What have you learned about managing your pipeline more effectively this week?

Hello Sales Reset Community

This week, we have focused on more effectively managing your opportunity pipeline. Let’s start by reviewing the content of our previous newsletters.

Early December is a great time to focus on your best opportunities. 

When it comes to managing your opportunity pipeline, most salespeople know these four rules of effective pipeline management: 

1. Know your numbers: Based on your most recent performance, you must have a plan for how many opportunities you need at each stage of your pipeline. 

2. Prospecting: Effective pipeline management starts with a surplus of opportunities. Filling your pipeline with more opportunities than you need gives you the confidence to step away quickly when opportunities begin to stall. 

3. Prioritise: Never treat all of your opportunities as equally important. The 80:20 rule is particularly important in managing your pipeline. 

4. Constant Review: Review and clear out your pipeline rigorously. For most salespeople, this should be a weekly review. 

You probably already know these rules. 

How rigorously and effectively are you applying them? 

What to do with your single most significant opportunity

Let’s assume you’ve just completed your pipeline review. 

You’ve just clarified your single most significant opportunity. What’s the most important thing you can do to make the win more likely this side of the holidays? 

Every situation is different, but here’s our best guess about the most critical thing you can do to win your most significant opportunity in the next two to three weeks. Or carry it into January in the best possible condition. 

1. Time: Block out some high-quality time and put yourself physically in a place where you won’t be distracted. 

2. Review: Review the proposal document for your most significant opportunity as if you’ve never seen it before. This is especially important if you’ve used a standard proposal template. (From our experience, you may realise you’ve not yet created a specific proposal document for this opportunity. Now’s the time to fix this. FAST!) 

3. Stakeholder Perspectives: Examine your proposals intently from the perspective of each of the major stakeholders. Empathise with their priorities by putting yourself in their shoes. 

4. Improve: Identify where and how your proposals can be improved, probably by focusing more effectively on the measurable customer success each stakeholder needs. Do all the most important things you’ve discussed appear in your proposals? 

5. Collaborate: Arrange to meet and speak with your customer champion(s) to develop a better version of your proposals. 

6. Planned Re-Submission: Agree with your champion(s) when and how to re-submit your improved proposals to be considered and potentially approved before the holidays and in time for implementation in the New Year. 

If you have time, you might repeat this exercise for another one or two opportunities. 

But don’t get distracted by trying to do this for everything in your pipeline. 

Invest disproportionate time and effort in your most significant situations. That’s why 80:20 is so essential.

Best insights from Tuesday’s Sales Reset Stories Workshop

Every Tuesday, our Sales Reset Together community members meet online to share stories and experiences related to the theme of each Weekly Sales Reset. 

Here are the most significant insights from our meeting on Tuesday of this week: 

1. How to prioritise your pipeline: We heard about various ways to prioritise the opportunities in our pipeline. We concluded that using value, probability, and closing date is the best way to focus our selling priorities. The worst way to prioritise is to choose the fastest, easiest and most fun opportunities! 

2. Frequency: We heard candid feedback that pipeline clear-out had not been done for a while. For most salespeople, pipeline reviews should be weekly.

3. Optimum Pipeline Size: We discussed the optimum number of opportunities in each person’s pipeline, which will be based on your unique circumstances. For example, we reviewed the implications of having thirty opportunities at a time. This number can be maintained by closing won opportunities, closing lost opportunities, and continually clearing out the stalled opportunities with fresh new opportunities.

Reflection and learning at the end of the week

How did you get on with your focus on pipeline management this week?

Here are some questions to help you reflect on your experience:

• Pipeline Fill: How many new opportunities did you put into your pipeline this week? Was it enough to create the surplus you’re seeking?

• Wins: How many opportunities did you win this week?

• Clear Out: How many opportunities did you clear out this week because they’ve stalled or been lost? With the benefit of hindsight, should these opportunities have been closed earlier? What’s the most important thing you learned?

• Most Significant Opportunity: Did you focus disproportionately on your most significant opportunity? What happened when you spent time seeking to make your proposals more compelling?

Have a great weekend!

The Sales Reset Team

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