Sales Pipeline Management

Sales Pipeline Management

Quick hit today.

In a waiting area today I could overhear a peppy sales person (maybe customer service person?) following up with a prospect/customer on the phone.

“Hi, it’s XXX from YYYY and I was just following up on the proposal I sent you last week.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ok.”

“So when would be a good time to follow up?”

“Ok, I’ll put you down for next month and check back. Thanks XXX! Have a great week!”

It was 9:30am. I felt bad for him. From my end, the call was depressing . . . though he jumped right into the next call as if nothing happened so maybe it was good news?!?

The whole thing reminded me of a little talk I used to give on Sales Pipeline Management.

Here’s the short version:

• Bring value on each and every customer contact
• Have a reason for calling – generally based on something uncovered in the last call
• Before you set a follow-up call, figure out what’s going to change so you can get to a Yes or a No. “Maybes” = skinny kids, right?
• Dump them if you’re not getting to Yes or No.

I can take up an entire morning talking about these points, but let me put myself back into sales rep/service rep mode. (I was there)

“Mr. Pivot, the reason I won’t let go or push for a definitive NO answer is because they might say Yes.”

I totally agree. So, let’s come up with some systems that will automate the follow up process for you.  Right? If you had a place to park those prospects and customers that moved those warm leads to HOT, moved the cold leads to WARM and freed up your time to comb through the market to find the “low hanging fruit”, wouldn’t that be awesome?!?

It’s exists. Lots of activity in this space. Movement of leads between Marketing and Sales and back again.

If my friend behind the cubicle wall had a system like that in place this morning, he could have taken that enthusiasm, combined that with goal oriented questioning and used it to qualify his friendly prospect – finding out if it was worth the effort to follow-up. Then he could confidently place his lukewarm prospect into a Drip Marketing Loop that could do the work of re-educating the customer and teaching him why he needs to take action or forget about it and move on.

A good decision is all we’re after.

We have the technology. We can build it.

Good stuff.