.

Not only is this a great way to build loyalty amongst your customers, but it’s an effective (and free) way to build up a bit of buzz around your new products before the public can get their hands on them.

Lastly, stay at the top of their email inbox and make sure that you’re always having a conversation with them. Use your CRM to create marketing automation campaigns that allow you to nurture your customer relationships, stay in touch and add value to their inbox as well (see point ‘5’).

10. Organize and get control of your inbox

Your email inbox is like a symbol of your overall success in sales. If it’s a shambles, your sales activity probably will be as well.

The sooner you accept that you won’t be able to read every email that hits your inbox, the better. The key to an organized inbox is to label emails from your prospects, teammates and current clients.

Let’s be real. If you’ve just returned to the office on a Monday morning after your weekend, nothing is going to hinder your workflow more than an inbox with hundreds of emails. You’ll have to sift through spam, promotional emails along with other sales reps offering you a deal.

You need to get those emails labeled ASAP. Many CRMs can help you fast track the labeling process by only showing you emails linked to deals.

For example, Pipedrive lets you narrow down your inbox to only view:

• Emails that are linked to a deal
• Emails not linked to a deal
• Unread emails
• Emails with attachments
• Emails that are shared or not shared
• Emails addressed to you specifically
• A combination of the above attributes (e.g. all unread emails attached to deals)

Pro tip: Get unsubscribing. Any newsletters or emails you’re subscribed to that aren’t adding value to your workflow need to be unsubscribed from, pronto. You’ll thank us later.

11. Create and optimize your templates

By now, you’ve probably realized that you should be optimizing your email outreach and inbox in order to succeed. This goes for creating and optimizing your sales templates, too.

A good sales email will include three short sections to get your message across and tell your prospect what you need them to do next. When you’re creating your templates, follow this framework:

1. The intro. Your “do or die” moment. The subject and the first few sentences have to be attention-grabbing. It’s the difference between getting opened versus getting ignored or blocked.
2. The value proposition. What’s the main point of your email? Focus on value, demonstrating how you can solve a specific problem. Why should they care about you? If there is a clear and concise benefit to the prospect, you’ll get a response. If not, it’s unlikely they’ll care what you have to say, but that’s OK, it means they were probably not a high-quality lead to begin with.
   
3. A clear call to action. Tell your prospect exactly what you want them to do. As you’d expect, this can make or break everything.

Here’s what a template that follows the above principles look like:

12. Communicate with your team

Every sales team is busy, but don’t use this as an excuse to not communicate with each other.

Make sure you’re talking to everyone on your team, and when you have a meeting, give it your full attention. Showing up to a call or meeting isn’t just about physically being on the phone or in the meeting room. It’s about dedicating 100% of your attention to your team and where your company is pushing your sales targets.

If you aren’t using it already, a productivity integration like Slack can be a gamechanger for your sales team:

Using Slack, you can create separate channels to keep everyone in the loop about everything from office conduct and invoicing to specific deals and prospects you might be focusing on.

But don’t let a bot replace a good old team meeting. You should be meeting with your team once a week to set expectations, go over sales activity and plan any follow-up activities.

A tip for sales managers: your reps are driven by success and, in turn, the consequences of their actions. If you recognize the effort (or lack thereof) in a weekly sales meeting, your team is much more likely to keep pushing to meet their sales targets.

13. Appointment planning and researching

If you’re in the sales game, meetings take up a huge chunk of your day. But an even bigger time suck is organizing the meetings in the first place.

How many times have you played a tug of war match with your prospect to try and nail down a time and place that suited you both to catch up?

Many CRMs have built-in schedulers if you don’t want to use another extra tool. Pipedrive’s built-in Scheduler works brilliantly to save you time and streamline your meeting set up.

In the dashboard, you can create a recurring event if you want to schedule a monthly or quarterly check-in with a customer, which is a great way to nurture a relationship: