To a busy sales professional, there is perhaps no professional satisfaction like being eminently on top of one’s pipeline. When you understand your tasks and your timelines and you’ve plotted your workload such that projects come together painlessly within the course of the workday, it can feel almost euphoric.
In a perfect world, pipeline management would always be this effortless. Fulfilling work would well up out of nothing, be funneled into a productive day-to-day and emptied into a wellspring of personal accomplishment. Clients would pass along like rowboaters drifting downstream — and any efforts at ghosting would be frantic and comical paddling against the current.
Sometimes, though, pipelines need work. Perhaps the end of a quarter requires a more breathless sprint than had been anticipated. Or a much-deserving vacationer returns to find a pipeline runneth over. Intentionality and constant labor are required to stay abreast of one’s workload. And often the most productive members of a team are those who learn to relish the task of managing and maintaining those workflows.
Built In Colorado asked senior sales pros from Freshworks and Udemy to share some best practices that keep them engaged, productive and always able to tackle the next challenge.
Freshworks provides marketing, sales, support and IT software solutions for businesses of all sizes.
What’s the single most important best practice you follow when it comes to pipeline management?
Diligently qualifying the deals I am working on. On a weekly basis, I am checking in to confirm we have the right buyers involved and we are aligned on the decision criteria and timeline for project signature. I do this by giving my key deals a call or re-confirming these items during our scheduled meetings. Making sure deals are qualified should always be an ongoing process.
What’s one improvement you’ve made to your pipeline processes over time, and what impact has that had on your work?
Over time, I have made a habit of qualifying low-priority or low-value deals out of the sales process sooner than later. I have a strong understanding of customer buying signals and am always listening for signs customers are simply not ready or are dragging their feet. My goal is to only be spending time on deals that are actively looking to buy within the next few months and have a significant budget to spend. This helps me spend the majority of my time on large deals that are qualified, which allows me to retire my quota faster.
I have a strong understanding of customer buying signals.”
What’s a best practice you follow for monitoring your sales pipeline over time and keeping it clean and up to date?
As soon as I know a deal has gone dark or is not committing to next steps, I will remove the deal from my pipeline. I will run reports on a monthly basis on my closed lost opportunities to see if any of those deals are worth re-engaging or re-prospecting into. Oftentimes, I am able to re-engage them months down the line when they are ready to spend more time on the evaluation. This typically results in a faster sales cycle, and it is helpful to work with a lead who is already somewhat familiar with your brand.
Udemy operates a global marketplace for learning and teaching online. Udemy’s platform offers more than 213,000 courses and serves more than 57 million students.
What’s the single most important best practice you follow when it comes to pipeline management?
Find a tool that makes it easy to update your pipeline daily. At Udemy, we use BoostUp along with Salesforce. BoostUp helps me streamline operations, gives me a high-level view of my active pipeline and lets me make updates for multiple prospects with just a couple of clicks. It cuts down a lot of time-consuming, tedious work so I can focus on what matters.
Using this tool as part of my daily routine gives me confidence that my pipeline data is accurate. Because I constantly update my data, I can quickly find gaps, nurture open opportunities and stay on top of my mutual action plans.
What’s one improvement you’ve made to your pipeline processes over time, and what impact has that had on your work?
Any time I meet with an opportunity — no matter the stage — I always pull up the customer relationship management record so I can update my pipeline in real time. I can update the stage should the deal progress, fill out key information and make a plan for next steps like scheduling a follow-up call or sending nurturing campaigns. Ultimately, this saves me time throughout the day because I don’t have to update my pipeline retroactively.
I stay on top of my pipeline by prioritizing data hygiene as part of my daily routine.”
In addition to time savings, it also impacts my internal brand with our leadership team. They can always expect my opportunities to be up to date should they have a forecasting meeting or need to know where my opportunities stand. By being intentional and taking extra care of my pipeline, I built up my reputation and gained the trust of my leaders and peers. This helps me continuously grow my career at Udemy.
What’s a best practice you follow for monitoring your sales pipeline over time and keeping it clean and up to date?
I stay on top of my pipeline by prioritizing data hygiene as part of my daily routine. I make sure I protect this important time; I try not to make exceptions. This is when I’ll do a pipeline review, add detailed notes, make status updates and set up plans, all of which are key for maintaining a clean and current pipeline.
I make space for this in my workweek by setting designated times or days to review my pipeline, and I’ll use calendar blocks so I can focus on it. For example, I typically don’t have many external meetings on Fridays, so I always review my pipeline then. This way, I can start the following week with an updated pipeline and a quality plan of action, setting myself up for success.
