In the contemporary dynamic marketplace, every business strives to streamline complex sales processes. The progression where leads go through various steps before actual conversion is referred to as the sales pipeline. The sales pipeline is an integral asset for a successful entrepreneur.
Vantage Point performed research and it was found that around 72% of sales managers participate in sales pipeline review meetings with their sales reps frequently every month. Also, many respondents believe that their organizations failed in effectively managing the sales pipeline.
The whole point of discussion is that proper pipeline management software prevents you from missing profitable opportunities. It helps in accurate sales forecasting and precise allocation of resources as well as budgeting.
But the real challenge is to identify the best possible way to effective sales pipeline management. Difficult isn’t it? No, let’s jump right in and resolve this trouble. Before that, just take a look at the basics.
What Do You Mean By a Sales Pipeline & Why Is It Important?
The sales pipeline gives a detailed account of where leads are in the actual sales process. It tells the possible number of deals a sales staff member can close within the given timeline and his or her probability of reaching the sales quota.
The sales pipeline is important because it gives sellers an idea of various things such as:
- What the best future sales prospects are
- Identify what has changed since last week in your business
- Whether sales executives are working in the right direction
- Pinpoint the high ROI lead sources
- How you can perk up your sales processes
- How to evaluate different sales strategies for your business
- Discover what will be future business results
- How you can evaluate your progress and get an idea of how much time you need to achieve your targets
How to Manage Your Sales Pipeline to Make Your Business More Successful
In order to increase sales and retain more customers, it’s essential to manage the sales pipeline efficiently. You can find different pipeline management softwares in the market which can help your sales teams to close more deals.
These systems allow sales managers to track and manage sales opportunities. Also, they can monitor how these opportunities are distributed within the funnel. Entrepreneurs are embracing new technologies like predictive analytics, AI, ML, etc. to increase sales conversions.
These technologies are definitely helpful but still, you need to follow a few crucial tips that can transform the way in which you manage your pipeline for enhancing the bottom line of your business. Let’s explore ten of these tips one by one.
1. Don’t Neglect the Follow-up
Nowadays, buyers have unlimited choices and this makes the task for sales reps even more difficult. They need to persuade them to purchase a particular product or service. This is why you have to follow up with patience, which is obviously not easy.
Make sure to follow up with the prospects either by setting up a reminder or automating the process by getting help from a sales email template, which can do the task on your behalf at regular intervals of time.
2. Dedicate All Your Time to the Best Leads
It’s a good idea to pay attention to valuable leads which are sales-ready. By focusing on low-value leads, you will waste your time. Spot the most important leads by sorting out your sales dashboard properly. Review activities for every individual lead, which will give you an idea of the most involved ones.
3. Don’t Stick to Dead Leads
Focusing on valuable leads is extremely important but it’s equally important to drop dead leads. Sellers should have an idea of when they should let a lead go. It’s true that they have spent months in building those relationships, but there is no point in sticking to the leads who aren’t responding after multiple efforts.
It’s better to recognize dead leads as quickly as possible. This will let you move on to the subsequent golden sales opportunities and close deals. Stay positive and don’t waste time or efforts on uninterested prospects.
4. Regularly Review Key Pipeline Metrics
The sales pipeline isn’t static; it’s changing with time. This is why you have to regularly check the key sales metrics it generates such as:
- The average size of the deals in the pipeline
- The total number of deals in the pipeline
- Sales velocity or the average lifetime of a deal prior to its closure
- Close ratio or the average percentage of deals that you win
Monitor these metrics every week and track the results in order to get an idea of the status of the pipeline and effectiveness of the tactics you are using to refine processes and increase sales as well as growth.
5. Refine & Improve Pipeline Processes at Regular Intervals of Time
You can’t keep functioning with the same old pipeline processes forever. It’s mandatory to review these techniques and tweak them in accordance with your specific requirements. Refine your sales pitch and improve the way you follow up and make offers. Keep repeating this process to the point where you find your perfect fit.
Identify the hurdles your sales professionals are facing with the pipeline processes and find solutions to fix them. Pay attention to making small changes gradually which will convert your pipeline into a sales machine.
6. Never Forget to Keep Your Sales Pipeline Up-to-date
The status of your sales pipeline always changes, where new leads keep adding and moving from one stage to the next before closing the deals. It’s not easy to keep all this information well-organized.
This calls for regularly updating every individual lead status by adding notes for each phase of the sales procedure. In addition, invest some time in removing dead leads and updating the old details. Otherwise, your sales pipeline will become chaotic and messy.
7. Keep the Sales Cycle as Concise as Possible
Long sales cycles aren’t beneficial and are believed to be a hurdle to sales effectiveness. The basic idea behind this is that a lengthy and tedious sales cycle can distract the prospects and make them change their mind. Therefore, it’s better to keep the sales cycle short to prevent your leads from growing disinterested.
Don’t attack your prospects with back to back follow-ups in one day. Try to find ways to provide prospects with relevant information that can help them in making decisions quickly.
8. Stick to a Uniform Sales Process
Every prospect is different from the other; this is why salespeople need to tailor their techniques in order to offer a more personalized approach. Use different tactics such as sales calls, follow-ups, live demos, face-to-face meetings, etc. to connect with individual customers.
In spite of these differences, your target audience has many things in common. You have to use this fact to your benefit and standardize the processes of your pipeline so it can be scaled as and when required and allow you to gain new leads.
9. Offer Sophisticated Content to Your Prospects
Continue to use emails and phone calls to communicate with our prospects. However, these tools aren’t sufficient enough for them to judge your products or services. They might need more in-depth information to get convinced.
Carefully think about what content you should present to your audience at every phase of the pipeline which has the potential to take them to the next stage. You can get an idea of the kind of content prospects actually want when interacting with them in the sales meetings. With mutual efforts from marketing and sales professionals, you can create content which is relevant for prospects and help them move further down the sales funnel.
10. Pick the Best CRM System to Manage Sales
Once your sales pipeline is brimming with leads, it becomes even more difficult to manage it properly. Small organizations can manage their pipelines with simple Excel spreadsheets. As a business evolves with time, you have to get the help of a comprehensive CRM tool which can keep track of all the sales activities and manage your pipeline properly.
It’s crystal clear that when you fail to manage your sales pipeline efficiently, there is a risk that you might lose out on prospects and your sales could suffer in the long run. But once you master the art of managing the pipeline properly, no one can prevent you from reaping rich rewards.
