Fix Your Pipeline - Consistency Wins
Consistency wins. In Part 2 of this series, I share how a disciplined follow-up rhythm can transform your pipeline health and conversion rates.
Check out all four parts of the Fix Your Pipeline series:
1. Pipeline Clarity
2. Consistency Wins
3. Metrics that Matter
4. Honest Forecasting
For more strategies like this, check out my sales tip video library on YouTube...
If you prefer to read - here is the transcript:
Thanks for joining me in part two of analyzing your pipeline and figuring out what to do with the problem areas. As you remember, this is a four part series where we're going to take a look at each of the data points. In the last video, we talked about increasing the average deal size. And in this opportunity I want to talk about increasing the number of opportunities that you close. In other words improving your win rate.
If you need to improve your win rate, there are a few things that you could be doing. So first of all, I have to ask, are you asking for the sale? Now every salesperson I ask that question two says yes, but the vast majority aren’t. So what I would implore you to do is to get somebody to shadow you on those calls, record them if you can, and have someone listening to them. Take a manager with you or a sales rep and just have them listen. Are you asking for the business? That's really critical.
Second thing you could be working on is, are you really talking to the person who can say, yes? If you want to improve your closing ratio, you've got to talk to more people who have the power to say yes. How many times in an opportunity do you present a proposal to someone who then turns around and says, I got to take this to my manager. Learn from that mistake and make sure you're asking questions about the decision process.
Number three, stop asking if you're the decision maker - that will drive a negative effect in your closing percentage. Why? Because people lie to that question. That question is threatening.
Ask them who else needs to see? I see this proposal. Who else wants to have eyeballs on this? The last time you made a decision, how did you go about it? What are the next steps if you approve this proposal? There are a host of questions that you can ask to get to that decision maker. But don't ever ask, are you the decision maker?
Third thing that you could do is to practice going wide and deep inside the organization. Use your smarts. You know that others have to be involved.
And if procurement is involved in 90% of your opportunities, then ask, what role does procurement play? Does finance need to see this? I'm guessing Bob or Mary, the owner, is going to want to have a look at what we're up to before they agree we can move forward. Is there anyone else we should have at this meeting? Make sure you're going wide inside the organization across multiple touchpoints, because that's going to drive an easier decision, and it will increase the likelihood that you win the business.
Last thing is just think about your qualifying. Are you actually asking people to buy who are bad fits for the organization? Make sure you're qualifying deals out quickly, because filling your pipeline full of gunk and sludge that is never going to buy will drive down your closing ratio. In order to drive it up, we want to get rid of those bad opportunities quickly, close them when they're not going to close, and move on to focus our time on those opportunities that want to do business with you.