topic Re: Should I make different deal pipelines? in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

Should I make different deal pipelines?

SBanthia — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 12:34:46 GMT

Sales team has activities with different deal pipelines:

1. New lead closure

2. Cross-selling - different info captured vs. new lead closure deals

3. Up-selling

4. Inactive client re-activation - automated workflows used vs. above categories

Should I try to merge these pipelines or keep them separate? What is best from progress tracking and reporting purposes in Hubspot?

Re: Should I make different deal pipelines?

Ben_M — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 12:42:50 GMT

@SBanthia wrote:

Sales team has activities with different deal pipelines:

1. New lead closure

2. Cross-selling - different info captured vs. new lead closure deals

3. Up-selling

4. Inactive client re-activation - automated workflows used vs. above categories

Should I try to merge these pipelines or keep them separate? What is best from progress tracking and reporting purposes in Hubspot?

There is no one answer or right answer to your question. It's all about getting the reporting and visibility that your team needs without creating friction in the sales process. You could always consider merging cross-selling and up-selling as those are both to existing customers where you may want to see this consolidated and may not need the granularity of the separate pipelines. Or there may need to be clarity into your process about what inactive re-activation is vs. when that account would fall into the new lead pipeline (ie: recently inactive, 6 months, 1 year, etc.). With that said, if you are getting the visibility that you need and there is no friction or confusion in the process with the sales team I would leave it as is.

Re: Should I make different deal pipelines?

SBanthia — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 12:52:52 GMT

Our new lead process and cross-selling have different steps.

New lead process includes leads from SEO / outreach who have expressed an interest in our services (in the consideration stage of the marketing funnel) and we have to convert them.

Cross-selling involves raising awareness and then getting onto the consieration and conversion stage.

So, there are overlaps between the two processes but there are also additional steps in the cross-selling process. Also, the information captured would be slightly (if not significantly) different.

From reporting standpoint, we would like both consolidated and specific reporting for each stream.

What is the best practice to organise this?
1. Have the same / different stages for new account closure & cross-selling?

2. Combine them in one / different pipelines?

3. How to manage the different info fields to be captured in two processes.

Appreciate that there is no right / wrong advice but some guidance and recommendation in terms of best practice in this situation / what to do would be very helpful. Thanks!

Re: Should I make different deal pipelines?

Pranit — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:50:28 GMT

Hi Ben,

Thanks for reply. I am colleague of Shachi. Just for clarity:

Our sales stages are:

SQL -> Scoping -> Proposal -> Closing -> Win/Loss

and we have pipeline called "Sales Pipeline"

Our Cross-selling stages are:

Contact -> Lead -> MQL ->SQL -> Scoping -> Proposal -> Closing -> Win/Loss

and we do not have any pipeline for it.

Would you recommend adding additional stages in Sales Pipeline to accomodate Cross-Selling or create a new Pipeline for Cross-selling for all the stages above.

Re: Should I make different deal pipelines?

Ben_M — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 13:35:07 GMT

@Pranit - When I read your stages, I am hearing a cross of lifecycle stages (Lead/Contact/MQL/SQL) with what I would consider to be a traditional pipeline of your Scoping/Proposal/Closing.

Normally I wouldn't try to merge the pipelines as they serve different purposes. Your Sales Stages are likely for new customers, where existing customers could go down the Cross-Selling or Up-Selling pipelines, and churned would go through the inactive. From my original post, since cross-/up- selling were assumed to be to existing customers, then those pipelines could be merged for simplicity or kept separate depending on your reporting needs.

With regards to how many stages a pipeline should have that really comes down to your sales cycle and qualification processes. For instance, if you have a short sales cycle then the scoping/proposal/closing could be enough if you are gathering enough detail at each stage. Whereas if your sales cycle is 6-12 months or more, there may be additional steps that you want to track to ensure successful closed deals.