What is a sales pipeline and how can you use it to optimize your sales cycles?

Building your sales processes is the first step in your sales strategy. These processes must be adapted to the needs of your customers and your company, in order to promote acquisition and conversion. These processes, known as the " sales pipeline", represent a real performance lever for your sales teams.

The sales pipeline will give you a clearer picture of all your sales stages, from first contact to contract signature. It's an indispensable tool for effective sales management. Thanks to it, your teams can monitor the progress of their prospects and implement potential corrective actions.

But what is a sales pipeline actually used for? How can you build it efficiently, while adapting it to your prospects' needs? Find out in this article.

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Sales pipeline: definition

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline, or its synonym " sales pipeline", is a sales tool that enables you to visualize your sales process, from making contact to closing the sale. The aim of these processes is to turn a prospect into a customer. Your sales pipeline is therefore an indispensable tool for converting your customers.

👉 A sales pipeline is particularly useful for sales teams who have to manage and follow up many prospects and customers.

How the sales pipeline works

How does it work? It's very simple. It breaks down your sales processes into small, easy-to-follow tasks. This makes it :

• know more easily what stage your prospects are at;
• know where in your sales process your conversions are failing;
• better manage lead development;
• identify the key stages in your conversions.

3 examples of a sales pipeline

How to create a sales pipeline in 5 steps?

Step 1: Know your offer and your customers' needs

Before defining your sales process, and therefore your sales pipeline, it's essential to know and understand..:

• The product or service you're selling : this will enable you to present your offer more confidently and counter potential objections from your future customer.
• Your customers' needs : knowing your potential customers is a key factor in the success of your negotiations. You'll know exactly which levers to use to trigger a sale.
  👉 The SONCAS method enables you to improve your knowledge even further by identifying your prospects' personality traits.
• Your sales pitch : your sales pitch needs to be convincing to prove to your prospect that your solution is the one that will best meet their needs.

Step 2: Define the stages of your pipeline

The stages of your sales pipeline must correspond to your customer's buying journey. So, the more complex the product, the longer the sales process, and the more stages in your pipeline.

There are 3 main phases through which the prospect passes:

• Awareness: the prospect becomes aware of his need and/or problem.
• Consideration: the prospect has defined his or her problem, and now determines evaluation criteria and learns about the solutions available to him or her.
• Decision : the prospect is now ready to take action and make a purchasing decision.

The different stages of a sales pipeline are as follows:

• Contact: the prospect makes contact with your company. This can take the form of :
  • participation in a webinar,
  • a download
  • opening an e-mail...
• Appointment: following a canvass or telephone conversation, the prospect accepts an appointment to find out more about your proposed solution.
• Meeting over : the prospect now has all the information he needs to make his choice.
• Solution proposed: the prospect is genuinely interested in your product.
• Offer sent: the prospect studies your offer.

Then you're faced with two situations:

• the deal is signed.
• the deal is lost.

Step 3: Track and analyze your prospects' behavior

Your sales teams need to evaluate how long your prospects spend at each stage of the sales pipeline. This shows you approximately how long it takes to convert your prospects into customers.

It will also help your teams to :

• forecast the next steps in the pipeline;
• predict which opportunities are most likely to turn into deals;
• estimate the percentage of prospects who go on to the next stage (the average conversion rate).

Step 4: Identify and improve the actions most effective in converting your prospects

It's also important to assess which tools and types of content have helped your prospects convert into customers. But that's not all. Identify the actions carried out by your teams that enabled the prospect to move on to the next stage in the pipeline. These may include :

• watching a video,
• reading an article,
• help and guidance from a salesperson or online advisor,
• customer reviews on the official website,
• a CTA (call-to-action) button on the mailbox or website,
• a newsletter, etc.

💡 Tip: using a solution specialized in lead conversion can be a great help. Indeed, thanks to visual dashboards updated in real time, you can simply measure the impact of your actions on your sales pipeline.

Software examples:

• Sellsy is a French sales management solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Sellsy's dynamic, intuitive pipeline views help you keep track of sales and avoid missing out on business opportunities . Everything can be configured according to the stages of your sales pipeline, as well as the probability rate to be assigned to each stage. And thanks to the automation and tracking systems, you're sure to follow up your prospects at the right time!
  
  
• Webmecanik Pipeline is a free, French-language, highly intuitive CRM that helps you build solid customer relationships through effective sales pipelines. With features powered by the intelligence of Big Data, you can easily organize opportunities using modern pipeline views, including the stages specific to your conversion cycle. What's more? Webmecanik Pipeline tells you the percentage of future sales based on the progress of your opportunities, your conversion rate, and the average time to closing.
  

Step 5: Create or adapt your sales process

Now that you have all the information you need to create an optimal, tailored sales pipeline, define your sales funnel. You may also find these additional tasks useful:

• analyze all the sales you've made to identify your strengths;
• improve your overall business strategy based on pipeline data;
• evaluate the effectiveness of your sales pipeline on your sales.

Creating a sales pipeline is no easy task.

You can help yourself with a specialized sales pipeline automation tool such as Blacksales. This complete, stand-alone, tailor-made prospecting solution enables you to :

• constantly generate new opportunities
• structure your sales pipeline in real time.

What's more? Thanks to an automated outbound marketing system , the platform sends out personalized follow-ups directly to prospects, so your sales force never misses an opportunity!

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Why build a sales pipeline?

Are you still wondering what a sales pipeline can do for your sales strategy? Here are the main benefits:

Define your objectives more clearly

A sales pipeline will enable you to visualize your objectives more clearly, at every stage of your sales process. This makes it easier to track progress and take corrective action if targets are not met.

For example : you know that your conversion rate is 25%. When an opportunity is detected, you know that you need X opportunities in the pipeline to reach your target. You can analyze the conversion or evolution rate by stage and determine the number of opportunities required at each stage.

👉 Tip: Implement outbound marketing "push actions" to accelerate prospect transformation.

Prioritize opportunities to relaunch

Time is money. So what better way than to prioritize your sales opportunities and deal only with the most relevant ones?

👉 The sales pipeline enables you to quickly detect opportunities so you can define the actions to be taken. In this way, you can quickly identify time-consuming tasks, which you can automate using a specialized tool.

Better track your prospects' buying journey

Of course, sales reps are supposed to know the buying journey of every type of prospect, but creating a sales pipeline will make their job easier and give them a much more optimal view.

👉 Knowing in detail all the stages a prospect goes through enables sales reps to activate the right levers at the right time.

Identify weak points in your sales cycle more quickly

Knowing at which stage the most prospects are lost, enables sales reps to quickly implement corrective actions.

For example : if you realize that a large proportion of your prospects are lost at the "Proposed Solution" stage, you need to start researching your sales force and these prospects to find out what is holding them back. Ask yourself the right questions:

• How is the solution not adapted to their needs?
• What are the most common disincentives?
• Should sales rethink their sales pitches?

Define the steps that convert best

The opposite also applies. It's important to identify the steps or actions that significantly improve your conversion rate. This enables you to focus on the right actions, and thus further promote their success.

For example : you've realized that the "Appointment setting" stage is helping your prospects move forward. This shows that your sales people have an effective sales pitch that convinces prospects and moves them on to the next stage.