Throw Away Your Sales Pipeline

I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea of the sales pipeline, right? When managers draw this on the board, you’ll notice that it looks like a funnel, with the top being big and the bottom being smaller. The idea is they want you to go out and cold call, prospect and generate as many leads as you can and put all these leads into your pipeline. Then you, and your manager, hope and pray that some of them actually turn into deals!

That’s the basic idea and that’s how virtually every sales company I’ve ever worked with or read about run their sales departments.

And there are even ratios and numbers that they assign to measure this. Out of 10 leads they might close one deal, or out of 15 leads close one or two deals, and so on.

Again, this is how 80 to 90% of salespeople and companies run their business.

But not the Top 20%

You see there are problems with the pipeline idea. The biggest problem is that 80% of all salespeople are more focused on putting prospects into their pipeline than they are on really qualifying who goes in it.

Their motto is, “If I throw enough crap on the wall, some of it will stick.” Well, excuse the pun, but that method stinks. And top closers know this.

The Top 20% have thrown their pipeline away and instead they use a sales cylinder. When you draw this on the board, the top end is the same width as the bottom end. The Top 20% want as many leads to come out as they put in, so they spend most of their time disqualifying prospects and only let in the select few who are highly qualified and likely to buy.

The Top 20% know they don’t need practice pitching unqualified leads; rather they need practice finding real buyers. Because of this, the Top 20% usually generate the lowest number of leads in the office but have the highest closing ratios of the sales team.

What can you do to exchange your sales pipeline for a sales cylinder? Follow this five-step process:

Number 1: Look at all the leads currently in your pipeline and assign a #1 to the ones you know or are pretty sure will buy, a #2 to those that might buy (but you’re not sure of), and a #3 to those you have no idea about or probably won’t – be brutally honest.

Number 2: Close and keep track of your closing ratios on each batch of leads (#1’s, #2’s, #3’s). Your closing ratio on your #1 leads should be pretty darn good, while your #3 leads probably didn’t close at all (right?).

Number 3: Because of the BIG difference in closing ratios, make a commitment right now to never send out #3 leads EVER AGAIN.

Number 4: Make your new goal to always close at or better than your closing percentage of #1 leads.

Number 5: Be ruthless regarding the kinds of prospects you now let into your sales cylinder. Primarily #1’s and only sometimes #2’s should be let in.

Bottom line – If you want to become a Top 20% closer, then you have to stop spending time with unqualified leads and start spending time finding, qualifying and closing real buyers.

Tip for this week: Draw a picture of a cylinder on a big piece of paper and tape it above your desk. Ask yourself from now on, “Does this lead deserve to go into my cylinder?”