Colleen’s Blog

Today, your customer sees you—the seller—before you see them. That means we no longer live in a sell-to marketplace. It’s a buy-from world now. That shift has important consequences for how sales pipelines are built and what you use them for.

I have been thinking a lot about pipeline building recently, specifically, a sales rep requirement to not only look short term at the deals within their pipeline that they should be closing, but also to look into the future in order to build the pipeline that they need to close business in the first place.

A big mistake that I see sellers and companies make at the end of the year is failing to not plan for the new year. We get caught up in trying to close every single deal we can to accelerate way past our goals that we forget that January is just around the corner.

I want to focus on what's on the top of my mind, which is the end of the year for many of my clients. Right now, we're moving towards the end of the calendar year, but the strategy that I want to talk about can and should be done every single month and quarter.

Out of all the sales rules, there is one in particular that should never be broken. Being loyal to this one single rule can mean the difference between sales success and sales disaster. What is the number one sales rule? Drum roll please! The number one sales rule to follow is to never end your day without taking at least one proactive step to put prospective business in the top of your sales funnel. That means making one call, asking for one referral, sending a letter, an email, or going to a networking event. It doesn't matter what the activity is, it's just important that you are acting proactively and putting yourself in front of probable prospects.

You may be surprised to learn that many salespeople and business professionals spend less than one hour a month prospecting for new business. One thing you must always keep in mind is that there is no sales problem that good prospecting skills can’t solve. Unless you’re rude or have a bad attitude (in which case you shouldn’t be in sales!), nurturing your pipeline consistently will lead you to sales success. I frequently coach sales reps who know exactly what to say, when to say it, and have terrific, well-priced products and services...but they still don’t sell. Why? Because they have no prospects waiting in their sales funnel! Simply put, if you have no prospects, you can’t make sales. <-- Click To Tweet To ensure that you are creating a steady stream of new business opportunities, here are a few tips that can help your prospecting and pipeline building efforts: