How is your pipeline looking?

That’s the question that has launched so many sales coaching conversations and so many sales meetings. You may be a reluctant sales professional or a seasoned pipeline manager or somewhere in between. One thing I can assure you is that attending to eh “needs” of your sales pipeline is a worthy task. 

What is a Sales Pipeline?

The pipeline metaphor has always been a nice metaphor for tracking buyers through the stages on their path to purchases (or not purchasing). How far away are you from handing the house or car keys over to the customer?

The health of your pipeline is a reflection of what is happening in your business. There are things we can do to get prospects into the pipeline, to keep people in the pipeline, and to move them towards a decision at which stage they leave (for a while) or become a customer.

When You Have a Good Pipeline Management System in Place

 Here are some of the signs of a working pipeline managment system

• Persona development will become easier and each category or persona can be treated to messaging and services at a more unique level. 
• Sales forecasting will become more effective and accurate
• Improve the level of perceived customer service and customer experience by creating effective communication between sales and other departments. 
• You will close the loop between information that only sales teams get to hear, (The most critical and sadly missed bottom information for the company ownership). 
• You will be able to communicate customer journey information in a qualitative and quantitative way to the rest of the company where it can be used profitably. 
• Your meetings will be more efficient and targeted.
• Your sales team will be able to receive training and development where it matters. No more one size fits all training.

What are the Symptoms of a Weak Pipeline & Relationship Management System?

Here are some of the diagnostic questions that I would use to help you assess the state of health of your sales pipeline.

• Do you manage a structured pipeline process with clearly identified stages and milestones?
• Are you able to forecast sales effectively?
• Can you forecast accurately where you will finish this month? 
• Can you tell which customers are just about to purchase? 
• How can you tell who is really thinking about it and possibly needs more information?
• Can you tell the difference between a customer exploring alternatives and actually evaluating your product for a suitable fit?
• And if you can, how do you treat them differently to get them to move along the path to purchase? 
• Based on previous experience, can you tell the difference between “tire kickers” and real prospects? 
• Can you forewarn customer care or service teams about who is going to be the more demanding customers? 
• How do you know where to apply your energy and company resources? 
• Who should you be calling and following up on today? 
• Who should be getting free gifts, messages, and content delivery?

Invariably you will notice the weak pipeline by experiencing unpredictable business and in most cases, you will have a problem growing your business.

What Causes a Weak Pipeline?

Depending on your industry, here are some pointers of the possible root causes. 

• Lack of understanding of your customer journey and path to purchase
• Lack of understanding of your 
• No targeted training and development.
• Ineffective sales management techniques
• Lack of strategic alignment and understanding of how the department contributes to the ultimate goal of the company
• No persona development. Treating all customers as a one size fits all.
• Not understanding the company’s path to purchase
• Not understanding how each product offers up value to different types of clients

What Can You Do About It?

• Develop a deep understanding of the customer’s reason for wanting to purchase your service or product.
• Identify clear milestones which can be used as stages on the path to purchase
• Develop recognition criteria for 2 stages in the decision process which Google refers to as exploration and evaluation. 
• Train the sales team as to which stages you can apply incentives and encouragement and at which stages you need to develop rapport and information sharing
• Completely and absolutely understand everything about your main competitors. What are they doing at different stages that is different to you?
• Gather information in regular meetings with all front-facing staff members. That includes customer care, service, technical and sales teams. Gather quantitative information as well as qualitative information. 
• Lastly, think about lifetime customer value and make your lost prospects very comfortable to come back to you in the future.

I hope that you find some of these tips useful for either improving the health of your sales pipeline or beginning to create yours from scratch. Let me know if you have any burning questions or topics around influence, sales skills, strategic change or improving your work performance. 

Excelsior: Onward and Upward