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Do you know how strong your current sales pipeline is? If not, it’s time to get to work.

The management of your sales pipeline is critical to the continuing success of your sales process. Mastering your sales pipeline may assist you in increasing revenue, identifying bottlenecks in your sales pipeline, and shortening your sales cycle. Still, around 63% of businesses say that their companies poorly manage their sales pipelines.

What is a sales pipeline?

The sales pipeline depicts the flow and volume of a company’s revenue possibilities (AKA prospective sales) throughout a particular period.

Best Practices for Sales Pipeline Management

A robust sales pipeline may not appear overnight, but it will be well worth your time and effort if managed correctly.

It is critical to have a sales procedure in place while building your sales pipeline. The following are some fundamental procedures to take while putting up a sales pipeline:

Identify your sales process: Clearly define the phases of your sales process.

Track your sales metrics: Get how many new sales you need to achieve your goal, and then multiply that number by your typical conversion rate to determine how many new leads you need.

Do your research: Discover what all converting leads have in common – how they were created and converted, including marketing team efforts, sales rep actions, and prospect feedback.

The average period from lead to closure is 102 days, divided into 84 days from lead to opportunity and 18 days from the opportunity to close. Naturally, this will vary from company to business, but it shows the need to constantly manage and feed your sales pipeline to get the most out of it.

SO, WHO MANAGES YOUR SALES PIPELINE, AND HOW DO YOU DO IT?

This may result from a dedicated Business Development Manager, or a sales team focused on selling, establishing relationships, and generating pipelines. It is a large job that requires skilled people to do as effectively as possible. Outsourcing initial B2B lead generation to an experienced email marketing firm may save your team precious time. Enabling them to concentrate their attention on maintaining the sales pipeline and completing sales rather than generating the pipeline and possibly missing the resources to follow up.

We’ve discovered that providing prospects with a multi-touchpoint experience enhances pipeline management and, ultimately, conversion. Yes, we believe in lead generation over email. Still, our experience extends throughout the whole sales cycle, taking prospects on a journey – nurturing a prospect who isn’t completely qualified or sales-ready, re-pitching them until they are a hot lead for your sales team to meet and close.

Even if you currently have an in-house lead generation or appointment scheduling system, expanding on this output can only benefit you.