The sales pipeline is the sum of all the sales cycles and activities a company is attempting to close and turn into revenue. Typically the sales cycles are identified with labels such as leads, prospects and customers. Generating a lead, qualifying the prospect and closing the customer are the steps of a typical sales cycle.
It's called a sales pipeline because of the progressive relationship between the quantity and quality of sales cycles in a pipeline, the higher the quality the lower the quantity. There are more leads than qualified prospects. There are more qualified prospects than customers.
Every sales pipeline reaches an optimum level of quantity and quality of sales cycles. Say, for example, Acme Roofing sells a standard roofing installation for $5,000 at a margin of 20%. To generate $100,000 in revenue Acme needs to close 20 average installations. However, the closing percentage of leads is 5%. Acme needs to have 400 sales cycles in the sales pipeline to close 20 deals.
We Help You Build Your Sales Pipeline
1. Sales Pipeline Strategy. How are you going to manage your sales pipeline? What software are you going to use? What are the sales stages of your pipeline? How many sales cycles do you need? There are several questions that need to be answered. We consult with you to determine your best strategies.
2. Training. We have complete manuals and online presentations to educate your staff about the sales pipeline. We do everything by phone and on the Internet so we can be quick and effective. Your staff has the opportunity to learn quickly and easily.
3. Pipeline Development. In some cases we build the initial pipeline for you. We do the work to get the pipeline started and determine the constraints. We build up to 50 sales cycles and develop the sales plan internally then teach it to you.