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Nikolaus Kimla
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Content
Pipeline Management:
The Backbone of Your Enterprise
Pipeline Management:
Critical to Attaining Company Goals
Pipeline Management:
A Self-Sustaining Success
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Pipeline Management:
The Vital Importance of Automation
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Contact
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PIPELINE MANAGEMENT:
THE BACKBONE OF YOUR
ENTERPRISE
Much has been written (and spoken of) regarding the need for an accurate sales
process also known as sales pipeline management. Pipeline management means
having your sales cycle from lead to close laid out in exact steps, each of which
must be taken to obtain a successful sale. It might also be called opportunity
management.
Scale of Possibilities
Companies generally fall into a rough range of possibilities with regard to pipeline
management:
Fixed pipeline
A sales pipeline is established and made mandatory, and is used for sales as well
as forecasting and analysis. Periodically it might be evaluated for effectiveness
and possible improvements, but it remains relatively inflexible.
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Flexible Pipeline
This is the method by which the most successful companies operate. Feedback is
consistently elicited from salespeople as to the pipelines accuracy and reflection
of the real world. The pipeline is adjusted whenever needed to reflect necessary
changes in the sales process, or where a step is found out-of-place or unnecessary. In addition to the sales organization, the pipeline is utilized by many other
departments in the company.
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PIPELINE MANAGEMENT:
CRITICAL TO ATTAINING
COMPANY GOALS
In many articles, books, seminars and webcasts over the last few years, the sales
process also known as pipeline management has been repeatedly emphasized. Pipeline management means isolating each of the necessary steps in a sales
cycle, and establishing them and making sure they are followed.
What may not be clear until you take a closer look is the fact that accurate and
effective pipeline management is essential to the attainment of long-term
company goals. For that reason, pipeline management might also be called
opportunity management.
Achieving Priorities
A recent report, the Growth Team
Membership Sales Leadership Priorities
Report 2013, listed these as the priorities
for companies in 2013:
Aligning sales process with customers
decision-making
Understanding customer needs
Devising effective customer strategies
Enhancing sales productivity (focusing on the highest-value activities)
Defining and implementing metrics (e.g. retention, profitability) to evaluate
critical sales activities
Ensuring accurate reporting of forecasted sales opportunities in the pipeline
It is interesting to note that none of these are possible without flexible, intelligent pipeline management. The first priority sets the stage; it is making sure
a pipeline is wholly accurate. But the remainder of these priorities can only take
when that is done.
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Customer Strategies
The next priority on the list, that of understanding customer needs, not only
comes from interacting with customers and documenting the results, it comes
about through having a pipeline clearly and accurately laid out, and carefully
analyzing it. From where do leads come, and why? What are the common
customer issues stated in the first interviews? How are customers reacting
to your product or service? How often must customer service or support
become involved, and what are the results? Answers to these and similar questions will all be available in a properly executed pipeline, and
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Likewise the next priority defining and implementing metrics to evaluate critical
sales activities is established with relative ease when a standard report can be
run based on each of the steps throughout the pipeline management stages.
Forecasting
It is only with solid and realistic pipeline management in place that accurate sales forecasting
can occur. With each potential sale properly
evaluated and rated at each step, and with
closing ratios isolated and understood, analysis
can be undertaken to show the potential result
of all the leads and sales within a pipeline.
Stepping further back, analysis can demonstrate
how many leads need to be obtained up the line
to accomplish a certain level of sales. An entire
enterprise can be shown what needs to occur
for the company to meet their goals.
CRM
All of this planning and implementation will not be possible without a flexible,
intuitive CRM tool. With such a program sales reps can easily name, accomplish
and report on priorities; sales management can readily view and evaluate sales
reps progress; and management and finance can accurate assess and forecast
sales.
You and everyone else in the company are working hard to ensure your company
goals are met. Take the one step that will provide the rocket fuel for attainment of
those goals: effective pipeline management.
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PIPELINE MANAGEMENT:
A SELF-SUSTAINING SUCCESS
As discussed in many sales forums, articles and blogs these days (including our
recent articles), pipeline management also known as the sales process is
vital to sales and company expansion. Laying out the separate steps of the sales
process and making sure they are followed is the only way of bringing control to
sales, both for the salespeople and sales management.
A Real-World Example
From the CSO Insights Sales Management Optimization 2013 Key Trends Analysis
comes a true story that clearly illustrates how effective pipeline management can
lead to ever-increasing sales success.
A particular company that processes insurance claims for physicians, as part of
their opportunity management process, required salespeople to note each tactic
utilized at each step of the sales cycle, right in the CRM database. Over a period of
years, this practice resulted in a wealth of valuable data, and someone finally had
the bright idea of mining the data and analyzing it.
That analysis isolated several highly successful tactics. For example, a salesperson would offer to conduct an audit of the prospects current insurance claims
processing costs. It was found that, in deals that had closed, the prospect had
taken advantage of the audit offer twice as often as in deals that didnt close and
were lost.
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This is a very good example of using pipeline management to clearly isolate successful sales methods. Once such methods are discovered, they can be put to use
by the entire sales force and result in higher profit and attained company goals.
Lead Generation
Company sales organizations are constantly on the lookout for great sources of
sales leads. They may be ignoring one that is sitting right before them: their very
own pipelines.
One method of utilizing pipeline management for sales
leads is to conduct an analysis, within the pipeline, of the
deals that have closed. Examine the types of companies, the
industries, the buying patterns. It then becomes a matter of
seeking out similar companies within that industry, territory, etc. and cultivating them as priority leads.
Another method, long in use with successful salespeople, is prospecting at the close. Make it a step
of your sales process to ask, after the sale is closed
and after the prospect has become a satisfied
customer (important), who else should be using your
product or service. Funnel the leads so obtained right
back into the pipeline so they can be worked.
Since word of mouth is the most powerful type of lead a company can obtain
(per countless analyses of leads through the years) it is also very advantageous
to obtain permission from your customer to use their name when contacting the
leads they have given you. Or, if at all possible, coax your customer to email or call
the lead before you do with their recommendation of your product or service.
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PIPELINE MANAGEMENT:
THE VITAL IMPORTANCE
OF AUTOMATION
Pipeline Steps
When developing the sales process into discreet pipeline steps, automation must
come in on the ground floor. At the very least, the IT department must be fully
advised of the various sales process steps, once they are decided upon and implemented, so that these steps can be automated for use.
If this is not done, everyone from the sales
reps to financial officers will have a very
difficult time trying to adapt to automation
that is not reflective of current company
operations. Whereas if this step is taken,
automation is working hand-in-glove with
Weighted Target
$ 2.034 588,90
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Sales Use
It is the on-the-ground sales force that will be making the most important use of a
CRM application. Their time is obviously quite valuable minutes or hours spent
not selling cost the company money. That time can be wasted if a salesperson
must hunt for needed information, and drastically wasted if that needed information cannot be found because there was no way for it to be input in the first place.
Conversely, if automation is properly utilized from the get-go to support sales
activity, that needed information will be just a click away. A salesperson will be
able to record vital data in its proper place, so that it can later be accessed and
utilized to push the sale along to a close.
Once again, the choice of CRM application is critical. It must be intuitive and easy
for sales reps to learn, access and constantly use. It could even be posed as an
objective that the application be enjoyable.
Weighted Target
$ 4,175,068.50
where they stand. Senior and finance executives must be able to forecast sales for the next
month, year and years, and know their forecasts
are as realistic as possible.
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It can be stated flatly that none of these important functions are possible if automation
isnt fully supporting pipeline management.
Whereas if pipeline management is accurately
represented by automation, analyses and forecasts will be highly useful and result in further
company expansion and profit.
In addition to mirroring the pipeline, the CRM
tool chosen must also allow intuitive and easy
creation of these analyses and reports. This
again comes back to the choice of CRM tool;
flexible analysis and reporting functions must
be a priority in the choice of CRM.
With automation given its proper priority in relation to sales pipeline management, pipeline management truly becomes opportunity management.
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CRM (CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT)
Contact Management
The original purpose of CRM was to record
contact information for a prospect or a
customer, and to provide information about
the importance of various personnel within
a company and details of interaction with
them. Scheduling was also part of early
contact management systems; a sales rep
could scroll through an application and put
together a list of calls or visits for the day.
Or, a more advanced application would cull
through the database itself and provide a
to-do list for a particular day.
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to buy, the sale could be shown as booked with a dollar amount attached to it.
And, of course, closed sales could be shown.
CRM software, for the first time, made possible the visualization and overview of
a companys sales where they stood, how much they could expect to make in a
certain period of time, and how various sales reps were performing. To varying
degrees CRM customer relationship management gave sales management and
executives a clearer view of sales than
had been previously available.
Today, CRM applications offer many
different options, including detailed
analyses of product lines, forecasts, past
performance, sales teams and individuals, and many others. They can also be
utilized for tracking of marketing campaigns and even provide valuable data
for product development.
Adaptation
For all the years it has been around, however, a critical stumbling block for CRM
customer relationship management has been adaptation. A CRM solution can
be sold to a company and implemented, but employees have a tough time understanding it, or find it doesnt closely enough reflect actual operations, find it too
complex, or simply too time-consuming. Executives and sales management cannot
easily use CRM to perform analyses or forecasts, and end up sticking to methods
they have always used. Additionally other departments in the company, such as
R&D or marketing, never learn about various options of the CRM that could assist
them in their jobs, so never take advantage of them.
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While it is easy to blame a particular CRM product and its features, it is often a
lack of knowledge of its use rather than a faulty CRM product. Training in its use
has been weak, or the software vendor was lax in ensuring its customer really
understood the product. Once a CRM is up and running, it is much tougher to
get a CRM trained in as day-to-day work and putting out fires gets in the way of
trying to learn something new.
The bottom line, however, is that CRM customer relationship management is
a fantastic way to bring sales and expansion to your company. This is only true,
however, if the program is truly used and used correctly.
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CRM Priority
Within a companys overall budget,
automation is very often given a low
(or at least a lower) priority. While
Template designer
Sales Units
Sales Unit
Ranking
Accounts
Contact
Product depart.
Sales Team dep.
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budgetary constraints. Then find a way to meet those needs within or more closely
within the companys budget.
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It would well behoove any company that finds itself with ineffective CRM
(customer relationship management) to take steps to reverse the problem, using
the above as a loose guideline and find its way to true prosperity.
Watch for more upcoming articles on CRM (customer relationship management)
issues and their solutions.
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Phone: 1-888-843-6699
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