Sales Training: Pipeline theories that work – Analyzing a process

It is Tuesday evening in Memphis Tennessee and I just finished presenting to a great group of Regional Managers at Henry Schein. This is the first moment since my fantastic and kidless weekend with the Wife that I have had a chance to write.We are picking up where we left off on pipeline, and hopefully you have downloaded the Focus tool from firstborder.com. If not, here is the link:

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

Let’s now get granular and dig into what this tool and its simple methodology are all about. Colin’s wisdom is outlined in a great whitepaper that accompanies the Focus tool. It is the “15 second sales review”. You can download it here:

http://firstborder.com/pdf/15_second_sales_review.pdf

This is a fantastic read, and it parallels almost every bit of how I used to manage my own pipeline. I managed my funnel of leads, my pipeline, and my deals won or lost by adding in the subject in or out. In meant I was currently in control and providing data points to my prospect. Out meant I was currently stuck in a holding pattern as the buyer controlled the process. My out’s were glossed over on a weekly basis and it made it much easier for me to address the viable opportunities at hand. I was able to review my pipeline and determine my real opportunities in a matter of minutes.

If I had Focus back then, with its ability to splinter off the deals by sales or buying process, I would have easily shrunk that review down to seconds. What I called in and out, Colin calls upside and commit. What I saw as my control or the buyers control, he sees as who is in charge of the process.

I would use my pipeline and the status of my in accounts to determine what I needed to do to be successful in any given period. If I had a meaty group of deals in my pipeline and expected most of them to close, I would focus first on getting those deals locked up, the prospect for new opportunities. If I had a slew of those deals in jeopardy, I would make saving these opportunities my focus. Every once in a great while, my pipeline would look thin, that is when I got my fingers in shape and DIALED, DIALED, DIALED!

It was easy for me to direct my attention the activity that would keep an even flowing pipeline from funnel to deal. If I was struggling, or my pipeline was getting clogged in any one stage, I could get the help or training I needed to continue the process effectively. What always surprised me was how much time my counterparts spent trying to figure out what stage each of their prospects was in. Often they spend more time chasing the unknown than actually managing goals and objectives. I also watched as my colleagues spent their time focusing on opportunities that they had no chance of closing, or at least no chance of closing soon. They did this and kept their pipeline flush with these opportunities to avoid having to make the calls in the early stage of the process. They looked and acted busy, but never hit their numbers.

As a Coach, I struggled initially with my first team’s ignorance to pipeline development. It seemed so obvious to me, yet even to this day, I probably spend 40-50% of my initial work with a rep teaching them how build a strong and consistent pipeline. Usually there is an expectation that things come with hard work and they neglect smart work. The things to teach your reps are:

1. Prospect and cold call every day. Generate more leads than you can manage.
2. Create objectives for communication. Deliver to these goals and objectives as often as possible.
3. Build a pipeline of viable and interested prospects. Weed out the fluff now.
4. Three slips equal a lost sale. Start over with someone else, because too much time has already been spent with this account. Unless it is work 30+% of your annual quota, move on! If you have run the sales cycle properly, if the opportunity is really there they will come back to you. When they do, enjoy the extra revenue.
5. Ask for help. The ego has no place in the pipeline. Make it very clear to your team that you are 100% committed to their success. If they do not come to you for education, and you continue to offer, you may have made an error in hiring judgment. The greats want to learn to get better.

For all of the promoting of his methodologies, Colin owes me a pint when I hop over to his Island. Seriously, he has a solid system that compounds and simplifies a lot of my own philosophies. Salespeople need a path, and if they learn how to pave, it makes the entire process smooth.

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