A strong sales pipeline strategy generates leads and helps you predict whether you'll hit your revenue targets.
A full pipeline increases your conversion rates and revenue. That’s why70% of chief sales officers are investing in (or thinking about investing in) ways to boost their sales pipelines, according to Gartner.
We'll show you four proven strategies to keep your SDRs working from a full pipeline of qualified leads.
TL;DR
Learn how to optimize your sales pipeline
Four proven ways to build your pipeline strategy
How tracking customer job changes drives pipeline growth
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What is a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of a lead's journey to becoming a customer. It also includes the inbound or outbound sales activities required to convert a lead into a customer and shows the value of each open deal and opportunity. This makes using a sales pipeline an ideal tool for predicting revenue growth.
A sales pipeline differs from a sales funnel in important ways.
A sales funnel captures the buyer’s journey from awareness and interest to decision-making. A sales pipeline shows the actions sales reps take.
This visibility lets you identify bottlenecks and improve conversion at each stage.
What are the stages in a sales pipeline?
Your sales process, company stage, and buyer's journey determine what your sales pipeline looks like. However, most sales pipelines will have the following:
Prospecting: The first stage of a sales pipeline is finding prospects who need your product.Sales reps can do this manually or use a prospecting tool to automate the process.
Lead qualification: The next step is to check if the leads from your prospecting efforts fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Sales outreach: If the leads are a fit, your sales team initiates contact with them. And kickstarts a conversation about why they should be using your product.
Follow-up: This is where your reps follow up with leads who have not responded or given any feedback after they get in touch. At this stage, identify what each lead needs to move forward based on their specific pain points.
Conversion: Leads convert once they understand the value of your product and why they need it. At the end of this stage, the lead becomes a customer or a closed-lost.
What is a sales pipeline strategy?
A pipeline strategy is a systematic or thoughtful approach that guides new leads/prospects through each stage of your pipeline. It involves splitting the sales process into the various stages and then optimizing each stage to improve the chances of a closed won.
A pipeline strategy helps you pinpoint bottlenecks, track key metrics, and fix problems before they hurt your numbers. It also helps sales leaders allocate resources, hit quota, and get more from their SDR and AE teams.
4 ways to build a successful sales pipeline strategy
A full sales pipeline leads to more opportunities and increases your team’s win rate. Here are four strategies to fill your pipeline and boost revenue. Here are four ways to build out a successful sales pipeline strategy to fill the pipeline and boost revenue quickly.
1. Set up a sales process
Your sales pipeline strategy needs to be built on a solid sales process. In fact, companies with a formal sales process experience 28% higher revenue growth than others, as reported by the Harvard Business Review
Pipeline strategies vary by company. A generic process won't deliver the results you need.
Start by understanding your ideal customer—their motivations and buying behavior. Use these insights to build a sales process that guides your pipeline activities.
“A good sales pipeline is the foundation of your business,” says Krittin Kalra, founder of WriteCream. “Focus on qualified leads and qualified sales, not just volume. If you have a good sales pipeline, you'll always have sales.”
Kalra recommends mapping out how you'll move each lead through your pipeline to conversion.
Kalra adds that to start chalking out your pipeline strategy, ask yourself these questions:
How will you contact leads?
What will you say to leads?
How will you help your leads?
What is the timeline for the lead to make a purchase decision?
What actions will you take if the lead doesn’t make a decision quickly enough?
What is your plan for a follow-up?
Your answers will help your revenue team define high-quality leads. They also show reps which activities to prioritize and what cadence converts leads to customers.
2. Stay on top of your sales pipeline strategy
Long sales cycles make poor pipeline management costly—deals slip through the cracks. Shorter cycles reduce this risk but don't eliminate it.
Sales pipeline management involves:
Keeping track of prospects as they move through different stages of the pipeline.
Monitoring deals to completion.
Analyzing the sales process to remove bottlenecks and shorten sales cycles.
To maintain a healthy pipeline, communicate regularly with your sales team about their needs and priorities, advises Padmaja Santhanama, Partner and Growth Manager at FirstPrinciples.
Better sales pipeline management ensures you:
Know how many deals you have in your pipeline and the status of each deal — making it easy to predict revenue and spot opportunities to accelerate the sales cycle.
Know who is responsible for each account and ensure that accounts are properly distributed to sales reps.
Understand what a lead needs to continue their journey by removing any barriers that arise.
3. Build a strong lead generation strategy
“The best way to ensure that your ADRs/SDRs have a full sales pipeline is to implement a robust lead generation strategy,” says Will Yang, Head of Growth at Instrumentl.
Without a system for generating qualified leads, you end up with an empty sales pipeline and revenue decline. However, before implementing a lead generation strategy, Yang recommends identifying your target market and creating buyer personas. “Once you know your ideal customers, create content that addresses their specific pain points and buying signals.”
The next step is to make sure you optimize your lead generation channels. Yang says, “Optimize your lead generation channels based on where your buyers show intent—whether that's your website, paid channels, or signal-based outbound.”
Pipeline generation: 4 ways to automate repeat business for your sales pipeline
4. Track customer job changes
This sales pipeline strategy is one of the most simple and effective ways of filling the pipeline with warm leads – tracking job changes of your previous customers.
According to Zippia, 37% of people changed their job in 2020. Tracking customer job changes is the only lead source that automatically grows when your company grows.
For example, if you have 10,000 customer contacts (including decision-makers, influencers, admin users, and power users):
2,000 of those are already at new companies, and
2,000 more will change their jobs in the next 12 months.
That's 4,000 leads for your pipeline this year—and these prospects already know your product from their previous companies.
They're more likely to respond and buy again, which means higher conversion rates and lower cost per lead.
During times of uncertainty, businesses tighten their spending and are more hesitant to buy new tools. Having internal champions who have used your product to advocate during a deal could make a huge difference in whether you make the sale or not.
Read how UserTesting hit an 18X ROI by monitoring their customers for job changes.
Your pipeline strategy drives revenue growth
B2B sales teams need a pipeline full of qualified leads to hit their numbers. You need a pipeline strategy that creates a steady stream of leads for your reps.
Creating a sales process will help align the team on what to do at each stage to achieve their revenue targets. And by making sure your pipeline strategy includes tracking past prospects, there’ll be more than enough qualified leads for your team to pursue.
Boost your sales pipeline with UserGems
Tracking job changes helps you fill your pipeline with warm leads. Pipeline generation software like UserGems automates this process. Schedule a demo call to see how you can get quality leads delivered to your target accounts.
EMAIL COURSE: Turn new hires into pipeline
