Tips to effectively create and manage your sales pipeline

[CharlotteJ]

You have now put your sales process into HubSpot let me share with you some best practices to take into consideration

A Sales qualified lead reaches sales, what do we do? 

Did you know that adding sales qualified leads to your pipeline without properly identifying if they are a good fit for your business could result in; 

• Hot leads falling through the cracks
• Poor inaccurate reporting of your sales pipeline
• Waste your sales reps valuable time 

Let's have a look at the differences between prospecting and leads that have chance of closing a deal

Prospects

Your prospects are leads that are not yet qualified to buy, we need to get to know them better, we send them emails to engage and book a meeting with us. Using the HubSpot property Lead Status allows you to manage those leads and segment to what status they’re in to streamline your outreach. 

Having them in your pipeline doesn’t make sense. We want to filter our contacts and focus our precious time on opportunities that have a chance of closing!

**Having these prospects separate from your pipeline will ensure you have a clean pipeline! 

Interested in what lead status can do for your process? You can learn about lead status here.

Opportunity

When do we create a deal?

You have connected with your prospect and they have booked a meeting in your calendar, it is time to create a deal! 

Having your sales pipeline unique to your business sales process ensures all deals will reach all stages which is important for accurate reporting down the line.

If your business has multiple products or service offerings it is best to create a SECOND pipeline, this allows you to manage the specific stages a lead goes through for each of your specific product/service offerings.

Pipeline management 

Do you find deals move through the pipeline really quickly and end up as closed lost? Make sure your sales reps are following the same process by having them update a deal before it moves from one stage to the next. This allows you to make sure specific criteria is covered in that deal stage and ensures the deal is qualified to move to the next stage. 

We can use Update stage properties to achieve this learn about update stage properties here 

You have had the final conversation with your lead it’s decision time, when the deal moves to closed lost, wouldn’t it be ideal to report on the most common reasons as to why the deal was closed lost? 

Using this in your process allows you to capture repetitive trends as to why you lose deals. Not doing this could result in missed opportunities for improvement in processes and growth for Your business.

I recommend recording your closed won reason too, are you outdoing your competitors? What advantages did you bring to the table over the lead's other potential solution. This can be a great way of building your ideal customer persona. 

Below I have resources to aid you in setting up your sales pipeline and streamline your process 

• Sales Pipelines: A Comprehensive Guide for Sales Leaders and Reps
• Set up and customize your deal pipelines and deal stages (How to create sales pipeline)

Set up your pipeline!

We love to hear from you!! Don't forget to comment your findings or how you best manage your sales pipelines, I look forward to your comments :))

[CReily]

If your business has multiple products or service offerings, consider creating separate pipelines for each to manage specific stages effectively. Implement a process where sales reps update deals before moving them to the next stage, ensuring all criteria are met. When deals move to the "closed lost" stage, record reasons for closure to identify common trends. Analyze closed lost reasons to identify areas for improvement in your sales process. Record reasons for closed won deals to understand your competitive advantages and build an ideal customer persona. Regularly analyze your sales pipeline b2b data building to identify opportunities for process improvement.