Time to Spring Clean Your Sales Pipeline

 It’s that great time of year when the short and cold Winter days start to give way to the longer and warmer days of Spring. We start to welcome the warmer temperatures, the nourishing and replenishing rains, and prepare for the summer season that will be here soon enough.

With this change in seasons, a lot of us engage in the ritual of Spring cleaning at our homes. We go about cleaning our homes inside and outside, throwing out old items, and preparing our flower beds and gardens for growth and the eventual flowers and harvest of fruits and vegetables that will be produced later in the year.

Are you performing this same ritual when it comes to your pipeline of sales opportunities?

We’re a quarter of the way through the year already. How clean is your sales pipeline? How often are you reviewing it and cleaning out the old and stalled deals?

Now is a good time to throw out the old and clean out the weeds from the Winter. From a sales pipeline perspective, this means going through your and your team’s deals and either getting decisions on the old and stalled deals or closing them out if you can’t get a decision on them.

Now is a good time to nurture, feed, and water your good flowers and plants. When it comes to the deals in your sales pipeline, this is the time to ensure that the good, potential deals are truly qualified. Are you and your people meeting with all of the real decision makers early in your sales process? Have you uncovered the prospect or client’s challenges and compelling reasons to make a change from what they’re doing now? Are they truly committed to fixing these challenges or just talking about them? Have you talked about budget/money early to ensure that they are willing and able to spend the money required to get your help? Do you know how they will make the decision and what is most important to them in making the decision? Do you have an agreed to next step in the process with them?

While you’re doing all of the above, you also need to be planting, watering, and preparing for the future. This means continuing to prospect and fill your sales pipeline while you are cleaning it out. The prospecting to fill your pipeline that you and your people are doing today will pay-off later this year (timeline will depend on your typical sales cycle).  This part is key to avoid the typical roller coaster results that happen in sales from people prospecting and selling a lot and then taking the foot off the gas of prospecting once they have closed a lot of deals. This results in your people suddenly realizing that they have no new or good leads in the pipeline and then prospecting like mad to refill the pipeline, thus keeping the rollercoaster going up and down constantly.

So, once again, how clean and strong are your and your people’s sales pipelines right now? Are you reviewing and cleaning them out on a regular basis? Are you truly qualifying deals so that they close sooner and more easily?

If these things are challenges that you and your team are struggling with, reach out to have a conversation on this and how we can help