When to create multiple sales pipelines

[ABolin]

We're a commercial general contractor with a linear sales cycle, however, three teams are involved in progressing the deal. Sales bring the opportunities in, preconstruction bids the work and operations are responsible for closing out the win or loss.  We're contemplating breaking out our single deal pipeline into many based on the teams I mentioned above. 

If you have multiple pipelines, what are the pros and cons? Do you think we'd benefit from multiple pipes? 

The goals we're trying to achieve include: 

• clearer insight into revenue advanced from sales to four stages of precon (right now we can only track by the # of deals advanced) 
• differentiate deals by teams 

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @ABolin,

I prefer to separate pipelines when there is a distinction in the sales process or the sales milestones. Everything else can be filtered and/or reported on by teams or other custom properties if needed. 

IF milestones and processes are the same, the only thing I can think of that would be a Pro, would be ease of visualizing the pipelines without having to add additional filters. Otherwise, my opinion is that this would be a matter of preference. 

If you are comfortable enough with the report builders and filters, I believe you can accomplish your goals with either approach.

I'd be happy to talk through this with you if that would be helpful.

Josh

[joelpacheco · Accepted solution]

Hi, @ABolin 

I would stay away from creating separate pipelines for this and focus on understanding the problem to solve. Based on the goals you have laid out, I would do something like this:

• Initially, the Deal will have someone in Sales as the Owner. Then, after you move a Deal to a stage that's owned by a different team, update the Owner of the Deal. You can make this easier by setting up UPDATE STAGE PROPERTIES in the Deals settings.
• Differentiating Deals by teams should be easy if you have the teams properly configured in Users & Teams (Settings). You can use filters and views on your Deals page.
• To tell which Deals were originated by Sales, create a custom property for Deals. Call it: ADVANCED BY, for instance. (In case deals can be originated by other channels)

I'm not sure if I made sense up there, but bottom line, I would not create a separate pipeline. I don't think you would benefit from it; on the contrary, it only makes things more difficult when using your Forecast features and Pipeline reporting.

My 2 cents 🙂

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @ABolin,

I prefer to separate pipelines when there is a distinction in the sales process or the sales milestones. Everything else can be filtered and/or reported on by teams or other custom properties if needed. 

IF milestones and processes are the same, the only thing I can think of that would be a Pro, would be ease of visualizing the pipelines without having to add additional filters. Otherwise, my opinion is that this would be a matter of preference. 

If you are comfortable enough with the report builders and filters, I believe you can accomplish your goals with either approach.

I'd be happy to talk through this with you if that would be helpful.

Josh