One of the hardest things to do as a salesperson and sales leader is to make sure that your pipeline is your "source of truth". As we work to develop an accurate pipeline it is important to purge deals that really have no chance of developing into buying customers. Here are three keys to developing an accurate pipeline:
1. Create a Marketing Pipeline:
Developing an accurate sales pipeline is critical but, so is developing an accurate marketing pipeline that gives us an indication of what be funneling into the stage of our sales pipeline.
2. Hold weekly pipeline discussions:
One of the key jobs of the Sales Manager is to ask questions and help the Sales Team to see real deals and separate the lagging or not-so-real deals (pipeline churn). The key here is to ask questions and positively coach.
3. Embrace the Truth
Developing an accurate pipeline is hard, it requires brutal honesty with ourselves and our teams. An accurate pipeline lets us know how we are performing in marketing and sales. We can begin to distinguish between Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL), as well as, where we need to focus our time.
Watch this 42-second introduction:
