What is a sales pipeline?<\/h2>\n
Sales pipelines describe and visualize how close your prospects are to converting. Pipelines allow sales organizations to improve forecasting<\/a>, optimize interactions, and identify bottlenecks in the sales funnel.<\/p>\n The best thing about a sales pipeline<\/a> is that it’s easy to get started. To help you out, I listed the 4 steps that worked for us to effectively manage a sales pipeline and close more deals in less time<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start by mapping out your pipeline so we can see how it looks. When you get those first ideas about people and companies that might need what you sell, you\u2019re already taking the first steps in building a pipeline. You probably have more than one idea for prospects. Some of those will go all the way through and close; others won\u2019t. But these conversations and how they progress will form your pipeline. You build a pipeline by creating a number of steps to go from that initial idea to a closed sale \u2013 these are your sales stages<\/a>.<\/p>\n These might be:<\/p>\n But that\u2019s only part of it. It\u2019s important to remember that your sales stages have to mirror the buying stages of your prospects or customers. You\u2019ll see I included “Proposal sent” in the stages \u2013 that\u2019s because typically one has to submit a fully costed proposal to customers as a requirement in their \u201cbuying cycle.\u201d Everyone\u2019s buying cycle is different, but trust me, it helps to have a good idea of your customers and how they like to buy<\/a>.<\/p>\n An example of what your sales stages might look like<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The magic question is: how many deals do you need to add to your pipeline to meet your objectives? It would be great to win every deal you\u2019ve submitted a proposal for, but this doesn\u2019t happen. If you know how many deals you win on average, you can easily calculate the number of deals you need in each of the early stages. If you calculate your numbers, you\u2019ll be able to see how your pipeline looks and what number of deals you need to be adding to the top of the pipeline to reach your goals.<\/p>\n We explain this a little bit more in the video below:<\/p>\n1. Decide what your ideal sales pipeline looks like<\/h2>\n
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![\"sales](\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Fundamentals-3.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Calculate the \u201cmagic numbers\u201d<\/h2>\n