Colleen’s Blog

Taking the occasional peek at the sales pipeline is not effective pipeline management. Managing and reviewing the sales pipeline helps salespeople prioritize what activities to complete each month, it also gives them an accurate indication of how healthy their sales pipeline truly is. Here are a few steps for you to consider and that you can pass on to your sales force so that they can efficiently manage their pipeline:

Did you just do a double take? Stop closing sales...isn't that counter-productive to our sales success? You heard me right. Salespeople should not be attempting to “close” sales with clients. It’s all in the definition. Closing is something you do to a person. While it may just be a term, the language is completely one-sided. It implies that you are going entirely for the win regardless of what’s right for the customer. Salespeople who approach prospects with this kind of self-benefiting mentality are almost never successful in their long-term endeavors. Depending on their abilities and experience, they may, in fact, convince the prospect to do business with them, but long-term, mutually beneficial relationships are rarely ever fostered. This breed of selling creates the "pushy" and "aggressive" stigma that clouds our entire industry. It puts everyone, including well-wishing, value-focused salespeople at a clear disadvantage with prospects. You want to instill a win-win mindset in your team. Your business hasn't truly won unless your clients are gaining incredible value by working with you. Sales closing techniques that have amusing terms or names are often methods that you should not be using. For example:

After the 2012 Olympics, Ryan Lochte stated he wanted to be a celebrity. He went on to "star" in a terrible and ill-fated reality show titled "What would Ryan Lochte Do." I think we all know now what he would do. Blame others, and lie about the facts. It goes without saying that you should be honest for honesty's sake. But if you can't muster those morals, at least be honest because you know that you will be caught. There are just too many cameras, too many eye-witnesses, and too much information for you not to be honest these days. You will be found out.

A long time client of mine had their sales targets set by the board of directors in isolation of a market assessment or a discussion with the sales leaders. They announced the targets to the street before any discussion. The expected growth is unattainable but it's too late...the expectations have been set. It's half way through the year and one region is meeting target, until a production problem reduces quality to such a low level that customers are returning product faster than they are buying it. In this market, where the selling season is finite and the number of customers are static, making up the lost revenue is impossible. To the team, the sales year is over.