“A healthy sales pipeline should have the most opportunities at the initial stage of the pipeline and the proper amount of quality prospects in each subsequent stage,” Ciccolella said.
As many sales teams concentrate on filling up their sales pipeline they tend to ignore the quality or the health of the sales pipeline they have built up. Regulating the sales pipeline every often is a must need to achieve good business growth. There are a few characteristics of a healthy sales pipeline that are common to all sales teams.
Every sales manager defines their sales pipeline’s health in their perspective which is not so bad. But there are a few serious issues we have to concentrate on to avoid mistakes.
Dependency on the marketing team for leads - Never depend on the marketing team for the right prospects, choose it by yourself in the leads provided by them.
Most of the representatives fail to listen to what the other person says which is where they lag behind in closing deals.
Bloated pipelines – Remove all those leads which are unlikely to close the deal, unless they intend to take some time and revert. Or else you are supposed to miss a lot of good deals.
Invisible opportunities in your known circle - Make sure your sales pipeline is visible to others in the company, maybe they can help you better close that deal.
Assuming that more no. of prospects gets you a high win rate – It’s not always the quantity but the quality which matters. Having a large pipeline doesn’t get you a good closing ratio, it’s all about how likely are those leads supposed to buy.
Not using a CRM or a tool to manage the sales – having a common tool or CRM to manage the sales is a must need in every organization. It helps to identify individual performance and track sales easily.
Having a weighted sales pipeline is recommended to all sales teams which have three times more opportunities than your actual goal set. Only then the expected sales target can be reached with no hurdles. Sales pipeline software can make you understand more about your process and increase sales.