How to manage your sales pipeline effectively

If you’re in sales and you’re using a CRM, you don’t need to be reminded about the significance of a well-oiled sales pipeline. The challenge is: how do you manage it?

Here are a few tips that’ll help:

Make a clear list of deal stages

Every deal will travel through a certain number of stages in your business. Begin by defining these stages. It doesn’t matter if they are something as basic as New, Follow up, Under Review, Won, and Lost. With time, refine the stages to align with your business and your sales cycle.

Find a CRM with a visual sales pipeline

With one glance, you need to know exactly where a particular deal is in your pipeline. Different CRMs have different ways of showing you this info, like a funnel view (where deals are displayed horizontally, from entry stage to close) and a list view (where deals are displayed vertically). Pick whichever works for you, but remember the rule: one glance should tell you everything you need to know.

Follow up and keep updating deal details

Start your day by taking stock of your pipeline. It’s probably the last thing you did before you logged out last night; still, take a look. Did you send that follow-up mail to your new lead? That note on the $100K deal—has it been added? What about setting up the demo? CRMs also let you move a deal from one stage to another by simply dragging and dropping the deal.

Analyze your deals using reports

How long did it take for a particular deal to come through? How many deals did you close this quarter? What is the average value of your deals? Look for a CRM that helps you generate reports on such metrics. Closing deals is great—for today. Over the long term, knowing how your deals were closed is the recipe for successful pipeline management.

Looking for a tool that helps you effectively manage your sales pipeline? Try Free CRM Software