Ways to Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Introduction  

One of the frequently used sales jargon is “sales pipeline.” If you spend any time with salespeople, you’ll hear them talk about “getting prospects in the pipeline,” “growing your pipeline,” and “filling your pipeline with hot leads.” A sales pipeline shows the stage of the sales process at which each of your prospects is, enabling you to estimate potential revenue and assess your company’s health.  

How you administer your pipeline has the potential to improve or damage the sales process. For instance, 76% of businesses claim that sales rose by 6% to 20% after implementing Sales Enablement Initiatives. However, bad sales practices can be equally, if not more, damaging to a business.  

Poor management pipeline causes deals to slide through the gaps, unnecessary time to be squandered on low-priority prospects, and other problems. Following best practices in pipeline management in sales can shorten the sales cycle and lead to more sales and profits. But how to adequately manage your pipeline, primarily as your business expands? 

This article explains the sales pipeline management best practices and how to implement them. 

What is Sales Pipeline?  

A sales pipeline is a systematic, visible approach to tracking potential customers as they advance through the purchase process and buyer’s journey. Pipelines are sometimes represented as a horizontal bar or a funnel, diverged into the many stages of a business’s sales process. As prospects and leads pass through the sales process, they are shifted from one phase to the next. By simplifying the sales process further into manageable, measurable actions, sales pipeline stages offer a level of responsibility and make sales goals simpler to attain.  

A pipeline allows salespeople to understand where their money, transactions, and other sales activities are at all times. This is crucial as salespeople handle many sales opportunities and deals and cannot let anything slide through the gaps. It’s also a useful tool for sales managers who want to collect and evaluate data on how effectively their sales process is performing or not to optimize it. Because a sales pipeline records a salesperson’s activity, it provides insight into which sales activities provide the best return for a firm. 

Sales Pipeline Examples 

Every company has its own sales pipeline, but they all follow a similar pattern. A pipeline originates with solicitation or lead generation and progresses the prospect through a set of engagements with the sales team, culminating in conversion. The pipeline’s last step focuses on client retention and adherence. 

For instance:  

• SaaS tool salespeople frequently have a sales presentation area where they show their product to potential customers.  
• At some point in their pipeline, car salespeople will have a test drive stage,  
• House viewing is in a real estate agent’s pipeline. 

Attributes of Sales Pipeline Management 

To properly understand sales management, we must look at what it is about the management pipeline process that helps sales teams to: 

• Determine and eliminate bottlenecks and weak areas in their sales cycle. 
• Improve your understanding of why some sales transactions fail while others flourish. 
• Recognize and plan for probable sales slumps and growth. 

These achievements and more are made possible by six important pipelines managing the sales management attributes. 

• Indicators: You can examine your sales process using a wide range of pipeline metrics. 
• Maintenance: Maintaining your pipeline clean boosts productivity. 
• Optimization: With a well-managed pipeline, you can analyze and optimize your operation at each cycle phase. 
• Sales team leadership: Knowing when and how to assist your team in making the most of their sales process is an essential component of sales pipeline management. 
• Forecasting sales: Effective pipeline management allows you to anticipate and maximize your sales and profit. 
• Tool integration: Best practices include using pipeline management tools and integrations devised precisely to get the outstanding result out of your sales funnel. 

What Is the Significance of Sales Pipeline Management? 

      Here’s what you can accomplish with sales pipeline management. 

• Prioritize sales efforts efficiently 

A well-managed pipeline allows you to determine which proposals should be prioritized. Valuable clients will not go through the gaps, and you will know which leads are the most promising. 

• Simplify the sales cycle 

Optimizing your pipeline saves time by reducing redundant operations and automating time-consuming manual processes. You can reduce the usual sales cycle, providing abundant time to execute more deals. 

• Analyze and optimize your processes 

Management pipeline provides insight into what is and is not functioning. Instead of continuing to operate incompetently, you will abandon non-essential operations and focus more on actions that clinch sales. 

Best Practices To Manage Sales Pipeline  

When implemented correctly, sales pipelines can do a lot for your company. A robust sales pipeline has several benefits, including increased revenue, higher productivity, and improved conversion rates. It also assists you in directing your firm on the righteous path for the future by providing a clear picture of how the sales process works. 

Here are some of the best sales pipeline management that you can utilize to manage a sales pipeline effectively: 

• Track Your Metrics 

Tracking data associated with your sales can appear to be a challenging task, but it is crucial. Set and track key metrics to gain a complete view of your pipeline and its performance, and this can also help with more realistic simulation. 

You can track the following indicators for your sales pipeline: 

• Average sale size 
• Availability of opportunities 
• Rate of conversion 
• Length of the sales cycle 
• Pipeline speed 
• Every stage’s conversion rate 
• Time spent on sales 

Measuring these indicators will help you maintain and monitor your performance and identify opportunities to improve your sales funnel management. To make wiser decisions in the future, you can discover time-consuming phases or prospects with a longer-than-average sales cycle. A sales CRM platform can help you track any indicators you choose and acquire vital insights with sales pipeline monitoring. 

• Conduct Regular Pipeline Reviews and Update 

Regular pipeline management in sales is one of the most successful pipeline solutions. Your sales pipeline should be evaluated and updated regularly. These analyzes can assist you in determining whether your sales funnel corresponds with your business objectives. This can also assist you in achieving more accountability for team members.  

A pipeline assessment allows you to discover any bottlenecks in your flow and resolve them to maintain your pipeline clean and healthy. It also allows you to verify that the data is up to date and correct. During these evaluations, you might get rid of delayed leads. Ensure that you keep data on every single lead up to date by making consistent notes and records for each phase of the sales process. 

• Observe Small Improvements in Every Stage  

Sales is a numbers thing, and teams who use a predictable revenue strategy have a large number of prospects to leverage. This may induce employees to focus less on high-quality opportunities. A lack of attention to quality prospects can be detrimental to your sales pipeline. Small changes in pipeline management at the sales funnel management stage can yield positive outcomes. 

• Create a Pipeline Management Operation Manual  

Have you mastered the art of pipeline management? It’s time to regulate and scale things up. Don’t be concerned about the initial effort: it will pay off in improved productivity for your team and other members. Do you require motivation? Make case studies of individual prospects as they progress from open to closed. Provide representatives with narratives and assignments to do at each point of the funnel.  

Consider the following:  

• What is the buying journey looking like?  
• What should a rep do if an opportunity becomes stalled at a stage?  
• What has previously worked?  
• What is the usual conversion rate for each phase of the funnel?  

Then get to work on that documentation. Focus on your sales management resources; this is where they will thrive. 

• Create a Standardized Sales Process  

Each customer is unique and necessitates a unique approach to completing a transaction. Furthermore, you can scrutinize that your sales representatives use outbound sales strategies. They can develop their procedures, such as outreach, sales calls, one-on-one interactions, live demonstrations, or follow-ups. But, if you think about it, your prospective target clients have a lot in common. The fact is that their basic demands and motives for purchasing from you are all relatively similar – and you can reap the benefits of this to simplify your sales funnel.  

The best-performing sales representatives adhere to a structured sales process which allows them to expand and acquire new business regularly. This is why one out of three sales managers identify sales process optimization as a high sales management objective. 

• Provide Your Prospect with the Ideal Content  

Today, calls and emails are inadequate. To maximize sales, you should also provide more information about your company. The content should be personalized to the buyer’s phase of the journey and specific preferences. By addressing leads’ inquiries and offering extensive details about the product or service, such additional content can ultimately direct them to conversions. Leverage the Power of CRM Tools  

The kind of technology you choose to manage your sales funnel determines its performance. Businesses that consistently use spreadsheets to monitor their sales will find it inconvenient and unproductive. CRM systems can be effective pipeline management in sales solutions as they empower you to customize, monitor, and administer the pipeline based on your needs. 

A CRM platform can help you navigate through your sales, produce reports, automate processes, and rapidly communicate data across the firm. You can manage pipeline sales data from anywhere, at any time, with any device CRM sales pipeline. 

Conclusion 

If you ignore your sales pipeline and its effectiveness, your business’s sales and revenue will be at risk. The best practices for sales pipeline management outlined above will help you get more command over your sales figures and use it to generate more conversions. These strategies can assist you in focusing on sales pipeline improvement and, as a response, increasing your earnings. You can generate more deals and increase revenue with a consistent sales pipeline management methodology. It can also help you develop accurate projections and strive toward your objectives. However, to accomplish you must have access to the necessary technologies. Overall, the more management you have over your sales pipeline, the more profit you will generate. You can improve sales pipeline management by taking a certification course on Strategic Sales Management from UNext.