Yes, it’s possible to have a healthy and active sales pipeline and still spend very little time managing it. Fortunately, with the right preparation and systems, you can successfully manage your sales pipeline in 15 minutes a day or less. Here are six steps to follow from Matt Heinz, president of Heinz Marketing in Redmond, Washington.
1. Start with clear definitions & next steps by stage
You absolutely must create and document clear, consistent definitions for each stage of the buying process for your customers. Ideally, you should identify and enumerate specific qualified lead stages, then a separate set of stages that reflect the process of buying once a prospect is qualified and in the near-term market to buy.
2. Use a consistent CRM tool (even if it’s Excel)
You can’t successfully and efficiently manage your sales pipeline in email or on Post-It notes. Your defined sales stages, and the prospects within them, need to be encapsulated in a clean customer relationship management (CRM) system. And whether you use something based in the “cloud” or just Excel, make sure it’s easy and fast to update and accessible everywhere.
3. Develop a discipline for adding new prospects daily
Get in the habit of networking and adding new prospects daily. Look for new prospects via newspaper articles, press releases, LinkedIn Updates, etc. Have a set of pre-written email introductions and offers (an article you’ve written that could help them, for example), so that reaching out and engaging new prospects is fast and easy.
Matt Heinz is the President of Heinz Marketing, a marketing agency in Seattle focused on sales acceleration. To read Matt's full list of six recommendations, with templates and links for more information, you can read the original article post on his blog, Matt on Marketing.
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