Sales Training: Pipeline theories that work – A prologue to a process

I am so absolutely grateful to be posting my first article on my NEW BLOG!!!!! Thank you all for your patience as we work towards making this community as hospitable and educational as possible. It has been a long and rewarding day, one filled with challenges and success. With that said, I am feeling a bit riled up at the moment and it is going to lead to quite a post!

Now:

This post and the two that follow it on pipeline development are going to utterly irritate the philosophers of the old world. However, one budding friend and esteemed colleague, Colin Wilson of First Border, will support most if not all of what I say. What I am going to start with, IS HOW AMERICAN BUSINESS PROFFESSIONALS FORECAST IS BULL HOOEY!!!!That’s right BULL HOOEY! How on earth can someone gauge that there is a 50% chance of this coming in, and a 60% chance of that coming in. It is not efficient, and makes pipeline development a form of alchemy instead of the honed craft it should be.

It is unfortunate that we have become mired as a sales society into these algorithms of conjecture, for they cost us TIME, MONEY, AND SALES!!!So what is my issue with these percentages based forecasts? For starters, it forces sales reps to hide deals or over exaggerate their goals to please management. If places the burden of understanding who the optimist is and who the pessimist is on the sales manager, and forces the Directors and VP’s to sweat bullets as they present their voodoo numbers to the executive staff. It also has a habit of costing an otherwise fine CEO his job.

So right now, many of you are probably staring at the screen and thinking, OK then if not percentage based forecasts, then what? How about we just put the deals that are going to close where they belong and look at that from top to bottom?There are several tools for making this happen.

First, download Focus from Colin Wilson’s website:

http://www.firstborder.com/sales-tools/#download

This is a trial version, and if you get the hang of it, you will see the value. I am going to go into greater depths on how to maximize the value of a simple process like Colin’s tool Focus in my next post, after you have had a chance to play with it a bit. For now I will just state that it breaks the pipeline into two very real sections of opportunity development.

1. What is currently in your control
2. What is currently not in your control

With this simple design and review process, your management team can see what is viable and what you cannot promise is going to happen. What a major load off for the powers that be. Now I have to warn you, and will try to supply the meds in the next post, but this is going to cause a major sickness as you break the habits of your old ways. Here is what you are going to have to do:

1. Be honest with yourself and your team leaders as to who is in control of the sales stage
2. Only place deals in your side of control that are viable and you are actively moving forward.
3. Place ALL, yes I said, ALL of your opportunities in the pipeline.
4. Build the FUNNEL properly! If you do not work on the lead side, you will NEVER get to the “Lot’s of Deal’s” side.
5. Get constant feedback from your management team on how accurate your forecasting was.
6. Monitor for yourself how accurate you are at forecasting.

We will go deep into these plans in the next couple of posts, but for now I have one more serious suggestion:Look at your pipeline as your commission calculator, another place Colin and I agree. Budget your life according to your pipeline. If you have a partner, include them in your pipeline analysis. If you base your wages on what you are telling management and your partner you are going to accomplish, you will either hit very close to the mark, or have hell at home and work. One way or another you will adapt.

Until tomorrow…

Book Review: “Selling To Vito the Very Important Top Officer” – Anthony Parinello »« Coffee Break: The new site launch