The lifeblood of any sales-driven organization is its sales pipeline. It is a strategic framework for tracking potential customers as they move from awareness to purchase. Sales pipeline management is essential to increasing revenue and ensuring a smooth sales process.
This post will cover everything you need to know about sales pipelines, from their stages to management advice.
Jump to
- Definition: What is a sales channel?
- See the stages of the sales process
- How do you create a sales channel?
- Describe your sales process
- Identify critical stages of the sales pipeline
- Determine activities for each stage
- Establish your sales channel
- Top 7 Sales Pipeline Tools
Definition: What is a sales channel?
A sales pipeline is a tangible description of your sales process that is divided into stages that transfer leads from lead creation to deal closure. There are benchmarks and activities needed to move to the next phase at each level, helping sellers identify where each potential deal is and what needs to be done to close it.
While sales channel stages and activities vary by company, all sales channels can be divided into three basic categories:
Credit: Adobe
Lead Generation: All the operations necessary to locate and qualify potential customers as prospects are included in this section of your sales funnel. Qualification is typically accomplished through a discovery call in which sellers examine money, authority, needs, and timeline. Those who meet this criteria are labeled as leads and sent to the lead nurturing stage of your pipeline.
Lead Nurturing: This section of your pipeline represents all the stages and activities necessary to nurture leads and convert them into opportunities to purchase your product or service. A sales presentation to the company’s purchasing committee could be one of the enriching activities.
Closing the deal: When a prospect is satisfied with your offer, they advance to the final stage of your sales pipeline, when you submit a contract and close the deal. In this case, more TLC may be required. However, most of the actions associated with this part of your pipeline usually revolve around negotiating the actual offer.
See the stages of the sales process
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A sales pipeline describes the stages a prospect goes through during the sales process. Helps sales teams track and manage interactions with prospects and customers.
The particular stages of a sales process can vary by organization and industry, but here are some common stages you may encounter in a typical sales process:
- Prospecting: It is the initial stage in which sales representatives identify possible leads or prospects. To discover potential consumers, they can use numerous methods, such as cold calling, email marketing, engaging on social media, or visiting trade shows and events.
- Lead Qualification: In this step, the sales team evaluates leads to see if they meet particular criteria that qualify them for the company’s products or services. Budget, need, authority, and schedule (sometimes known as BANT criteria) are examples of qualification criteria.
- Initial Contact: The sales representative makes the first contact with the prospect after qualifying the prospect. This could be done by phone, email or other means of communication. The purpose is to present the company and begin the process of creating a company.
- Needs discovery and analysis: During this stage, the sales representative speaks with the prospect to understand their individual needs, pain points, and problems. This allows you to customize the sales strategy and solution to the prospect’s specific needs.
- Solution Presentation: After obtaining information about the prospect’s needs, the sales representative offers a customized solution that explains how the company’s products or services can respond to those needs and add value.
- Handling objections: Prospects frequently express objections or concerns. At this point, the sales representative addresses these issues and provides more information or clarity as needed to alleviate the prospect’s concerns.
- Closing the deal: This is the stage where the sales representative works to complete the sale. Negotiating terms, discussing prices, and ensuring the prospect is ready to commit to a purchase are examples of this.
- Follow up and nurture: Even after the sale is completed, it is essential to maintain the relationship with the customer. Follow-up involves making sure the consumer is satisfied with the product or service and addressing any post-sale complaints.
- Upselling and cross-selling: Once a customer has signed up, the sales team can find opportunities to upsell or cross-sell other products or services that complement what the customer already has.
How do you create a sales channel?
It is essential to have a sales channel that adapts to your individual sales procedures. To get started, outline your sales process. Next, define the critical stages of the process and the activities necessary to move leads through each level. Then, with a sales pipeline tool, tangibly design your pipeline, set up reports, and refine your pipeline based on reporting metrics.
Describe your sales process
Your sales process consists of a series of stages that convert a potential customer into a paying customer. When developing your sales pipeline, start by outlining your sales process and the actions needed to convert a lead into a prospect or customer. The actions in your sales process will determine the stages of your sales process.
Identify critical stages of the sales pipeline
Determine the essential sales pipeline steps you need to monitor to convert an unqualified lead into a paying customer. Common sales pipelines have five to ten pipeline stages that divide your sales process into lead generation, lead nurturing, and deal closing.
Determine activities for each stage
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Determine the critical sales actions and performance indicators needed to advance a prospect through each stage of your sales funnel. For example, if the first stage of your pipeline is “prospecting,” then the selected outreach approach, such as cold calling or cold email, will be your sales activity. In this case, the benchmark a prospect must meet to move to the next level is a favorable reaction to your approach.
Establish your sales channel
The next step is to design your sales pipeline using a sales pipeline tool after you have defined the essential stages and activities. While you can set up your sales pipeline in Google Sheets or Excel, we recommend using customer relationship management (CRM) software, which allows you to track and manage your sales pipeline.
Top 7 Sales Pipeline Tools
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CRM software that provides visual pipelines, sales reporting, and sales pipeline automation is among the best sales pipeline tools. Various CRM software options are best suited for various sales channel use cases. Here are our top seven CRM software recommendations for you:
Zoho CRM: The Most Effective Sales Funnel Tool for Startups and Small Businesses
monday.com: The Most Effective Sales Pipeline Tool for Sales Teams
Zendesk Sale: The most effective sales channel solution with customer service features.
Insightfully: It is the best sales pipeline tool for people who need post-sales project management.
Fresh sales: It is the most effective sales channel platform for lead generation and management.
Salesforce CRM: It is the most complete sales funnel technology for larger organizations.
Pipe unit: The Easiest to Use Sales Pipeline Tool
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Source: vtt.edu.vn