EFFECTIVE SALES TRACKING

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CONTENTS
1. What is a Sales Pipeline and How Does it Help With Sales Tracking?
! earn what a sales pipeline is and how you can visualize it as a funnel with a few L simple stages ........................................................................................................... 2

2. Stage 1: Incoming
! his is the rst stage of a sales pipeline. All your incoming leads and outbound lead T targets start in this stage .......................................................................................... 4

3. Stage 2: Qualied
! ny lead that is qualied to be a good t for your business is moved into this second A funnel stage ............................................................................................................. 7

4. Stage 3: Quote
! hen youre ready to provide your prospect with a price quote, the lead moves into W this third stage .......................................................................................................... 8

5. Stage 4: Closure
! oure almost there. Follow up with your lead, answer any additional questions and Y close the deal! .......................................................................................................... 9

6. Stage 5: Won or Loss

7. Getting Started
! earn how a simple CRM app can help you turbo-charge sales tracking in minutes L by putting a sales pipeline to work for your business .............................................. 13

WHAT IS A SALES PIPELINE AND HOW DOES IT HELP WITH SALES TRACKING?

In simple terms, a sales pipeline is a visual framework that will improve your sales tracking by illustrating the amount of business your company attempts to win over a period of time. A sales pipeline helps you to better understand your companys sales and helps you to make informed decisions that will improve your sales process and grow your business. Picture your sales pipeline as a funnel with a few simple stages. These stages help you to clearly organize leads and visualize whats in your pipeline. And much like a real-life funnel, a sales funnel begins with a wide opening at the top and narrows as you go further down. Lets look at a snapshot of an example sales funnel.

INCOMING QUALIFIED QUOTE CLOSURE WON

UNQUALIFIED

LOST

The rst (and widest) stage of the funnel is the Incoming stage. This is where you gather all business leads for initial processing. Any lead that is a good t for your business is then moved to the Qualied stage for follow-up (leads that are not t for your business get parked in the Unqualied stage). After successful follow-up, a lead

moves to a Quote stage for price quoting, and then to a Closure stage for nal negotiations. Last but not least, a deal thats won moves to a Won stage, while one thats lost moves to a Lost stage.

Using a simple sales pipeline will help you track sales, visualize leads, and organize your follow-ups. And most importantly, a sales pipeline will give your business a wealth of information like why deals are won or lost, where your leads come from, and how your leads translate to sales. This is critical information that will help improve your sales process and help you win more deals.

Lets look at the this example sales pipeline in more depth, taking it one stage at a time.

STAGE 1: INCOMING

The rst (and widest) stage of a sales pipeline is the Incoming stage. This is the stage where all your business leads begin. Leads in this Incoming stage can include both incoming leads (such as ones from your website or from a customer referral) as well as outbound leads (such as a target list of cold call prospects you wish to call). You can think of this Incoming stage as the clearinghouse for all your leads.

Your leads will come from a broad variety of sources. One very important data point you need to track for every lead is its source - where did it come from? For example, did the lead come from your website? Did it come from a newspaper ad? By capturing this information, you'll be able to better understand which of your lead generation efforts are most successful and understand which lead sources are most likely to produce winning deals for your business.

Naturally though, not all the leads in your Incoming stage will be a good t for your business. With so many things to do and so little time to do them, one major pitfall you want to avoid is wasting precious time chasing leads that aren't a good t for your business from the get-go. That's why it's so important to qualify your leads.

Qualifying leads is a critical activity you'll need to perform upfront for leads in your Incoming bucket. If a lead is qualied, move it to the Qualied stage (the next stage in the funnel). If a deal isn't qualied for your business, move it to the Unqualied stage and don't spend any more time on it.

A Qualied lead is one that's a good t for your business. To gure out whether a lead is qualied, ask yourself the following questions:

Is the prospect a strategic customer? Is this prospect a high-prole customer that you'd like to include in your portfolio for testimonial purposes? Is it a customer from whom you expect substantial work in the future? If one of your leads is of strategic importance to your business, you'll want to make extra efforts to win the deal.

Can the lead afford your service? Be true to your pricing for your goods and services. If a lead is operating with a budget well below your price point, it's unlikely that they'll be interested in the price quote that you send them down the road.

Can you deliver the work that the lead is asking for? It is important to examine the scope of a project from a lead and make sure that (i) the project is the kind of work that your business excels at, and (ii) your business has the time and resources to complete the project.

When does your lead need you to deliver? If your lead is perfect in every way except that they don't need your help for months or even years, it makes little sense to spin cycles and spend a large amount of time on the lead now beyond the occasional contact. Place this lead in your CRM and make a note to follow-up down the road.

Do you have a relatively high chance of closing the deal? Focus a good deal of your time on the 20% of deals that have the highest chance of closing

Answering these questions will help you to identify your qualied leads; those are the leads that should be moved into the Qualied stage of your pipeline.

STAGE 2: QUALIFIED

When you've determined that a specic lead is a qualied one (a good t) for your business, it's time to build a relationship with your prospect and start getting the wheels in motion towards winning the deal.

The Qualied stage is where you learn about the specics of a deal and start building a relationship with your prospect. During this phase of the selling process, you might exchange phone calls and emails or you might give presentations and conduct meetings to convince your prospect that your company is the best one for the job.

Your goal during this stage will be to progress the discussions and relationship to the point where your prospect requests a formal quote or price sheet for your business. The type of business and scale of the project will dictate the length of time you'll spend in the Qualied stage. For example, if you are selling ofce supplies, it may take one phone call to move to a quoting stage. However, if you are an architect pitching a building design, this stage may last months.

As soon as your prospect formally requests a price quote from you, the lead moves into the next stage of the funnel, which is the Quote stage.

STAGE 3: QUOTE

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