Pipeline is an organized way of tracking potential buyers as they go through different stages in the purchasing process. In simple words, we can say sales pipeline show how many deals are to be closed in a week, month, or year and how close they are to reaching their sales quota.
Here are some tips to transform the way you manage your pipeline –
• Follow Up
In today’s world, buyers have more choice than ever before and with this, they need help to make the correct choice and then choose the products or services. The salespeople know that they have to follow up with leads in order to make a sale. Following up is not an easy task. In fact, it’s ranked as the third biggest challenge for the sales team. The solution to the problem is to set a reminder that notifies you each time you need to send a follow-up or you can streamline the process by using a sales email template to automatically follow up on a specific date.
• Focus on the best
It almost takes the same amount of time to close each and every deal. So, it’s important to make sure that you are concentrating on the best, high-value leads that are more important and avoid getting distracted by the leads that will bring nothing to your business.
• Leave the dead leads
As important as it is to focus on the best leads, it’s equally important to let go of the lead that is not working out. Letting go a lead can be difficult when you have spent a lot of time building it. A lead is dead when they state no interest, when they can’t be contacted, or you have spoken to them multiple times and they can not be pushed through to the next stage of the pipeline. You should learn to identify these leads as soon as possible and move to the next opportunity.
• Monitor the metrics
The pipeline changes all the time, so you need to monitor the metrics it produces. These metrics include the number of deals, the average size of the deal, the average percentage of deals that you win, and the average lifetime of a deal that is closed. These pipeline metrics should be reviewed in a weekly manner. Tracking these results would help you know the changes or improvements you make to the sales process for your business’s overall growth.
• Review the Process
The best sales organizations regularly review their pipelines and techniques to make sure things are going the right way to ensure maximum efficiency and success. In the sales field, everything can be improved until you find a successful formula. The best way to make these changes is to look at where you think there are drawbacks in the pipeline and consider ways in which they can be cleared out. If you make these changes little by little, then your pipeline will become one of the best ways to grow your business.
• Update the pipeline
The pipeline is never the same, it constantly keeps on changing. New leads gets added, previous leads move from one stage to another and other leads gets closed. It doesn’t take much time to pipelines to get disorganized if you are not careful enough which may lead to lost sales. To avoid this mistake, make sure that you are keeping details up to date on every lead by adding regular notes and information for each stage of the sales process.