Much has been written (and spoken of) regarding the need for an accurate sales process—also known as sales pipeline management. Pipeline management means having your sales cycle from lead to close laid out in exact steps, each of which must be taken to obtain a successful sale. It might also be called “opportunity management.”
Scale of Possibilities
Companies generally fall into a rough range of possibilities with regard to pipeline management:
- “Every man for himself”. Certainly the most common in startups and smaller companies, this means that each salesperson has their own pipeline, normally visualized in their own minds. Out of a sense of fear of competition with other reps, it is often not shared.
- “Sharing the wisdom.” In this scenario, the more experienced and successful sales reps share the successful pipeline management steps they take to reach a closed sale. These steps are never established as official sales policy, however, are not monitored nor used for measure of success.
- “Fixed sales pipeline.” A sales pipeline is established and made mandatory, and is used for sales as well as forecasting and analysis. Periodically it might be evaluated for effectiveness and possible improvements, but it remains relatively inflexible.
- “Flexible sales Pipeline.” This is the method by which the most successful companies operate. Feedback is consistently elicited from salespeople as to the pipeline’s accuracy and reflection of the real world. The pipeline is adjusted whenever needed to reflect necessary changes in the sales process, or where a step is found out-of-place or unnecessary. In addition to the sales organization, the pipeline is utilized by many other departments in the company.
Backbone of Your Enterprise
Taking a closer look at the “flexible pipeline” above, it will be found that pipeline management is the most successful where it most closely follows the actual buying patterns of prospect and customer companies. The deeper the understanding of your customers and prospects and their various job titles and personnel, the more successful will be the development and accuracy of your pipeline. This practice will also mean higher closing rates and established trust: customers become partners.
Pipeline management so established becomes the backbone of your company. The marketing department, closely examining patterns within the pipeline, can establish effective lead generation programs. Finance, having to answer to important stakeholders within the company, can accurately forecast sales for the next month, the next year, the next 5 years. Product development and R&D can obtain valuable feedback about the company’s products or services and proceed accordingly. And of course sales management can pinpoint where salespeople need improvement or—more importantly—backup and reinforcement.
Flexible Pipeline Management Requires A Flexible CRM
Sometimes negated in importance or budget allocation, the role of IT infrastructure in establishing pipeline management is crucial. A CRM application must mirror your actual sales process—and be flexible enough to be changed on the fly if needed when changes are mandated in the sales pipeline.
A CRM tool must be intuitive enough that reps not only can easily make use of it, but they actually enjoy it. This ease-of-use must spread throughout the company, so that other departments such as marketing, development and finance will be able to easily access it and utilize its valuable data.
A “feature-rich” application is great—but only when it is truly flexible and useful. All the bells and whistles in the world won’t matter if your CRM application is difficult to use and wastes valuable sales and company time.
Effective pipeline management is indeed the backbone of the enterprise. It is well-worth a company’s time and effort to see it is firmly but flexibly established. When it is, the sky is the limit.
Stay tuned for more articles in this series on effective pipeline management.
