How do you track your sales pipeline? Can you improve your method?
There’s little doubt amongst salespeople that a sales pipeline is crucial to meeting your sales goals. If you sell anything, you already have a pipeline, whether you’re aware of it or not.
Documenting your sales cycle and processes can help your reps organize new leads that are coming into the funnel and track follow-up actions. It really pays off! A study conducted by Vantage Point estimated businesses see a 15% increase in revenue when pipeline management is done well.
But, alarmingly, the same study found that 56% of respondents rated their effectiveness at managing pipelines as poor or neutral.
Maybe this is because many businesspeople try to track their sales pipeline in their heads. This is, undoubtedly, a bad idea. Others create and rely on spreadsheets - an upgrade from relying on memory and usually more suited to smaller management teams. Here are some of the pros and cons of using a spreadsheet to track your data.
What are some of the common pitfalls you face when trying to track your pipeline using a spreadsheet, and looking at this free template download, how could you improve your pipeline management?
