9 Tips to Filling your Pipeline!

How are your Sales?

Is your business growth challenged because you don’t have enough leads??

If you want revenue, at some point, you must have your sales team talk to someone.?? Many of our clients forget this.?? Trust is built through human interactions that create relationships and orders come once trust is developed by your sales team.??

Social media marketing experts, I believe, have hoodwinked us into believing that the only way to get orders, is to establish your authority with connections, and then they will reach out to you.??? We buy into this, and that is all we do.?? Then the statement, “I don’t have enough leads coming in?” seems to follow.?? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do this, but I have found that, if this is all you do, you will have a shallow pipeline.?

A shallow pipeline is typically the result of a lack of strategy.??? Just as we create a strategy for most areas of our businesses, we also must create a strategy for filling the pipeline with leads.?? This is the most important part of our Lead to Cash cycle.??? The following 9 areas are what I recommend should be included in your strategy.?

Message and Market

The first and most crucial part of your lead generation strategy starts with your Value Message or Purpose.?? If you get this wrong, nothing else will work!? Have you defined who you are, and the value you bring to your customers – from their perspective, not your perspective?? This needs to be articulated in your value message and consistently articulated throughout your organization.?? This value proposition will point you to the market that will respond to it, and as a result it will create “Curiosity” with your prospects.?

To do this right, you need an outside resource to help you.?? It is very hard to do on your own because of the inherent bias you will have to your company’s value.? Do it right and you now have an incredible lever to start generating leads.???

Social Media

This is where you can “Soft sell” your prospects by presenting your authority in your message.?? It involves writing articles, publishing videos, being active in groups, and other areas of social media.?? I’m sure we all know most of the approaches to follow in this area because there are many companies that provide services to help you with this.? ?

Website

Does your website support your message??? We have found that many companies confuse their customers because their website (their storefront), leads a prospect down a different path from their message.?? That can kill your sale.?? It should be aligned with your message.??

When your website reflects your message, you must capture your visitors through an offering such as a whitepaper, report, etc.? In return, you have to ask for their contact information.?? Nothing new here.??

Tradeshows

Don’t forget these events.?? They can be valuable and produce a return on what is typically a pretty expensive investment.?? The key to ROI on tradeshows is twofold:??

·?????? A well-defined message and value proposition that triggers decision makers to take interest in your solution.

·?????? Stop doing Demo’s.?? Demos take the time away from your ability to discuss the important business issues affecting your prospects.?? They also tend to attract the Non-decision makers who want to see your solution in action.?? There is a time for a demo, just not at tradeshow.?

Your network

Referrals are the best form of leads.?? However, it may not come from your direct contacts, you may have to bounce around a bit to your 2nd or 3rd level contacts.

Associations

We can’t forget this key area.?? The only twist we recommend here to ensure you’re not just part of associations in your business area.?? Also consider being part of industry associations that your customers are part of.

RFPs

RFPs are a tricky subject.?? They can be lucrative but if you’re not positioned well or one of the “A” List vendors, you can waste a lot of valuable sales time.?? In most cases when you receive an RFP, someone else has played a key role in creating it.? If they are a competitor to you – you may be wasting your time.

Webinars

These are great tool to use to generate pipeline.?? Again, you must know your message and value.?? If you don’t you may find yourself chasing prospects that have no authority to buy from you.?? A valuable approach to webinars is to have one of your customer’s decision makers present the value they received from doing business with you.

Cold Calling

No, cold calling is not dead.?? If done properly with the right message, it can deliver results faster than any of these other approaches.?? The key to cold calling is to do it properly.?? This means:? Understand your value, understand how to create curiosity around your value, and how to have a successful conversation with the prospect.? ?Now articulate that value in a 10 second voicemail because that’s all the time you’ll get.? Prospects don’t pick up the phone, so make voicemail your friend.

These are just a few areas you need to look at when establishing your pipeline strategy.?? We see most companies only execute one of these and run out of leads.?? The key to creating predictable revenue for your business is to have a strategy for filling your pipeline that incorporates many if not all of these key areas.? It starts with a strategy.??

Good selling!

?

Robert Kinch is a Managing Partner at

They are a Fractional Sales company that provides owners and CEOs an alternative to hiring sales people for less. More Sales - Less Risk. ?? Robert is a coach, speaker and experienced sales executive with over 30 years of experience leading sales teams at major fortune 500 corporations.? You can find the original article here.

?

?