Account manager round table: How to better manage your sales pipeline?

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This post contains the lessons compiled by the organizer Véronique Lescaut, Senior Director, Carlson WT and slightly enriched:

  • The pipeline is a management tool: You have to determine what you want to do with your pipeline: use it to measure the team's activity, to do reporting, to know your forecast, to present to the management committee, to keep track of the account if the salesperson has left the company, to forecast orders/approvals, etc. (don't confuse activity and pipeline).
  • The important thing is not the exact number but good trends: whether the pipeline is up or down... that's what matters.
  • Some conversion ratios that seem to work for all: the ratio seems to be 4 to 1 (with the crisis we observe... 5 to 1) in nb of business: interesting to anticipate the failure of a very confident seller...
  • Qualification is key and the pipeline should start at the moment when the prospect is qualified and there is a "go" (for some the pipeline is even more precise, at the moment of the quotation): avoid overloading the pipeline with unqualified contacts.
  • The pipeline should give each account a stage in the sales cycle.
  • The tool is there to make the forecast... not the targets...
  • Everyone needs to use CRM - it should be in the job description.
  • To counteract the pessimists/optimists/superstitious ones... you can have them present their pipe to the executive committee or key account/business committee.
  • To counteract criticism, we can send the information we are going to present in advance to interested people so that they validate... or not...
  • We know that the time spent on a large or small file is the same: you have to qualify.... And to convince a no-go, do not hesitate to put the cost of the response to the call for tenders (pre-sales) on the file presented to the management.
  • The tool must be well set up... because garbage in - garbage out...
  • And last but not least: Who doesn't have an excel spreadsheet? 

You are an expert operating in professional services and you do not feel comfortable prospecting for new clients.

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Price kindle format: 9,99€
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Number of pages: 188
Author: Olivier Jacob
Preface: Bertrand Dumazy