The Importance of Managing Your Sales Pipeline During the Pandemic
Arguably, one of the single biggest events to shake up the world of sales has been the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Despite seemingly monumental efforts being put forth into tackling the deadly virus, the severity of the crisis it has caused has only increased, with effects impacting both the consumer and the organization.
A vast majority of businesses have found themselves letting go of what was once normal. Companies had to throw out their original sales strategies and plans in order to adapt to the unpredictability and disruption that COVID-19 has brought.
Needless to say, most businesses are now scrambling to create a new system that works, leading them to huge losses and an unstable sales pipelines as they struggle to find a balance.
All of this has reinforced the importance of having an efficient sales pipeline in place. The issue now is to find ways to revamp an organization’s sales pipeline in a way that helps it survive even in situations as unpredictable as the one we are dealing with right now.
With that said, let's discuss what a sales pipeline truly entails, why is it important, and how you can go about building an efficient one.
What is a Sales Pipeline?
A sales pipeline is a way of keeping track of perspective clients progress through the different stages in the purchasing process. Every opportunity in the pipeline has its own specific stage within the whole process.
This helps an organization identify potential sales opportunities that may be about to close while also attending to active customers.
The main focus of a sales pipeline is to map out a step-by-step method of analyzing and boosting a company’s sales process.
When done right, pipeline management can successfully lead to efficient tracking and evaluating of how well your sales process is doing and where it may be lacking.
The Importance of Managing Your Sales Pipeline
A sales pipeline provides you with a complete visual guide of your entire sales process. It allows you to monitor where your prospects are in the sales funnel stages. Based on that representation, you receive actionable insights which your sales team can take forward to convert a potential buyer into a paying customer.
Your sales pipeline is the one tool for your business that you should never neglect or take for granted. The whole process of making a decision and landing a sale is achieved in a smooth manner due to it, which leads to a bunch of other benefits. Some of these benefits are discussed below.
It Allows the Company to Make Reliable Predictions
For a company to grow, it is vital to utilize tools that predict any potential profits, whether it is monthly, quarterly, or annually.
A sales pipeline allows you to do just that by revealing the areas in a sale that are weak and those that are strong. This, in turn, helps you predict possible revenue generation.
The reason why revenue prediction is so important is because it helps you determine whether you are headed in the right direction in terms of your financial goals. It is your cue of whether or not changes need to be made anywhere in the sales process.
It Provides a Representation of Your Sales Representatives’ Status
Sales representatives are the most important part of a company’s business. Their role is vital in order to reach your target market and prospective clients.
A sales pipeline helps you monitor how well your sales representatives are doing and how far they are reaching in their quota.
It Improves Sales Team Productivity
Since a sales pipeline allows for smoother functioning, your sales team operates much more productive due to less stress.
A sales pipeline is going to provide your team with concrete facts and figures about their performance, helping them recognize and tackle problems quickly and effectively. As a result, your team will exert more efforts in areas that require more attention.
It Provides Information on Crucial Financial Metrics
Businesses are highly dependent on numbers, specifically financial metrics.
Financial metrics play a huge role in any company’s success as they allow one to recognize where their business stands.
It is important to keep a steady eye on your company's financial metrics to check if goals are being met and profits are being generated, accordingly.
Some important metrics that your sales pipeline can represent include:
The number of prospective buys
The time period leading up to the closing of a deal
The number of deals that are being turned into a profit
The magnitude of the deals that sales representatives are able to close
It Helps to Lock In Your Leads
A lead refers to a potential customer. So, a lead is someone who is going to be approached by your sales representative in order to sell your product.
Of course, in the beginning, you are not sure whether the lead will turn into a profitable customer or if it will end up staying stagnant.
Here, your sales pipeline can be of great use as it will help you measure the profitability of each lead. This would, then, help your sales representatives determine whether they should be aggressive in their marketing with that particular client or adopt a much more laid-back approach.
This allows for pushing through for great leads and dropping the not-so-profitable (dead) leads. As a result, the company will end up wasting less time and generating more profit.
It Allows You to Identify and Utilize Current Trends For Future Sales
Thanks to your sales pipeline, you are better equipped with a well-defined system of metrics to evaluate your business. These metrics make for the identification and visualization of current trends very easy.
For most industries, trends usually do not change suddenly and are bound to stay steady over a period of time. Viewing your company’s current trend can bring in greater profits as it will show you where your sales are going up. As a result, you can handle the rise and fall of your sales as you go through the year.
It Translates to Higher Revenue Growth
With the current situation of the world, every business needs to focus on maximizing profits more than ever before. This is where a sales pipeline shines.
In today’s digital world, businesses are finding themselves relying on data-based metrics that consist of recording and tracking data regarding each step of the sales process. This provides for faster and easier data collection.
This convenient access to data has given companies the chance to track the rise and fall of their sales. Given the easy access to data tracking, businesses are able to make better decisions for the future, leading to faster improvements.
This, in turn, leads to better sales outcomes and increased profits.
How to Build a Sales Pipeline
The sales pipeline of every business is different due to their varying needs. However, there are a few key factors that are common for most companies.
Here is how you can go about setting up your own sales pipeline-
Identify the Steps Involved
Identifying the stages involved in a sales pipeline is important as you need to go in a sequence to reach your end goal.
A sales pipeline focuses on the different stages that a new lead moves through in the process until they finally become a customer. Here are some of the common stages that most sales pipelines consist of:
Qualification of the prospective buyer. That is, whether the lead has the needed budget and authority to make the purchase.
Meeting with the prospective buyer and discussing a solution.
Offering the potential buyer a quote and other details relevant to the sale.
Closing the negotiations.
Set Goals
Your sales team will be all over the place and would have no benchmark to work against if you don’t have defined goals.
Remember to always create measurable and tangible goals. This will help you stay on top of each member’s individual numbers against the team’s average. Consequently, this helps in identifying where the weakness lies and how it can be improved.
Recognize What Works
During a sales process, there will always be certain factors that will drive success and certain others that won’t. Knowing what works and what doesn’t saves your organization a ton of time and effort.
Through your pipeline, you will be better able to recognize the most profitable strategies for your organization.
Build a Routine Around the Best Practices
A sales pipeline provides you with an overview of each buyer’s condition. This means that you have the necessary information needed to analyze your next step before you proceed.
Build a routine around the best practices that drive the most sales forward. This is going to increase efficiency and boost profits.
Sales Pipeline Management Best Practices
As mentioned above, you should try and create a solid routine around the best practices involved in managing a sales pipeline. So, what are those best practices? Let’s have a look.
Always Follow Up
With so many new businesses popping up, there has never been a much more diverse choice of products and services for buyers than now. This means that the customer needs to hear the right things for them to choose your service.
One of the best ways to land a customer is to keep on following up with them. Don’t just give up after 3 calls. It may not be the easiest thing in the world to do but is something that is worth your while.
Create a Standard Sales Process
While each customer may have their own specific needs, the underlying methods and techniques are almost always the same for closing a deal.
Create a standardized sales pipeline that you can follow for every new client. This would bring consistency in the business and land new leads based on methods that are tried and tested.
Concentrate on the Best Leads
Your sales pipeline will likely make the position of every lead very evident.
Use this to your advantage and ensure you concentrate most of your efforts on high-quality leads.
Avoid getting distracted by a lead that may prove to be insignificant in the long run. Letting go may be hard but you need to drop the dead leads and invest your energy where it is needed the most.
A good way to go about this is to sort your sales dashboard from high to low to recognize the best potential customers.
Monitor the Metrics
Monitoring your sales metrics is key to running a successful business. These numbers will represent important factors, such as the number of deals, the average size of those deals, and much more.
Review and Improve Regularly
Not every sales technique is going to work every single time.
When it comes to sales, every step of the way can be improved and adapted for change in one way or another to maximize profits. Consequently, the best thing for a sales team to do is to regularly review their sales pipeline and optimize for maximum efficiency.
Every now and then, take an analytical approach towards your sales pipeline and recognize where you believe the blockages are. Brainstorm solutions for those blockages and test those ideas.
Once the necessary tests and experiments are completed, update parts of your sales pipeline that need improvement.
Using a CRM Software
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a fundamental part of many large businesses and for good reason. It is used as a way to accelerate business and boost a company’s growth.
A CRM software collects all the information regarding a customer from all the different departments within a business. This helps you view the condition of a customer as a whole.
This gives you an opportunity to know the customers on a deeper level and cultivate a relationship based on their needs.
If you are a small business, you may not need CRM. However, as your business grows, so will the different kinds of leads. Staying on top of all your leads and managing them simultaneously can be done easily using a CRM software.
How You Can Manage Your Sales Pipeline During COVID-19
Undoubtedly, businesses have had to take unprecedented measures to deal with the effects of the virus. As a consequence, managing your sales pipeline is more important during the pandemic than ever.
With most businesses struggling to stay alive, the question arises as to how you can revitalize your sales pipeline to fit with the current situation and not fall victim to the pandemic.
Here are 4 simple ways your company can keep filling their sales pipeline with leads.
Market Smarter
One of the biggest consequences of the pandemic on businesses was forced budget cuts. This interfered with the way companies chose to interact with their customers and prospects.
However, for businesses to survive in an environment like this, the need to put effective yet budget-friendly marketing strategies in place has never been more important than now.
People are spending more time than ever on the internet, owing to lockdown measures. In a survey conducted by HubSpot monitoring the impact of Covid-19 on sales and marketing, it was revealed that email and content marketing is being better received than ever. The good news is, both of these marketing techniques are fairly cheap to put together and execute.
Use this to your advantage and put communication at the forefront of your pipeline needs.
Here are a few things you can do in this endeavor:
Expand your online reachability – open chat, messenger, email, and other contact info.
Share helpful content on social media showcasing how your product or services can improve people’s lives.
Be responsive. Provide people with the answers they need.
Strengthen Existing Accounts
Oftentimes, companies get too busy scoring new leads that they do not take adequate time to gain feedback from their existing customers.
With the current situation, businesses simply cannot afford to lose clients. Listening and working closely with your customers is more important now than ever before as the needs of your existing clients may have changed due to the current circumstances of lockdown.
Ensure that you are undertaking adequate responsibility to listen to existing accounts and strengthening your relationship with them.
Perform Market Research
In today’s data-driven world, your business is not going to survive without utilizing data.
To adapt effectively to the new ‘normal’, you need to take a look at what the data is saying and change your focus to fit with the current situation.
To do this, perform a market research exercise for your business to see how you should be establishing future marketing efforts. Identify the message to communicate and the opportunities to take advantage of, based on the facts and figures.
Consider Outsourcing
Times are tough! And you need to cut costs and push products and services as quickly as possible.
A great way to achieve that objective is to outsource.
Your current sales and marketing organization may not have the expertise or resources needed to survive in this environment. Which is why, instead of spending considerable costs and time in building internal teams to manage the current crisis, consider outsourcing.
Before you outsource, evaluate the return versus the investment. Will outsourcing deliver better, faster, and cost-effective results? If yes, go for it.
The Bottom Line
The pandemic has forever changed the world of sales. Yet, the only choice is to keep on moving forward and strive for maximum growth.
If the recent events have disrupted your sales pipeline, this article provides actionable insights for you to get back on track and achieve your revenue goals.
With the above information in mind, it would be safe for you to conclude that a sales pipeline is crucial to the well-being and sustainability of your business. And there is no better way to start than now!