Whether you are a small business owner or the CEO of a large multinational, there is no escaping the fact that the continued existence of your company is predicated on making sales. Without sales you have no turnover and without turnover your company will quickly fold. Every business owner and manager understand this simple fact but when it comes to understanding why a sales pipeline is important, the numbers are less impressive. It is for this reason we are focusing on sales pipelines today: what they are, why they are important and how you can use a single sales pipeline, or multiple instances, to drive future growth.
What Is a Sales Pipeline?
A sales pipeline is both a visual illustration of the stages a customer goes through when making a purchase from your company as well as the entire sales process itself. It should describe the sales process and all the individual stages in the process, from start to finish.
Why a Sales Pipeline Is Important
A sales pipeline is of great importance to any commercial concern, for a number of reasons:
- A Visual Reminder and Training Tool – Both new and existing sales executives will find a well-thought-out sales pipeline to be a very useful tool. With a graphic representation of the entire sales process to hand, veteran sales executives can make sure they never skip a step and new hires can make sure they always know exactly where they are in the process, for each deal that they handle.
- An Essential Analytical Tool – With a sales pipeline, it is possible to track the number and status of prospective sales at any point in time. In this context, we are defining prospective sales as qualified leads at any stage of the sales process. If you wish to analyze potential deals more closely, you can do so with ease when employing a sales pipeline. Sales of all products and services can be tracked in a single pipeline or in multiple, unique pipelines.
- A Tool That Helps to Identify Deals That Are Dead in the Water – One of the most useful features of a sales pipeline is the ability it gives you to identify deals that are going nowhere. Any deals that have been in the pipeline for significantly longer than is normally the case, can safely be discarded. The time this feature can save your sales team could prove to be invaluable in the future.
- Identifying Deal Closing Opportunities – With a visual representation of your sales process, you can clearly see all the opportunities for closing a deal and take full advantage of each one.
For companies and individuals keen to learn more about the creation of sales pipelines and sales pipeline management, we invite you to contact us by phone or email. We offer a number of in-depth courses that could prove very useful to you and your organization, including sales management programs and courses that explain how best to implement the highly-effective Pipedrive CRM software.
Leave a comment!