A sales pipeline is essential for ensuring your team meets its revenue goals. It helps you keep track of the regular steps that lead to a sale and manage client expectations.
A reliable, connected system like BIGContacts offers sales leaders visibility into the health of their pipeline and potential risks. This enables them to implement effective strategies to improve sales performance.
Streamlined Sales Process
Sales pipeline management is one of the most important ways a company can improve its bottom line. However, implementing the fitting process can be challenging because there are many moving parts. Fortunately, implementing the best CRM system can help your team manage their sales process and ensure all necessary steps are taken to reach their goals.
Having the ability to define and monitor the different stages of a sale, starting from a qualified lead through to a proposal and finally to a won or lost deal, is critical for sales teams. Each stage has a set of tasks that must be completed, and once these are complete, the deal is moved on to the next step in the sales cycle.
As a result, you can quickly determine where there are bottlenecks in your process by monitoring your sales pipeline metrics. For example, you can track reps’ average daily deals, the number of opportunities opened, and a metric that establishes a yield probability by stage (e.g., a prospect is 75% likely to buy in the demo stage and 90% in the negotiation stage).
A streamlined sales process can also reduce your team’s time in meetings. This allows them to focus more on high-value tasks, leads to higher sales velocity, and enables you to forecast revenue accurately. Moreover, a tool like Monday can provide instant access to sales documentation and materials so that your team has everything they need at their fingertips.
Increased Revenue
A sound sales pipeline management system helps you increase overall revenue. It helps you better understand what leads to the most sales and the cost associated with each one. The goal is to minimize the time spent in each stage and maximize the number of deals that convert into paying clients.
You can use a sales pipeline management system to set expectations for your sales team and identify areas where they need training. For example, if a rep isn’t closing enough deals, they may need more time with their prospects. In this case, a manager must provide coaching on their prospecting skills.
A standardized, clear-cut sales process helps you establish yield probability by stage. This gives you an accurate idea of how many opportunities you need to make it through each stage to hit your monthly or quarterly sales goals. For instance, 70% of your prospects will buy during the demo stage, and 90% will sign a contract during the negotiation phase.
A sales pipeline management system can help you calculate customer acquisition costs (CAC). This metric is the money it takes to acquire a new customer, including marketing spend, employee salaries, and more. This information can help you determine the best way to invest in advertising and other growth initiatives.
Increased Productivity
As a manager, you need to know how many sales opportunities are in each stage of your pipeline. This allows you to determine which stages need improvement, such as boosting lead-to-conversion rates or increasing average deal size. By analyzing these key metrics, you can then use the information to optimize sales performance and ensure your team is on track to meet their quotas.
Using your CRM software, you can easily monitor the progress of each opportunity in each funnel stage. This lets you pinpoint any problems and quickly adjust to improve productivity. For example, if a new lead takes longer than usual to connect and qualify, it may be time to provide some coaching on effective sales techniques.
Additionally, your CRM software can help you keep track of all the essential documents and communications related to each opportunity. This means you can have instant access to all the relevant details, even when away from your desk. This helps you stay on top of your game and avoid missing any potential opportunities that may arise during your absence.
Proper sales pipeline management is critical to your business’s growth. According to a recent study, companies that prioritize pipeline management experience a growth rate that’s 15 percent higher than those that don’t. To achieve these results, you must invest in the right tools and implement a comprehensive strategy that provides visibility into your company’s prospects.
Better Customer Service
The sales pipeline is crucial for identifying and managing potential customers who may purchase your products or services. When correctly worked, a clean and accurate pipeline allows you to forecast sales revenue for future periods and more accurately manage your team to meet or exceed quota.
Sales pipeline management includes strategies to help identify and analyze leads, qualify opportunities based on their fit with your business, close deals quickly and effectively, and follow up with prospects after the sale. With better qualification criteria, sales representatives talk less with non-qualified prospects. They focus more on the people or businesses that match your business well.
In larger organizations, the prospecting and qualifying stages of the sales cycle are typically assigned to more junior sales roles, such as sales development reps (SDRs) or business development reps (BDRs). At the same time, more senior salespeople, such as account executives (AEs), handle the consideration, decision, and close phases. Regardless of the sales role, effective sales pipeline management requires quality assessments to be conducted on an ongoing basis and a sales pipeline review process where key leaders meet with salespeople to examine and discuss open opportunities.
Implementing a sales pipeline management system to streamline your sales process will improve overall results, including more qualified leads, higher deal velocity, accurate forecasting, and enhanced customer service. To get started, choose a sales pipeline management solution that offers multiple integrations, automation, remote access, and more to power up your sales and marketing efforts.
