Not to be confused with a sales funnel – which looks at the whole customer journey and the various stages a consumer will go through in their journey towards purchase – a sales pipeline looks at the different steps in the sales process, from gaining the lead to closing the sale. It is brand-focused, in that it looks internally at the stages that your sales and marketing teams need to move a prospect through in order to gain a customer and retain them.

And while you could do an internet search and come up with various numbers of stages – and numerous names for them – that people feel are in a sales pipeline, these seven are generally considered to be the “standard” stages for a business that follows a typical sales process.

1) Lead Generation: Sometimes called prospecting, lead gen is typically done through advertising to let your potential customers know that you exist, community initiatives/volunteering/giving back, or other promotional activities.

2) Lead Qualification: At this step, you are determining if a viable opportunity is worth adding to the pipeline and adding applicable information into your CRM. Also at this point, you have to consider if this marketing qualified lead (MQL) has the potential to become a sales accepted lead (SAL) or sales qualified lead (SQL).

3) Initiate Contact: Here’s where the real work begins in the various pipeline stages, as this is where the sales rep attempts to contact the lead to understand their business and requirements. This stage will help you map your business services against the lead’s needs.

4) Schedule a Meeting and/or Demo: So you have had your initial conversation with the lead. If the lead is convinced that your services could possibly be a solution for them, you may schedule a demo during this pipeline stage. You may also try to set up a meeting with the decision maker with a goal of negotiating the deal.

5) Negotiation: Many salespeople will tell you that the negotiation stage of the pipeline process is the most exciting to them. This is where top sellers separate themselves from others. And in a perfect world, your proposal would check every box, and your prospect would immediately sign on the dotted line. But in the real world, this doesn’t happen often. The goal of your negotiation is to find common ground. Sometimes it’s simple, and other times it seems like a struggle. Be prepared for everything that the prospect could throw at you, and rely on your experience to bring you across the finish line.

6) Closing the Deal: Here’s the coveted finish line! You found and qualified the lead, provided a proposal during a meeting/demo, and successfully negotiated a deal that works for everyone. But before you get too excited, you still need to close the deal, and that only comes when you have a signed contract in your hand – and not a moment before.

7) Post-Purchase: Now that the contract is signed, it’s time to seal a positive future relationship and you do that by providing exceptional service during onboarding and regularly monitoring the account’s progress. At opportune times, you can cross-sell existing customers on new services and upsell them on premium solutions. When the contract is about to expire, you can explore renewal options with them. And among your happiest clients, don’t forget to ask for referrals to other potential customer

“AdVic has become a true business partner for us. We are seeing improved sales rep morale due to system simplicity, speed of execution for quoting, and accuracy of data entered into the system. Every interaction with the team has been positive and their work is top notch.” – Ryan Hesske, Sales Operation Manager, ConnectWise

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Salesforce, the world’s leading CRM platform, helps you streamline, manage, and track your sales process and pipeline – so your team can close the deal more times than they are today. And as a Salesforce Partner, the AdVic® Consulting Team has the breadth of experience to quickly implement a CRM system that will make your sales team’s pipeline steps a seamless success. Let’s get your business on the road to closing more deals today! Schedule a call with us below.

Related Resources: 

How to Improve Sales Forecasting in Salesforce with AI

Salesforce Tools for Retailers

Inside a Salesforce Implementation from Initiation to Go-Live

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As the world evolves in the way we buy and sell, now more than ever is the time for sales teams to focus on relationships and genuinely understanding the needs of our customers in order to fulfill their needs, and provide them with solutions to help expand their businesses.

To that end, in a recent AdVic “Salesforce Simplified” podcast, Diane Helbig, Chief Improvement Catalyzer at Helbig Enterprises, explained – among other things – the importance of sales teams engaging with prospects to gain accurate insight into their needs, along with the parallels that come with relationship development and business growth. 

What are sales managers getting right and wrong these days?

“What they are getting right is that they understand that sales is about relationships and that it’s important for their salespeople to be out having conversations with people who may or may not be prospects. The ones that are doing it right also understand that continuing to nurture those relationships is really important. It’s just not hunt and kill. It’s hunt, kill, nurture, because more business comes from those relationships.

“I would say the ones who are doing it wrong are the ones who are expecting their salespeople to behave in ways that are unnatural for that salesperson. That they’re saying, ‘Do it my way. It worked for mem so do this,’ and that behavior isn’t right for that salesperson, and so they try. They struggle. They don’t succeed. They leave. And there’s that revolving door thing in the sales department that actually negatively impacts the company on a huge level. I mean, outside of the cost of that, there’s a reputation cost that goes along with it.”

Bottom line:

• Understand the importance of building and maintaining relationships.
• From existing relationships comes opportunity for growth in new relationships.
• Allow flexibility; salespeople should have the flexibility to communicate with prospects in a way that they are comfortable.
• Not allowing individuality can negatively impact business.

What are your top tips for struggling companies to help them increase their sales productivity and bring those deals to a close?

“I think my biggest tip is listen more than you speak, ask really meaningful questions, and make sure you get answers to them. I think a lot of times the reason why salespeople aren’t able to close is because they might ask a somewhat uncomfortable question like about the budget. And when the prospect doesn’t answer it, they move on instead of really going to that topic and understanding that… The salesperson has to know the answers to all of the questions in order to be able to propose accurately, so make sure that you’re asking the questions. And if the prospect is uncomfortable answering it, ask them why. This is about a relationship. You’re allowed to say, ‘Could you help me understand why this is a subject that you don’t feel comfortable talking about or that you don’t feel comfortable sharing with me? Because in order for me to determine whether I can help you or not, I need to know the answer to this.’”

Bottom line:

• Listen to understand.
• Ask necessary and ‘hard’ questions to correctly understand customer needs.

Has the way companies hire salespeople changed in recent years?

“That’s such an interesting question. A lot of companies are looking for those people who understand it’s not one and done. It’s not churn and burn. That their job is not to be slick and eloquent and persuasive. That their job really is to partner with the prospect to problem solve. And that it is about the relationship and that’s what sets the company in the best possible light. They are looking for a different kind of salesperson and thank goodness because it’s more effective.”

Bottom line:

Companies have come to the realization that salespeople should:

• Understand the importance of long-lasting relationships.
• Know that sales is a relationship that has potential to grow and multiply.

What’s the next big thing in the world of sales? What are you talking to your clients about? 

“This may sound a little strange, but from everything I’m seeing, the trend is going toward getting very individually connected with clients, whether you sell B2B or B2C, really getting in there and learning as much as you can about them, about what they need as it relates to what you do, but also what they need as it doesn’t relate to what you do, and being that partner with their client.

“Being a problem solver for the client on a greater scale makes that relationship deeper, more sustainable and longer term, and it opens up a lot more opportunity than the way sales has been in the past with getting the business and then moving on.”

Bottom line:

• Customize client interactions; know who you are selling to. 
• Provide solutions to your clients.

Reach Diane Helbig via the Helbig Enterprizes website.

Related Resource:

Podcast: Turn Sales In Selling Machines, CRMs, AI, and More 

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