In survey after survey, decade after decade, we find “pipeline development” among the top five stated priorities for sales operations in nearly every sector. At the same time, however, many of these sales operations are reporting that their efforts and capabilities in this area are woefully lacking and in need of serious improvement.
So what gives? How can something so important for so long continue to fall short? And more importantly, what can be done about it?
In the Building a Better Sales Pipeline training session and research briefing, we first discuss the dramatic changes in the marketplace that have conspired to make sales pipeline development even more challenging today than in days past. And then, we explore a number of the most powerful strategies, tactics, and tools that leading sales operations are employing to enhance their pipeline development capabilities and boost overall sales performance, throughput, and yield.
One of the most powerful strategies we cover in the session is about pursuing prospects and deal types with inherently better performance characteristics and profiles. The basic idea is that by being more deliberate and discerning in our targeting, prospecting, and outreach, we can effectively “rig” our sales pipeline to produce much better results, almost by default.
In the session, we illustrate the power and leverage of this strategy by comparing the overall performance of two different pipeline mixes, based on three deal types with distinct performance profiles. As the labels imply, the “Take It As It Comes” mix on the left reflects a more passive approach, while the “Get More of the Best” mix on the right reflects the more discerning and deliberate approach:
Even though the overall number of opportunities or deals in each pipeline is the same, the differences in performance and yield are massive—i.e. 29% shorter cycles, 88% more revenue, 112% more margin dollars, and so on. The point is that by taking proactive steps to improve the raw materials going into our sales machine, we can improve nearly every output of our sales machine, all at once.
Of course, the recordings of every live session we conduct are published to the Playbook’s online library for anytime access. And as they review these on-demand sessions, Playbook subscribers will often submit follow-on questions and insightful observations through our Help Desk.
Recently, a subscribing team had a number questions specific to this particular pipeline development strategy:
Shouldn’t our salespeople be prioritizing the best deal-types already? Shouldn’t Marcomm already be targeting the best prospects in their outreach? Shouldn’t the pipeline be filled with all the best opportunities before any others?
The answer to all of these questions is yes, all of these things should be happening already. But any time we’re using the word “should,” we’re probably not describing reality. And the reality is that even though all of this stuff should be happening, the odds are pretty high that it’s not happening…at all.
Odds are, most of the sales team believes that the pipeline mix just “is what it is,” nothing can be done about it, and we just have to take it as it comes. Odds are, no one has conducted the performance analysis to produce more detailed targeting definitions and deal profiles. And odds are, the demand generation functions have been casting a very broad and generic net because they’ve never been provided more specific targeting instructions.
Now I’ll admit that this strategy for improving a sales pipeline shouldn’t work.
After all, in an ideal world, all of these things would already be happening and therefore, there’d be no basis whatsoever for improvement. But the reality in most sales operations is very far from ideal. And that’s why this pipeline improvement strategy not only works; it often works in very big way.
Building a Better Sales Pipeline
How do we develop a more efficient and more effective sales pipeline? And how do we drive improvement in a way that is more consistent, predictable, and scalable?
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In this recorded webinar session, we explore common revenue leaks that can appear when the economy is roiling, your business is under intense pressure, and everyone has been scrambling to deal with the chaos.
Managing Mix to Boost Sales
Product and customer mix have an incredible amount of influence over every aspect of your sales performance. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to get proactive about "rigging" your mix to your advantage.
