Are you one of the 72% of sales managers who hold pipeline review meetings several times a month?
Well done!
But…
Are any of your sales reps one of the 63% that say their company does a bad job of managing their pipeline?
We know. It hurts to hear the truth.
Neglecting to stay on top of your pipeline and its processes is absolutely detrimental. We're talking loss of potential revenue, struggling sales reps, inaccurate quotas, and lost opportunities.
Don't worry too much – you just need some pipeline management. Sales pipeline tracking will ensure your pipeline changes with your sales reps' skills, current industry trends, and your company's needs.
It's basically keeping your pipeline sailing true and in ship shape.
Ready to boost your pipeline management skills?
Of course you are.
Sales pipeline management is the tracking and monitoring of every sales opportunity from contact to close. Observing each sale through prospecting, qualifying, and winning not just one deal, but helping sales reps achieve quota – quarter after quarter.
You've built your sales pipeline – but it needs love.
According to the Harvard Business Review: "On average, companies that reported having ineffective pipeline management had an average growth rate of 4.6; companies with effective pipeline management had an average growth rate of 5.3, a 15% increase."
Do you know what's even better than that? Companies that nailed three specific best practices saw 28% higher revenue growth.
What are those three practices?
Every business has its own approach, but adopting these three pipeline management best practices could give you some fantastic results.
How do you implement these practices? Calm down there, cowboy! We're getting to that.
But let's start off by saying that your CRM software is a great place to check off that first point – clearly define your sales process.
We talk about that in-depth in our blog post about the CRM sales process.
Pipeline performance management is managing and monitoring how your pipeline performs throughout the quarter so you can know what is happening and why. Without pipeline performance management, you can't accurately forecast, predict revenue, or even know how your sales process works.
It may seem overwhelming, but it can really be condensed down into three main points:
Yes, that's simplifying it. Yes, monitoring metrics and reviewing processes could take a while. But it really boils down to a few simple steps.
And it's worth it.
Don't worry, we won't leave you twisting in the wind. Let's carry on to the juicy tips.
Your pipeline's overall performance directly affects how you and your sales reps close deals, achieve quota and make money. It's an essential part of sales, so it's no wonder that it's a key part of sales performance management.
Your sales pipeline strategy is how your company approaches its pipeline. It's pretty obvious that it's different for every organization, but how it differs is important.
A few important steps in your pipeline strategy are:
|
Step |
Importance |
|
1. Define your buyer's journey |
Your pipeline will mirror your customer's journey, so it's good to know what it is. |
|
2. Determine your sales stage advancement |
A baseline of your sales cycle is necessary to measure if everything's going as planned. |
|
3. Determine how many deals you need to hit revenue goals |
This will determine how many leads you need to generate, your ideal close rate, and your reps' quotas. |
|
4. Be flexible |
Always be ready to change and adapt your pipeline to fit new needs. |
Don't be afraid of multiple pipelines either.
Yes, we said multiple pipelines.
Depending on the product or service, you may have several different customer paths that should be taken into consideration when strategizing. You might also need different pipelines for different customers (entrepreneurs may need a different customer journey than enterprises, for example).
Don't forget to run your strategy by your team. They do this every day. They could have some powerful insights and sales pipeline management tips.
The key stages in the sales pipeline management process can be broken down into two sections:
These include the following:
|
Stages |
Description |
|
Lead Generation |
You attract potential customers through various marketing channels like your website, social media, content marketing, and networking. |
|
Qualification |
This involves assessing their needs, budget, and decision-making authority to determine if they are a good fit for your product or service. |
|
Meeting |
Schedule meetings to discuss their pain points, understand their goals, and present your solutions. |
|
Proposal |
Here, you'll create a tailored proposal that outlines your product or service, its benefits, pricing, and next steps. |
|
Negotiation |
Once the proposal is on the table, negotiations may begin. This is where you'll discuss terms, conditions, and pricing to reach an agreement that satisfies both parties. |
|
Closing |
This is the moment of truth! If negotiations are successful, it's time to close the deal. This may involve securing a contract, collecting payment, and onboarding the new customer. |
|
Post-Sales |
The sales process doesn't end with the closing. It's important to follow up with new customers to ensure they are satisfied and to build long-lasting relationships. |
While the typical stages mentioned above provide a solid framework, it's essential to customize your sales pipeline to fit your specific business model and sales process. This might involve adding or removing stages, adjusting the duration of each stage, or defining specific criteria for moving leads from one stage to the next.
Your pipeline is constantly growing and changing, so observing its behavior and making changes accordingly is a must. Like raising a child.
Seriously though, set some time aside each week to glance at these metrics and ensure everything is running correctly and your pipeline is at its healthiest.
Need some advice on how to get the most accurate pipeline metrics possible? Read up on CRM tracking on our blog.
Also called pipeline coverage. It's important to keep an eye on how many opportunities are in your pipeline at a time. It gives you a good idea of your team's overall potential, which helps forecast accuracy.
It also lets you know how effective your marketing and outbound sales strategies are.
And by tracking where these opportunities are in the sales process and how long they've been lingering there, you get a good idea of the volume your team can handle.
This metric really helps you determine revenue and set sales quotas.
Deal values are generally based on the customer, how much they're willing to spend, and whether or not they're a good fit for your ideal profile.
Knowing the average amount a deal usually closes for helps highlight your most profitable deals and where they're coming from, so you can optimize your strategy and performance accordingly.
The average amount of deals won – is possibly the most important metric on this list. Big surprise, right?
Knowing if you're actually closing deals gives you critical insight as you manage your pipeline. Having a low close rate means serious action needs to be taken. It could mean sales reps need a performance boost or extra training, it could mean marketing needs a rehaul.
But on the flip side, if you are closing with regularity, remember what your team is doing right now. It's obviously working.
Combining your win rate with a number of opportunities, average deal rate, and overall sales cycle…we get sales velocity.
This tells you how fast customers are moving through the pipeline. Velocity will help identify where customers drop off, slow down, or speed up. It gives incredible insights into the health of your pipeline, so watching it carefully is an important part of the pipeline management process.
Tracking the conversion rates of leads to opportunities, opportunities to closed deals.
This helps you recognize weak and strong points within your team. Depending on the slowest conversion point, it could indicate that a sales rep needs coaching, a marketing effort needs tweaking, or an email template needs re-writing.
But this is just the start. You can track these and even more metrics with Ringy's insights and reports.
The best practices of pipeline management revolve around creating visibility, focusing on high-impact actions, nurturing leads, and improving team communication. Here's how to implement these practices.
To effectively manage your sales pipeline, it's crucial that everyone on the team is on the same page. Having clear visibility into the pipeline ensures that no lead slips through the cracks and that each team member knows their responsibilities.
A well-maintained pipeline sales management system allows for quick adjustments and informed decision-making, especially during high-stakes moments.
Studies show that companies with fully transparent pipelines achieve 28% higher revenue growth.
That's not all. Using visual tools like dashboards simplifies sales pipeline tracking by offering a bird's-eye view of where leads are and what actions are required. Whether it's a color-coded system or a simple Kanban board, making data visually accessible helps your team focus on moving deals forward and spotting potential bottlenecks.
High-impact activities—like following up with qualified leads or scheduling key meetings—should take precedence over tasks that don't move the needle.
The secret sauce?
Focus on actions that get deals closer to closing. According to research, top sales reps spend 33% more time on activities directly related to closing.
Juggling different stages of the sales pipeline can feel like spinning plates. Without balance, you might neglect one area, risking future revenue. Effective pipeline management best practices involve distributing your time wisely between bringing in new leads, nurturing existing ones, and closing deals.
It's like making sure you're watering all parts of your garden—if you ignore one area for too long, things dry up.
Lead nurturing is all about keeping prospects engaged and moving them closer to a decision. From awareness to consideration to decision, different strategies—like targeted content or personalized follow-ups—can keep leads warm. Strong lead pipeline management ensures these nurturing touchpoints happen consistently, preventing leads from going cold.
But how?
Engage leads where they are. Content marketing educates them, email campaigns keep you top of mind, and social selling fosters relationships on platforms like LinkedIn. These tools work together to ensure your pipeline management efforts don't stall.
Sales and marketing should be best friends, not distant cousins. When both teams collaborate effectively, lead quality improves, and deals close faster. Cross-team collaboration is an often overlooked aspect of pipeline management best practices, but it can be a game-changer.
In fact, businesses that align their sales and marketing teams can see 36% higher customer retention rates.
CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Ringy act as the glue that holds your team together. With built-in communication tools, everyone can see the full history of interactions with a lead, which streamlines follow-ups and reduces confusion.
Strong CRM integration also automates reminders and tasks, making sales pipeline tracking more efficient. Imagine cutting the back-and-forth emails by half—that's the power of a solid CRM.
Even the best sales teams encounter roadblocks in their pipeline management efforts. Let's look at some of the most common pipeline challenges and how to solve them.
One of the main reasons for inaccurate forecasting in pipeline management is bad data. This could stem from outdated information, incomplete lead profiles, or manual data entry errors. Poor data leads to misguided decisions, missed sales targets, and a complete lack of trust in forecasting.
The fix?
Automation and regular updates. Use CRM tools to automate data entry and ensure lead profiles are always up to date. Set up regular reviews to clean your database of inaccurate or incomplete information. Another key solution in pipeline sales management is using AI-based forecasting tools, which can increase prediction accuracy. With clean data, you'll be able to make better decisions and set more realistic sales targets.
A stagnant pipeline is like a traffic jam—nothing's moving, and it's incredibly frustrating. Common signs include leads sitting too long in the same stage or deals that go cold without clear next steps. Regularly reviewing your sales pipeline tracking can help spot these red flags early.
The trick to reviving a stagnant pipeline is re-engagement. Dormant leads might just need a nudge, whether through a personalized follow-up email or a restructured offer that reignites interest. Another solution is to focus on timing—reaching out to leads with new, valuable information, like a case study or a product update, can bring deals back to life. Using automation tools to schedule follow-ups also keeps the momentum going without adding manual work.
Sales pipelines should guide deals, not confuse them. When there are too many stages or complex criteria, it slows down your team and confuses prospects. An overcomplicated process can also frustrate sales reps and increase the chance of human error in pipeline sales management.
Simplification is key to effective pipeline management best practices. Start by auditing your pipeline stages—are they all necessary? Streamline by merging redundant stages or eliminating steps that add little value.
Additionally, implementing standardized criteria for moving leads between stages makes it easier for reps to manage deals consistently. Keep it simple, and watch your pipeline speed up.
The right tools and technologies can turn a chaotic pipeline into a well-oiled sales machine. From CRMs to AI-driven automation, these solutions are designed to streamline pipeline management, giving you better control over your sales process, improving efficiency, and maximizing deal outcomes.
Let's take a closer look at the tech you need to master your pipeline.
CRMs are the backbone of modern pipeline sales management. Tools like Ringy(our CRM), HubSpot, and Salesforce offer a suite of features like contact management, deal tracking, and task automation, all in one centralized platform.
CRMs give you real-time visibility into where each lead stands within your pipeline. This helps you identify which deals need attention, which ones are moving forward, and which may be stalling.
With features like dashboards, sales forecasting, and automated notifications, CRMs ensure that your team has a clear view of the entire sales pipeline at all times.
The added benefit? Studies show that 56.4% of CRM users saw an improvement in their sales pipeline tracking and deal management.
AI tools like Salesforce Einstein or HubSpot's AI-powered insights analyze past sales data to predict which leads are most likely to convert, allowing your team to focus on high-probability opportunities.
In fact, AI-driven sales teams have seen a 50% increase in lead conversions, as the technology helps prioritize the most promising prospects.
Salespeople often get bogged down by repetitive tasks—scheduling follow-ups, sending reminder emails, and updating lead statuses. By automating routine tasks, companies report up to 30% more time being spent on high-value activities, directly improving pipeline sales management.
Data is your best friend when it comes to pipeline management. Platforms like Power BI, Tableau, or even integrated CRM analytics tools can help you dive deep into your pipeline's performance.
With advanced analytics, you can track key metrics like lead velocity, conversion rates, and pipeline value—giving you actionable insights to optimize your process. For example, analytics can reveal where bottlenecks are occurring or which stages consistently have the longest delays.
Additionally, not everyone needs the same information from your pipeline. Sales managers want a detailed view of deal progress, while executives might only need top-line numbers. Advanced reporting platforms allow you to customize reports for different stakeholders, ensuring everyone gets the data that's most relevant to them. This not only improves communication but also empowers decision-making.
Now you know how crucial the pipeline management process is.
But it'll be easy if you use our tips to clear out cold leads, observe metrics, ask for more referrals, and create a formal process for follow-ups.
And don't forget some solid sales pipeline management training to educate on best practices for pipeline maintenance. Then you can establish effective management schedules, identify top performers, and spot a weak link to give them the support they need.
Managing your pipeline can be even easier if you log all the data in your CRM. If you're looking for a great one, request a demo with Ringy so you can have a reliable, accurate place to manage your pipeline.