A sales pipeline is one way of monitoring the journey of potential clients through different stages of the purchasing process in an organized and visually accessible way.
A pipeline is often visualized as a series of horizontal bars which shows the different stages of the company’s sales process. It usually begins with the first contact with your potential buyer or when a product is qualified.
It illustrates where the prospects are in a specific part of the process so that the sales team is aware of where the money and their sales efforts go at all times. Salespeople often use this to help them manage their sales and remind them of the process, especially when they’re dealing with several prospects and deals at once.
Since it tracks the entire sales activities, the pipeline is also vital in helping sales analysts or managers know which part of their sales process is working and giving their company the biggest ROI.
According to Michelle Seger of Atlanta-based consultancy firm Sales Globe: “Companies don’t know what their possibilities are ... If you can actually look at your activities, how long they’ve been there and what are your conversion rates, it tells you where you are and what’s not working.”
Without a sales pipeline, you will not have any idea whether your sales procedures and efforts are working or not. The very purpose of having a pipeline is to make it easy for you and your company to know which areas can still be improved.
A sales pipeline can help you predict your revenue, track your leads, simplify your sales process, and define your marketing strategy.
To build a sales pipeline, map out first how it should look like and list down your initial ideas. Take the first steps by asking yourself, “Which people and companies may find interest in my company and my products?”
You may already have a few ideas for your prospects. You may already be aware that some of them will lead to a closed deal, while others won’t. Thinking about these and discussing them with your team will help your pipeline progress.
From these ideas, you will need to figure out the number of steps needed in order to close a sale. These ideas then become your sales stages. These may include the following:
Once you’ve figured out the stages of your sales pipeline, it’s time to keep your deals on track. This means that as your deals move from stage to stage, there may be some observable factors or variables that will help you advance them to the next level.
You need to figure out what these factors or variables are. Would it be a written proposal? A budget approval? A list of stakeholders? There are various key events at each stage that will help you move the deals along.
As you identify these key events, you will also need to set objectives — a set of mini goals, if you like. Set a certain number of proposals that you have to send or prospect calls that you have to make per day to ensure that your deals do not become stagnant or stale.
Now that you’ve set your objectives for each stage, you will need to ask yourself how many deals you will need to win on average in order to maintain your sales objectives. Let’s be real: you will not be able to close every deal.
But if you know the average number of your closed deals, you can easily calculate the number of deals you need in the early stages. This way, you will be able to see how your pipeline looks and clearly define your goals.
Soon, as you manage more deals, your pipeline needs to be filled with various activities that form an entire routine, whether daily or weekly, depending on your business. It could be anything, from having a cup of coffee when you start your day, reading through emails, and setting up meetings.
Once you form a habit, you can focus on finding new targets on your pipeline. You can also make it a habit to organize your customer data and make sure that each one is updated according to their stage in the pipeline.
You can use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to document interactions with customers. Some CRMs already have built in analytics tools and can be integrated to your social media.
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