An effective sales pipeline managment strategy can help your business optimize results and increase overall productivity.
If your sales pipeline is behaving more like a clogged drain than a map to business success, it’s time to create a more effective sales pipeline management strategy. First things first. Identify what’s clogging the flow of your pipeline. Clear through stagnant sales and increase performance. Here are 7 tips to boost performance right away:
Get Your Sales Team on the Same Page
Miscommunication between sales team members is a waste of precious time. You and your colleagues should know exactly where each prospect is in the sales pipeline, from beginning to end. An effective CRM tool eliminates guesswork, and the entire team believes and trusts in the information. A solid sales process with clearly defined stages is the best framework for effective pipeline management.
Give Away Value
Clients do not want to buy anything from a pushy salesperson. So stop selling. Instead, connect with your prospects by giving them value. How can you make their work easier? Show them how to solve a problem. How can you help them stay ahead of the competition? Educate them on the newest tips and tools. Build a genuine relationship and become a trusted consultant. Give value away for free (or at least in exchange for an email address). The more value you give prospects up front, the more your prospects will smoothly convert down the pipeline.
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
The more you follow up and ask, the more you increase the probability of making a sale. Don’t you have stronger relationships with friends or family members you contact regularly? The same is true in sales. Make it a daily habit to set reminders on a calendar app or jot down a list of prospects to call and email. Pick up your phone and give your prospect a call. Ask how their children are doing. Remember, the goal is not to be a salesperson. You are an individual making a genuine connection with another human being.
Navigate Your Time
The time it takes to close a deal can span from here to eternity. Flexibility is expected, but uncertainty is the enemy. Plan ahead and map out how long the deal flow should take based on prior experience with other clients. Establish a definitive end date that allows you to navigate the sales pipeline and remove unnecessary ambiguity. You can strategize when to speed up or slow down activities.
Stop Being a Weatherman
Like a weather forecast, the sales forecast can be unreliable. Approaching your pipeline like a weatherman is inefficient because you are focusing on factors – close dates, the amount of money you’ll make from the sale, statistics – that do not directly influence conversion. Forecasts should be used in connection with your current situation analysis to improve end results and help move prospects quickly through the sales pipeline.
Have One System
Too often, a business is reliant on multiple solutions. Mental notes, spreadsheets, notes, and a CRM system you grew out of years ago create a jumble of confusion. Consider the power of consolidation. Use the kind of lead management system that ensures you have a CRM to integrate contacts, accounts and sales opportunities in one place.
Task Manage Like a Boss
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent,” goes the famous quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. You know about the power of follow-up communications. But whom should you contact more frequently? How do you decide what and who is more important? “The Eisenhower Method” helps prioritize. You have a limited amount of time each day to allocate to each task. Identify which tasks or follow-ups demand your immediate attention, and get those conversions that are inches away from your grasp.