Pipeline management for businesses

‍What is pipeline management?

Pipeline management can be described as the process of managing incoming sales opportunities and tracking them across the different stages of the prospect’s sales journey until they are closed. This is a way for companies to identify where their money is flowing and enable them to then easily direct that money to places where it will be most productive. Pipeline management is there to effectively manage a company’s sales pipeline. A sales pipeline can be an organised, visual way of tracking potential buyers as they move through the stages of the purchasing process using presents in either a funnel or horizontal bar. Managing this sales pipeline is important for many different reasons which will be discussed below.

‍Benefits of pipeline management in business

There are many benefits to managing your business's sales pipeline. The first is it enables managers to accurately predict future revenues in your company. This is beneficial as all companies need a good understanding of their cash flow in order to make any future decisions. Another benefit of managing your pipeline is this helps to deeply analyse your company’s sales processes and enables them to identify where may need improving. This will allow them to act upon this and provide further training to areas where it is needed. A third benefit is that managing your company’s sales pipeline will alert the managers where there may be a potential sales slump or growth in the future. This is beneficial as this will make it easier to predict any funding that may be needed or not needed.

How to effectively manage pipeline for businesses:

Below are some ways to effectively manage your sales pipeline in your business. 

- Monitor metrics: monitoring the key sales metrics will help you to keep up to date with how your sales pipeline is performing. Some examples of sales metrics to monitor are the number of deals at a time, the value of these deals and the sales velocity.

- Sales team management: ensuring your sales team are all on the same page in terms of how they are selling is an important factor to consider when managing your sales pipeline for your business. Ensure you give them a clear view of the company's targets and how they are supposed to achieve this.

- Tool integration: implementing a CRM tool to help manage your sales pipeline is always a good idea. This will help you to accurately track each stage of the pipeline and see exactly what stage each customer is at without much trouble. Using a CRM software will also free up some of your time to help focus on up-selling products too!