Understanding what the sales pipeline is and how all of its moving parts work together to boost the rate at which deals are closed, is the key to improved sales performance.
And that’s important, because getting it right has a direct impact on the bottom line.
Track the journey
The ‘sales pipeline’ represents the journey of a potential customer from lead to closed deal. The idea is for it to provide managers and sales people, data-driven, accurate insight into how far along that “pipeline” potential customers are – whether they are just investigating, seeing demos, or close to signing deals.
It informs current and future actions, giving sales people access to insights that show them what they need to do to move their leads into the next step of the process.
Informs strategy
The sales pipeline can even inform stock-level strategies, which can help to reduce expenses. If, for example, a particular item has been quoted on 100 times but only 10 were sold, there’s a problem that needs addressing.
Having deep insight into the sales process cuts through a lot of the distribution ‘noise’, and lets sales people do what they do best – identify opportunities, and close deals.
Details
This is just scratching the surface, of course, which is why the people over at Hubspot have put together a comprehensive article, Sales Pipelines: A Comprehensive Guide for Sales Leaders and Reps that delves into literally every detail of the sales pipeline process.
They cover exactly what the sales pipeline is, what it isn’t, how it should work, things to keep in mind, and how it helps sales to close more deals.
The article is well worth the time it takes to read, as it offers practical insight into the sales pipeline process that sales people and managers alike will find extremely useful.
If you’re looking for deep insight into the sales pipeline concept, I can’t recommend this article enough.
Alan Hawkins is the Sales Director at Tarsus SecureData.
