6 stages of sales pipeline management

Grow your brand with these 6 stages of sales pipeline management

Below are six helpful stages of sales pipeline management you may want to incorporate into your business strategy.

Analyze critical sales pipeline metrics

Monitoring is essential in most business processes, including sales. It helps you assess the milestones achieved against the laid-out objectives. You can continue with your sales pipeline process if you hit the key performance indicators. But if you’re falling short of targets, you may want to identify the reasons for shortfalls and revise your tactics accordingly. Some crucial metrics you may want to track include the following:

• New qualified leads over a given period
• New sales opportunities
• New consultations booked
• Number of closed deals
• Win rate
• Number of deals lost
• Sales cycle duration, i.e., the time it takes from initiating contact with a lead to closing a sale.
• Average deal size

Besides these, it helps to estimate the income potential from the sales. Instead of doing it manually, you can use a revenue projections template Excel, which you can download from a relevant site. You simply input the sales figures for each agent, and the integrated formulae will forecast the revenue automatically.

Standardize your sales pipeline

It’s never enough to have business concepts in your mind. You’re probably working with a team, and everyone needs to read from the same script. So, document the ideal sales process and outline the roles of each sales rep at every step of the pipeline. 

Formally documenting the pipeline also gives you a basis for evaluating each encounter with a customer to see how close you are to the plan or how much you veered from it. Such consistent analysis sets the pace for success. Moreover, it becomes a training tutorial for new salespersons you recruit to your company. 

Follow-up

Support the sales steps with content

Content creation is an indispensable marketing strategy. Generally, your prospects may have questions about various sales pipeline stages. For instance, at the evaluation stage, buyers would need in-depth information about your product to conclude whether it’s a right fit for them. You won’t always do this over the phone. Writing a comprehensive blog on your product’s features and benefits might be much better. 

Carefully consider each step of your sales pipeline and see if you can create content. The more details you provide, the higher the convincing power for the customer.

Use CRM software

In a 2021 Financial Planning and Investment Advisory Companies survey, customer relationship management (CRM) software was named the most valuable business tool globally. Its primary purpose is to organize customer data, track communication, and nurture a relationship with leads.

So, you can use a CRM platform as a channel of communication with your customers to send follow-up emails, address issues mentioned on social media, or call prospects. In other words, a CRM tool can integrate all media in one place, providing you with a clear picture at all times.

Plus, it predicts sales patterns, helping you create feasible goals and evaluate performance. It also allows you to monitor your metrics with dashboards and custom reports.

Overall, proper use of CRM in your sales pipeline will lead to higher customer satisfaction and more conversions.

Drop dead leads

It pays to know when to drop a dead lead. A prospect can be termed dead when they clearly state that they’re not interested in your products or when you can no longer reach them. Pursuing them further may be a waste of time, money, and energy. It’s better to move on and look for other qualifying leads. 

However, remember that it’s normal for customers to pretend not to want your products before finally purchasing them. So, try studying every case and determine the potential of closing a deal before giving up on the lead.

Conclusion

Following these stages of sales pipeline management is the secret behind high volumes of sales. For success, you may want to integrate essential technological tools into the sales process like CRM and analysis tools. You should train your sales reps thoroughly too. After all, a solid plan would be meaningless without the proper skills.