How many prospects do you have in your sales pipeline? Now how many of those prospects are moving forward?
Are you keeping prospects in your pipeline that have little chance of ever becoming a customer? If so, then you don’t have a sales pipeline. What you have is a sewer line.
One thing you can’t forget about sewer lines is when they get backed up, they stink! How bad does your sales pipeline stink?
Check out this 54 second video:
Putting prospects in your sales pipeline is what we as salespeople do. At the same time, we have to be mindful our job is not just to be putting them in on one end. Our job is to really be pulling them out of the opposite end as customers. That’s the pipeline we want.
Plugged or leaky pipes are not good!
If the prospects you have in your pipeline are not moving, then get them out of there. Put the ones that are not moving into another pipe — one that you aren’t focusing all of your attention on.
When we have too many prospects in our pipeline, we can quickly become overwhelmed. And in the end, we wind up not only hurting ourselves, but also denying great prospects the level of attention they deserve.
Your objective is to honestly assess the prospects you have and move aside those with little potential at this time. The most valuable asset you have is your time. Don’t waste it chasing stuff that simply has little value.
This issue of plugged pipes is not just a salesperson issue, but also a sales manager issue. I see too many salespeople keeping stuff in their pipe purely to keep their boss happy. News flash: If it’s not moving, it’s dead and it’s time to get the dead stuff buried and move on.
Am I being harsh? Yes, for one simple reason. As optimistic as we want to be, we have to live in the real world and use our time effectively.
Take the ones that aren’t going anywhere and move them to a different pipe you look at once a month. Allow Marketing to become the driver of these.
When they do spring back to life, then move them back to your sales pipeline, but in the mean time don’t let them turn your pipe into a sewer!
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Copyright 2017, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
