How to Dramatically Improve Your Sales Pipeline
How to Dramatically Improve Your Sales Pipeline + Examples
As a sales rep, you are so closely involved with the individual deals you are attempting to make that you have a good idea about the state of your sales pipeline. For managers overseeing multiple reps, this becomes less clear as you are less involved in the finer details of each rep’s deals. This is why sales expert Jeff Hoffman says “managers must develop a more systematic process to test sales pipeline health across the organisation as a whole.” And if you want to know the ways in which you can improve your sales pipeline, this article will explain more and provide real life examples.?
What is (and isn’t) a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline shows the steps that each prospect must take through your sales process before you close the deal. Your pipeline will be different from other companies, and you may even have separate pipelines for different products or services. Companies set up these pipelines in their customer relationship management (CRM) system so they have a visual representation of where different prospects are in the process.??
An example of a pipeline might include:?
People often confuse a sales pipeline and a sales funnel , but there are differences:?
Why establishing a sales pipeline is important
Having a set sales pipeline for your business, or for each product, is essential to create a standardised approach to sales within your organisation. It makes training new staff easier, as there is one set system to show them. In addition, when you want to improve your systems, you only need to refine the one process that all reps use. You can measure the effect of a single adjustment across the board in terms of improving conversion rates, for example.??
When many different reps implement a variety of sales processes , there is no consistency for customers and it is difficult to keep track of the progress and, likely, the completion of deals. A single pipeline allows you to see exactly what has happened in each customer’s journey so far and what is left to do before they sign a deal.??
Signs you need to improve your sales pipeline?
If you spot a downward trend in any of the important metrics you use to measure success in your sales team, it could be that your sales pipeline needs improving. The main areas in which to look are:?
When one or more of these metrics are in decline, it could be that the health of your pipeline is worsening and this can mean missing targets in the future.??
The 4 steps to improve your sales pipeline
1. Understand where you are
Before you look to improve your pipeline, you need to understand where you are with its current state. The fixes you might look to employ will be different if your sales are shrinking than if they are growing. It is also important to look at the data and find out key information such as where you experience the most dropouts.??
Check to see when you are discounting, too. Do you do it just before deadlines or is it a more common occurrence in order to close deals. If it is happening too often, you need to assess your pipeline, work out why reps are having to resort to discounting and understand how to fix the problem.?
2. Determine your sales pipeline stages
You need to develop your own healthy pipeline that works for your business. This should match the journey that your customers make when making purchases. Your ideal pipeline depends on the product or service that you are offering. So, delve into the ideal journey to draw insights and then create the pipeline to encapsulate that.??
Example: If you worked for an organisation that provides outsourced property management solutions to letting agents, your pipeline might involve:??
3. Establish a pipeline management process
Sales pipeline management is the process of gleaning information from the data generated, as well as anticipating future events based on previous activity. This requires oversight and an established system so that you can draw the most accurate information possible.??
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With pipeline management, you can take a look at your sales activities to:?
Ensure your process involves regular data analysis and measurement. Are the sales being completed quickly enough to meet targets? If not, you should look for ways to help your reps cut the length of the sales cycle and bring in more business.??
Example: By tracking the data in their CRM, a car dealership finds that those leads who have viewed a promoted YouTube video about the benefits of an electric vehicle tend to make a quicker purchasing decision than those who read the white paper about the impacts of electric vehicles on carbon footprint. In this case, marketing teams would dedicate more resources to making videos than creating text-based resources.?
4. Improve lead generation
Lead generation is where the pipeline begins and, without it, there would be nothing to come out of the other end. It is so important to the sales performance of businesses that 70% of marketers say they have made lead generation their top priority.??
It makes sense that not everyone who starts at the top of the pipeline makes it through to become a customer, so you need to have an active lead generation strategy in place. In addition, you want to concentrate on good quality leads; those who you truly believe stand a reasonable chance of buying.???
Here are some lead generation strategies:
FAQ
How often should you review your sales pipeline?
There is a balance to strike when considering how often you should review your pipeline with regard to sales performance. You need to give the actions from the previous review long enough to settle in. But you don’t want to wait too long because problems may escalate out of control before you can address them.?
Of course, the length of your average sales process will dictate how often it is worth reviewing the pipeline, as does the experience of your sales team. However, many businesses look to review their sales pipeline every week or every other week.??
How do you communicate the changes to your reps?
It makes sense to communicate changes to the pipeline during review meetings between the sales manager and the reps. This offers them the opportunity to have their say on the sales pipeline stages. After all, they are the ones who use the pipeline every day and have insight when it comes to what is working and what is not. Relaying the information in-person also allows for follow-up questions and means that there is nothing lost down the line, unlike with email.
What are the most important sales pipeline metrics?
There are so many metrics you can study from a sales pipeline, from sales opportunity to deal, but the most important include:??
For a sales manager, understanding these metrics helps you work out whether each stage of the pipeline is working as it should and whether you are seeing the requisite return on investment.?
Are you getting the right leads, converting enough into customers, doing so quickly enough and keeping them sweet once they have signed up? When you track these metrics, you can see the journey of prospective customers more clearly and how well your sales activities are working.??
Conclusion
Your sales pipeline is absolutely crucial to hitting targets and making the business profitable. It is a great way to visualize where each deal is and whether it is moving at the right pace or starting to lag. It can flag potential problems and help you finesse your processes if it works in the right way.?
With that in mind, any opportunity to improve your sales pipeline should be taken seriously, so make sure that you keep it under review and check in with your sales team regularly to help them bring in the best quality deals in the quickest possible time frame. One way to speed up the process is to use FullInfo’s platform to find contact details for your prospects at the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger.??