Sales Pipeline Management

A sales pipeline is a detailed visual depiction of the stages of the sales process. It shows you at which stage your prospects are in the sales process. An effective sales pipeline will help sales reps and teams manage the often complex Know where you are on your targets processes necessary to close deals.

In a nutshell, a sales pipeline gives you a good idea about how many deals your sales team members are expected to close in a defined date range and where your sales reps are on their target journey.

For B2B sales, having a healthy sales pipeline helps you:

• mprove upon your sales process
• Predict business results
• Analyze various business sales strategies
• Manage resources with a view to closing or servicing potential sales
• Review your standing for the current financial year
• Know where you are on your targets

This is a no-brainer — businesses have no meaning in the absence of sales.

Irrespective of the size of a business, sales is its lifeline. The performance metrics of any business are solely dependent upon sales. Therefore, having an organized sales management system is crucial.

However, ill-organized sales management processes inevitably lead to erratic sales pipelines, obscure sales cycles, and undefined lead management – eventually leading to chaos.

It is therefore critical to empower sales teams with relevant tools to create an efficient sales management system. Sales management enables the enhancement of sales operations, and processes to meet sales objectives. On the other hand, sales pipeline management revolves around a single key element – the sales process.

New-age sales pipeline software systems such as EngageBay help you identify and monitor the number of open deals, the stage of each open deal, potential sales, distributed allocation of deals among sales reps, and more via visual sales pipelines.

The important thing about the sales pipeline is that if managed well, it directly results in increased revenue.

A study by Harward Business Review found that businesses having streamlined sales pipeline management had a growth rate of 5.3 on average (15% increase).

Even better, businesses that implemented three specific sales pipeline practices witnessed 28% higher revenue growth.

Moreover, HBR points out that those three practices are:

• Creating a well-defined sales process
• Focusing on the sales process
• Training sales officers in pipeline techniques and strategies

A typical B2B sales process will have these sales pipeline stages:

Deal created : An opportunity is determined with a warm lead, and a record is subsequently created. This is the first step towards a successful deal closure.

Trigger contact : At this stage, a sales rep undertakes contact with the lead to understand their business needs. This stage also allows you to align your business offerings against the lead’s requirements.

Schedule demo : the first contact, the lead may want to check out the product for themselves. Your sales reps can set up a product demo at the lead’s convenience (or set up a meeting).

Negotiation : the lead has shown interest in purchasing your services, you arrive at the negotiation stage. The basic elements for negotiation include price, services, conditions, etc. To make a winning sale, you can submit your proposal.

Won or Lost : The final stage in your sales process is where you register the outcome of your deal. If it’s all positively agreed upon between you and the buyer, you mark the deal as won. Otherwise, if the buyer is not ready to make the purchasing decision yet, you can categorize them as requiring nurturing and check back later.

A CRM with an effective sales pipeline management system such as EngageBay allows you to customize each stage based on your business needs and internal structure.