According to a study by Harvard Business Review, companies that have a defined formal sales process have an 18% difference in revenue growth when compared to companies with no formal process. The same study revealed that companies that use at least three specific sales pipeline practices saw 28% higher revenue growth than those with none.
In the world of business today, it is vital to know how to manage a sales pipeline. This is the new way of doing business, and without one, you may not close a lot of sales as you ought to. You also need to deeply understand the actual conversion process to manage your pipeline successfully.
What Is a Sales Pipeline?
This is the visual snapshot of where predictions are in the sales process. They will show how much you should expect from your sales team per week, month, or even a year. With a sales pipeline, you will be able to know if your salespeople are reaching their quotas.
Managing a good sales pipeline will help both you and your sales team remain organized, focused, deliberate, and disciplined. You will be able to know what to do every step of the way and how to channel your efforts to cultivating leads and closing more sales.
A sales pipeline is the best way of defining your sales process from the initial contact with a prospect to the time the sale will close. Just like with other aspects of your business, having a tool, be it in finance or marketing, is not enough. You have to make the tool work for you.
This means a sales pipeline as a tool will need a good strategy and management for it to succeed.
Here are some of the simple ways on how to manage your sales pipeline.
1. Collect Relevant Data
When identifying a prospect, your first step should be to collect all the data that you need. Record their names, address, contacts, the value of the deal, their interests, and also the closing date. Keep this information on your database for quick access.
The information that you collect will have a huge impact on your success when it comes to following up. It is impossible to go forward with the sales process and expect to get some good results if you do not have at least the basic information concerning your prospect. With this information, you can then proceed to prepare a persuasive proposal.
2. The Right Content
In digital marketing today, content is king. A good sales pipeline should not be about selling but about educating. It is almost exchanging ideas and thoughts. This is because you offer your prospect a how-to guide or a piece of advice, and they offer something that you want, like attention, time, or custom.
You can achieve better optimization and efficiency by adding content in an automated email, which adds the lead to the sequences when they change to a particular stage in the sales funnel.
As you create content for your pipeline, do not forget to consider the customer’s journey, the sales process, and the data collected at the beginning. They have an impact on the type of content that you should create.
3. Regular Follow-Up
A common mistake that sales teams make is a lack of follow up. This is very quickly forgotten; however, those who do it well end up closing the sale. Take advantage of the digital age and set automated reminders and tasks that will promptly send a call or an automated email follow up.
Remember, consumers have several choices, and they need help to make the right decisions, and this makes deals a little harder to close too. Following up with leads will help you land the sale.
Please do not give up after two phone calls no matter how challenging it can be, your company stands to gain a lot from it. You will also maintain your customers through follow up.
4. Measure
How else would you know if your tool is effective, or if a lead has successfully completed the first step and is ready to go to the next if you do not measure whether it is working or not? Take this as a milestone for your sales tool.
While measuring, you can also ask yourself if you need to do more than you currently are and the effects of face to face versus the non-face to face relations. With this in place, you will see what helps you close a deal faster and pay more attention to it.
5. Evaluate and Improve
This is a huge part of sales pipeline management. How can you measure your success?
A good sales pipeline should be able to succeed so that you can know if you should reevaluate your strategies. You should know the factors to consider when evaluating how effective and efficient the pipeline is.
To do this, consider the time that it took the team to convert a sale, leads lost in the various stages, customer satisfaction, and more. There is always an area that needs to be improved on and the best ways of doing so.
The feedback you get can also be useful. Therefore, ask your latest customers what their feelings are towards the whole process and what they would like to see changed. Collect feedback from your sales team, too, to identify any gaps in the pipeline that needs improvement.
Manage Your Sales Pipeline Well to Grow Your Business
Having a well-managed sales pipeline will give you a clear view of the whole process and this, in turn, will also give you the best chance to define, evaluate and optimize each step of the process and get more leads,
If you are looking for a sales tool, we have just the right one for your business. Visit our website for more about what we can offer you and do not hesitate to contact us for an appointment.