Frustration sets in when you look at all the pending business you have sitting in your sales funnel and realize that a good portion of it has been there for weeks! Those prospects you were sure were going to sign off on your proposal right away are instead sharing reasons why they’re not ready or telling you they need more time to think it over. You know that with every week that passes, the chances that any of them will turn into a sale diminishes greatly and you’re kicking yourself because you are now reduced to emailing your prospect with the subject line "Checking in" since you really have no other options left.
Are you experiencing this uncomfortable, bloated feeling right now?
That bloated pipeline isn’t just uncomfortable . . . it’s frustrating and, ultimately, very expensive. Yes, it can sometimes feel rewarding to say you have “a lot out there,” but we all know that pending business is only good if it ends up closing.
Spoiler alert: This is not an article on how to close your pending deals. It’s way more valuable than that.
There is a rush to get to the sales pitch these days. I often see salespeople trying to pitch a prospect before they have any clue what the prospect’s needs are. If the goal is to get a lot out there so we can all go around the room and tell everyone how much we have pending, then this approach is perfect. But if your goal is to drive sales performance and increase revenue, a bloated pipeline is nothing to brag about. To increase revenue, we need to stop stuffing the bottom of the funnel with watery pending and empty promises, and instead stay true to a repeatable sales process that leads to predictable sales.
For over 35 years, The Center for Sales Strategy has been teaching, training, and consulting sales organizations on sales process. We know what works in B2B sales.
The ideal process looks like this:
Seems easy enough, right? So why are sales pipelines still broken, clogged, and bloated?
Maybe the problem with your pipeline is that it you’re measuring the wrong things. While a repeatable sales process is necessary for sales success, it’s important to measure the right things if you want to increase performance.
Top sales organizations are measuring the following areas:
Qualified Opportunities Created. Not just the sales package of the week, but rather a proposal that is specifically built to solve the challenge that was uncovered during the sales process and one in which the prospect has shown interest and even helped build.
Conversion Rate. The number of leads that become opportunities and the percentage of those opportunities that actually closed.
Booked Revenue. Deals closed, including a breakout showing new customers vs. repeat business from existing customers. Both are very important to overall sales growth.
Read also: 5 Things Every Sales Manager Should Be Measuring
By measuring and tracking progress in all of these areas, you will quickly be able to spot the bottlenecks in your sales process, but be aware that finding success in each of these areas might be tougher than it looks.
Studies show that more than two-thirds of the prospect’s research is done prior to contacting a potential supplier. That means that by the time you have an appointment with them, they have probably formed an opinion about your business and educated themselves on their options. It’s good that they contacted you, but you may have little maneuvering room at that point, little space to discuss needs and collaborate on solutions.
If you have these systems in place, congratulations, you are off to a great start! If you either don’t have these systems in place yet, or you are finding they are not working as well as you want, it’s time to make a change. Provide your team with lead flow and lead intelligence.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in August 2017, and has been updated and refreshed with new content.