Sales Pipelines: Deal Stages in CRM

Previously, we discussed sales funnels that may be consulted by anyone in the organization to get a quick insight into conversion rates of leads and prospects. However, this post discusses sales pipelines as a more hands on task-centric tool for the sales team.

Each product, contract or sale may be represented by a unique 'deal'. These deals can be used to track the progress of making revenue in your business in a 'sales pipeline'. You may have as many sales pipelines as required to represent the different selling methodologies. For instance, you may have a regular sales pipeline (for first-time customers) and another called the 'customer renewal pipeline' (for repeat customers). NB CRM programs like HubSpot may offer only 1 sales pipeline in its free version.

Each deal will be attached to and therefore represent a ‘sales pipeline’, ie the sequential set of distinct deal ‘stages’ through which each contact proceeds before generating revenue. In other words, it shows the level of ‘opportunity’ ie the potential to generate revenue. In short, recording deals and their stages is a way of communicating that an opportunity is moving towards the point of closing (ie when the end goal, like purchase has occurred.

A pipeline = a set of deal stages

Uses & Benefits of a sales deal pipeline

• To predict revenue.
• To identify roadblocks in the sales process.
• To plan accordingly to meet sales targets. For instance, if you note your conversion rates from the first to last stage, you will know the approximate number of leads you need to make each sale. Alternatively, you may choose techniques like tentpole promotions to increase conversion and retain more leads.

Starting Point

Not all leads even enter the sales pipeline. They must qualify in order to enter, usually through some clear sign of buying intention.

In other words, the pipeline’s starting point occurs when there is a clear potential for a ‘revenue opportunity’, aka ‘an opportunity’, ie for the lead to generate revenue. This potential is determined objectively using criteria that are verifiable and customer-centric, like the actions and characteristics of the lead. From that point, the lead is said to become ‘qualified. Qualification examples include the following.

• Booking a meeting (to discuss your product)

Tracking the pipeline.

Tracking the pipeline involves identifying when a lead enters into a new stage, ie ‘qualifies’ to enter into a new stage. Identifying when leads enter into each new stage is done using the following objective criteria.

• Factual (ie rather than intuition). An action taken by and or identifying a characteristic of the lead is factual.
• Inspectable
• buyer-centric
• Repeatable / required by all leads. Disregard the odd, one-off case when leads may apparently skip a stage. Also note the stages and their starting points refer to function (not form). Example, whether a lead in my online business books a meeting in the conventional way, ie online or sets up the meeting casually at the vegetable market, the function is precisely the same, even though the form is not.

To plan the opportunity stages of a pipeline

The stages should involve an activity and a desired outcome that contributes to pushing the lead or prospect to the subsequent stage. The name of each stage and its starting point is written in bold. The indented lists show the questions that are asked by one or both party to qualify the other. The percentage at the end of each stage name represents the probability of closing. As time progresses, you can adjust these according to experience.

Here is a sales pipeline with customizable stages. Note that, as time progresses, you may need to examine and improve your pipeline. Always be guided by the buying process and your lead or prospect’s mindset at every stage.

As a rule of thumb, well thought out and shorter sales cycles usually signify a sales team that is more effective than otherwise. It is therefore useful to consider streamlining the sales process.

• Lead. (Automated as much as possible: landing page, qualification bots, qualification forms, etc)  (20%)
• Lead action re Awareness of product / skill
• Shows specific area(s) of interest (by selecting among types of subscription, etc)
• Reviews social proof (Facebook page, etc)
• Reviews ‘About Us’ page
• Your action: Offer free information to 1) develop product understanding, ordering skills and ability to qualify and 2) promote brand positioning
• Your action: Request contact details
• Live chat pre-chat form, mailing list
• Lead’s action: Builds brand experience via smaller, cheaper non-core product
• Your action: Offer small version of the core product
• Next step
• Book qualification meeting
• Qualified - in Initial Discussion (40%)
• Lead’s needs
• Lead’s questions
• The process, price, options
• Awareness of product / skill
• Social proof, etc
• Rank lead’s qualification
• Tier 1 (like a target customer profile / TCP, certain trouble ticket categories, etc)
• Tier 2
• Invite to book a meeting
• Trouble ticket
• Booked a negotiation meeting (proposals) (60%)
• Reconfirm customer needs & objectives
• Specific deliverables
• a, b, c
• Terms of sale
• Price
• Delivery method(s)

--- confident, most likely to commit stage ---

• Decision-maker bought in (80%)
• Send a contract  (90%) (a summary / confirmation of meeting outcomes)
• Customer needs & objectives
• Terms of sale
• Price
• Delivery method(s)
• Deliverables
• 
  
• Closed the deal - won (100%)
• Order confirmation
• Progress report (tracking)
• Loyalty program
• Evangelize
• Social media reviews, likes, etc
• poster
• Closed the deal - lost  (0%)
• Reasons for loss (competition, timing, poor qualification, cultural perceptions, etc)
• Check back later (when prospect not yet ready)

CONTENT RELATED TO SALES PIPELINES

• Invest most of your marketing efforts in your target customer profile (TCP) to be more efficient and profitable.
• Sales funnels may be consulted by anyone in an organization to get a quick insight into conversion rates of leads and prospects. However, sales pipelines are more hands on task-centric tool for the sales team.
• Instructions: Create and edit deals and sales pipelines in HubSpot CRM
• Sales pipelines for 100+ cases are best managed by a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program
• Segment your marketing based on your prospect's stage through the sales pipeline. Example of stages include the following.
• new prospect
• hot prospects: are actively engaged, possibly in meetings
• warm prospects: already has brand and product awareness but give no response either way regarding their opportunity potential.
• cold prospects: will not commit within the immediate future.
• closed prospects: have demonstrated a clear disinterest for life.