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Pipeline management is an extension of CRM that helps sales teams forecast and manage sales. It involves analyzing products and services, lead generation, sales forecasting, and analyzing data to improve the sales process.
Pipeline management is an extension of customer relationship management (CRM). A sales team uses this process to forecast sales, manage their timing, and ultimately make further sales. The more objective a sales team is in managing the sales funnel, the more accurate the measurement.
The pipeline management process might begin with reviewing a company’s products and services to determine the sales potential of each product and service. This analysis could help the sales team discover where small changes to products or services could increase the team’s ability to sell more items or services. During this stage of the process, the sales team might work with the engineering team or other members of the company to implement product changes that the company believes are necessary to improve sales.
The lead generation process overhaul may come later. The number of sales the team needs to generate to close a certain number of sales is an important measure for the sales team. The sales team might look into how they build interest in the company’s sales offerings to attract potential buyers of those products. Once interested parties enter the sales funnel, the sales team usually determines how to properly handle those leads in order to make sales to as many leads as possible.
Forecasting sales and expected revenue for each sale is typically the next step in the pipeline management process. Sales team members need to estimate the strength of a given lead and what products and services the lead might buy. Using a software tool to make these predictions based on historical information generally allows the sales team to make more accurate predictions. This step in the pipeline management process is often the most difficult, due to inaccuracies in the estimating process.
As the sales team moves through the sales process and into CRM, members must analyze the data collected during the process. The data elements will help the team see issues and patterns in the process. Once the issues are understood, the sales team can develop a plan to work around those issues and close the sale. The team can analyze patterns within the process to find what worked well and repeat the same steps with other leads to close the sale.
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