Achieving your sales pipeline goals is challenging. According to Hubspot statistics, only 22% of companies are satisfied with their conversion rate. You need to identify and focus on the critical components of your sales pipeline to influence the sales pipeline velocity. This article will help you identify ways for enabling them efficiently and strategize the right processes to result in sales pipeline acceleration.
Challenges in achieving sales pipeline goals
Three primary factors that help in achieving sales pipeline goals are sales planning, sales messaging, and the sales qualification process. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. Here are some key challenges faced by the sales team.
a. Inefficient sales pipeline management
Not having a formal sales process, poor tracking methods, and lack of sales forecasting are some reasons for poor sales pipeline management. This drops the pipeline velocity resulting in sales failures.
b. Lack of alignment between sales and marketing teams
The sales and marketing efforts of a business should go hand in hand. If any of the activities happen in isolation without coordinating with other departments, it can cause miscommunication decelerating the pipeline velocity.
c. Inability to differentiate between leads
Statistics by Sales Insight Lab show that at least half of the prospects are not a good fit for your product or services. Most of the time salespeople cannot identify between high and low potential leads and waste time pitching to the wrong leads.
Tips to meet your sales pipeline goals
You can improve sales pipeline management to make goal-driven decisions. Here are some tips that will help you improve sales performance.
a. Set SMART goals
Developing Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART) goals will help you develop specific and high focus points giving fewer chances for errors. Imagine you have a goal of increasing trial sign-ups by 10% in the next quarter. Then you have to weigh the goals in all the SMART goals criteria. Are you being reasonable? Are you overestimating or underestimating yourself? Is it possible to achieve that goal at that time?
Analyzing such vital questions will help you set your SMART goals.
b. Focus on the best leads
As previously stated, half the time the sales team focuses on the wrong leads, which can lead to a waste of resources. Concentrating your efforts on the best, high-value leads will take you closer to achieving your final sales goals. But how do you identify the good and bad leads? Many businesses use CRM to score and manage leads where you can rank your leads and identify the good ones from the bad.
c. Monitor and analyze your pipeline metrics
Your pipeline is constantly evolving. You must keep track of the changes in the pipeline to ensure efficient movement. Monitoring the key sales metrics is one way. These sales metrics may be average revenue per user, the average size of deals, conversion rate, sales velocity, close-ratio, and the like. Ensure that they are reviewed on a timely basis to be updated about current sales performance.
d. Regularly update your pipeline
New deals are added and converted daily in your pipeline. If they are not reviewed and updated regularly, the pipeline can get chaotic and disorganized. This can lead to inefficiency and sales failures. Ensure that you are updated with every single detail of the pipeline to everyone involved in the sales process. From a new lead discovery to deal closing, keeping track of all the changes will keep you and your team informed and prepared for what is ahead.
e. Shorten the sales cycle
The B2B sales cycle can be inordinately long. The average sales cycle of a company is 4 months or 124 days. A long sales cycle can cause a barrier to effective sales prospecting. The longer the cycle is, the more likely the prospect is to change their mind. In addition, there can be several distractions for them to divert their intention from buying. Shortening your sales cycle is the wisest thing you can do. You can do it by reducing the duration between follow-ups. You can come up with ways to influence prospective clients’ decision-making time. Some businesses do it by giving special offers for a specific time.
Achieve your sales pipeline goals with better pipeline management
A sales pipeline is a central tool for all your sales activities. If you cannot manage your sales pipeline efficiently, it can lead to disappointing sales figures. With the right mindset, strategy, and efficient tools, you can meet your sales pipeline goals.
