ebook

Sales
pipeline
course
Timo Rein
Pipedrive co-founder

Urmas Purde
Pipedrive co-founder
Contents

01 The numbers game 07 Velocity

02 Activity goals 08 Pipeline flushing

03 Sales stages 09 Time management

04 More deals 10 Need vs. like

05 Bigger deals 11 Keeping track

06 Conversion 12 Software matters

A note from the authors

We’ve built sales software for more than ten years and
spent the previous 10-plus years in sales management.
Now, we’ve compressed our sales pipeline knowledge into
12 chapters over 48 pages.

Each of the 12 “lessons” can significantly grow your sales. If

you apply everything you learn during this course, you are
guaranteed to reap the rewards in increased revenue.

This ebook is for people who want to get more out of their
sales pipeline, independent of whether they are seasoned
sales pros or just starting out.

There is no “magic formula”. Achieving results requires

some work and you must be willing to change certain
behaviors and processes in order to see results.

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 Chapter 1

The numbers game

Lesson #1

Understand the numbers game

Did you know you already possess the key to sales A sales pipeline has a particular process. It starts by adding
success? It’s far simpler than you would expect, and conversations with new and old contacts into one end, with
anyone can do it. Although sales success takes a real signed contracts and checks coming out of the other. When
focused effort, following the steps in the sales pipeline you understand the key concepts of a sales pipeline and
course will make it far easier to succeed than you may manage your time and work habits, you’ll see the results
ever thought possible. you want.

Many feel that successful salespeople are just born with

innate abilities. That’s false. Sales success is based on the The real trick to sales is that there is no real trick to
time and effort you put into managing your sales pipeline. sales
The better your work ethic and the more you’re willing to
learn, the better your results will be.

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A sales pipeline works in its own good time

Your sales pipeline is every call, meeting, email, sales

You get big sales numbers when you understand the
conversation, the guy you met at the boat show and other
numbers game
contacts you’ve had during the normal length of your sales
cycle.

An active and effective sales pipeline consists of Here’s the truth about a sales pipeline:
conversations with prospects that lead to signed deals. It’s not a solid pipe – it’s got a lot of holes in it. Not
This process falls within the time frame of your typical sales everybody you stuff into the front end will come sailing out
cycle. the other.

For example, if your normal sales cycle takes six weeks to So, the first thing to do is to understand your sales close
get from the initial “Hi there” to the signature on the dotted ratio. What percentage of people you make initial contact
line, then any conversation lasting longer than six weeks with will eventually buy, or how many buy out of every ten
should be put on the back burner. contacts?

Of course, you shouldn’t ignore them altogether – ​it’s really Let’s say you’re selling website design services, and
a matter of focus. It might seem strange to think about you have a list of 20 prospects you think will make good
taking your focus away from a long-term prospect, even if customers. Of those you talk to, five will tell you they’re not
they might be near the close, but there is a reason it needs interested, five won’t give you the time of day and eight
to happen this way. give you all kinds of excuses why they can’t buy. Excuses
like pricing, going with a competitor or not needing a
Profitable sales pipeline management is about focusing website because of making nearly $1,000 per month going
on those conversations that are most likely to close, door to door selling powdered water.
which means only those that fall within your sales cycle.
Persistence is a great quality, but focused effort is what
makes money.

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However, two will buy, thus making your close rate two out During a sales process, you might discover that to close a
of 20, or 10% in this example. The more work you put in, the deal, it could take the following activities:
more accurate your actual close ratio will be.
• An initial call to set up a meeting

• Two meetings to discover the needs

Identifying this ratio gives you the magic key to sales
success • Two proposal drafts

• A contract negotiation call

• And ten to 15 emails over the course of the process

In a later chapter, we’ll discuss how each conversation that

goes into the pipe is at a different stage of the sales cycle.

There are two things that are important for now: the time
factor and your close ratio. To make X number of sales,
you must talk to Y number of prospects. This is how sales
pipeline management works and how you can guarantee
that you make your sales goals every month.

These are all just examples, but the assignment below will give you the tools to determine your actual numbers. Example 10% conversion rate

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 Now try this

This assignment will give you a good start on planning a

solid sales pipeline.

• Calculate your sales conversion rate.

For example, if you make 50 calls to different prospects
and make two sales, then your close ratio would be
2/50=0.04, or 4%.

• Then calculate how many calls, emails or meetings you

must have to make your conversion rate work. In the
example with a 4% closing ratio, it takes 25 calls to
achieve one sale.

If, by doing these calculations, you find a discrepancy with

real life, it may be that you aren’t putting enough people
into the front end of your pipeline. It could also be that your
conversion rate is too low. This means that besides working
hard and putting in the necessary leads, you can always
work smarter and improve your close ratio. We’ll get to that
in future chapters.

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 Chapter 2

Activity goals
Lesson #2

Set the right goals

Every self-help book, motivational seminar and sales Did you know that more than 80% of companies set the
training weekend hammers into us the idea of goal setting. wrong kinds of goals for their sales staff? Goals that they
The reason for this is setting a solid goal adds tremendous can’t possibly meet?
power to your efforts.
Think about it: If a sales manager could directly manage
However, we’re not here to persuade you to set sales goals. revenue, every salesperson in the world would be filling
You know it’s a good idea already. Instead, the focus of this their bathtubs with gold coins. Of course, this doesn’t
chapter will be how to set the right sales goals so that you happen. The reality is that we can’t control results, we can
can effectively manage your sales pipeline and achieve your only manage our own actions.
desired results.
The good news is you can achieve your sales targets by
setting activity goals. In fact, the results that come out of
There are good and bad goals carefully planned and managed activities can far exceed
any results-oriented goal you may have set in the past.

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A personal example

Imagine a bookseller who sets a goal to sell $1,000 worth As mentioned in chapter one, not everyone you start a
of books each day. What if he sold nothing after talking to sales conversation with will purchase. It’s a matter of
17 people? What if prospect No. 17 happened to be a harsh putting the right number of conversations into the front
rejection? It would certainly be demotivating and make it end of your pipeline and managing them along the way to
harder to keep going. ensure the right number of closed deals come out the other
end. This is not about ignoring your desired results – you
Now, imagine the same bookseller having an activity goal of just don’t let them monopolize your focus.
talking to 20 prospects each day. Even if 17 were to say no,
it wouldn’t matter. He would still have three prospects left If you did the exercise in the previous chapter, you should
to talk to. have a pretty good idea of the length of your sales cycle
and the numbers that make it work.
Ironically, when you take your focus off the results and
put it on activities, you start feeling better, and become So, instead of worrying about a specific result, set an
more effective. Take Michael Phelps as an example: When activity goal. For example, you might choose to initiate ten
he dives into the Olympic pool, his mind is not on the gold new conversations and make four demos every day. You
medal. His focus is on getting every move right, exactly as don’t know which of the 50 people in your sales pipeline
he has done it a thousand times before during training. If will end up converting into a sale. The goal is to focus on
he gets every move right, only then will the gold be in his making a powerful and effective presentation to each and
reach – that much he knows. every prospect, instead of worrying about what may or may
not happen with the conversion.

You get results by focusing on the things you can do, Setting solid activity goals will build your confidence and
not on the things you can’t do anything about numb the sting of rejection. When you shift your focus away
from what might happen and put it on the activities that you
can do, you’ll find yourself exceeding your expectation.

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 Try this:

• Count the average number of your key activities

including meetings, emails, follow-up calls, new
conversations initiated per week or per day, etc.

• Set yourself daily and weekly activity goals based on

how you’re doing compared to your current business and
revenue results.

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 Chapter 3

Sales stages
Lesson #3

Get your pipeline stages right

Our first chapter focused on putting a large enough number Why defining sales stages is really useful
of conversations into your sales pipeline. In this chapter,
Defining your sales stages requires you to create a shared
we’ll combine the activity goals from the previous chapter
understanding of the ideal sales process with your team.
with a strategy to properly segment your pipeline.
You need to set up a series of “valves” in the pipeline – each
Defining sales stages doesn’t sound like the most thrilling one leading to a signed deal.
activity, but the result is very exciting. Organizations can
Here’s an example. Let’s say your stages are:
increase their sales success significantly just by performing
this exercise. 1. Make first contact

2. Identify the prospect’s needs

3. Send them a quote

You don’t want to jump the gun and send out quotes before
the prospect’s needs are identified.

Defining the sales stages is deciding how you do things in

your organization. It saves time and gets everyone in sync.
Defining sales stages also helps you set more specific
activity goals.

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How to establish your
sales stages:
You can segment your pipeline into whatever stages
you want, but to help you out here are some examples of
typical sales stages:

1. Generate a lead

2. Make initial contact with a potential customer and find

out their needs

3. Make them an offer that meets their needs or wants

4. The offer is accepted and you gain a new customer

Of course, your industry and business will influence exactly

what stages you need to include in your pipeline. Your
sales procedures, products or services offered, how your
prospects make decisions and other factors all come into
play.

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OK, but how can I define sales stages that
actually fit my business?

For this chapter’s exercise, we’ll walk you through how you 6. In a month or two, revise and refine the stages. If any of
can define and optimize your own sales stages. the stages are confusing, rename, remove or add new
stages to accurately reflect what’s really happening in
1. To begin, start by thinking about the decision-making your sales pipeline.
and buying processes of your customers: How do they
think? How do they approach a purchase? What drives
these decisions? If you’d like to learn more about defining sales stages,
check out this post.
2. Write down the matching sales stages associated with
your customers’ “buying stages”. It shouldn’t take you
Even now, this early in the book, you have the tools
longer than ten minutes or so.
necessary to see huge increases in your close rate and
3. Discuss your sales stages with your entire sales team results. If you’re not already excited, wait until you see
and get everyone’s input on the topic. what’s to come!

4. Go through all your typical sales scenarios and make

sure that the sales stages you’ve defined match with
each of them.

5. Review the sales stages with your team. It’s vital that
they not only grasp the stages but understand why
they’re important. Also, make sure everyone agrees on
the key performance indicators (KPIs) at each stage or
pipeline segment.

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 Chapter 4

More deals
Lesson #4

How to add more deals

You’re well on your way to advancing your sales. You
have a solid foundation and you’ve created a good sales
pipeline that’s properly segmented and ready to take in
new prospects. Now we’ll show you how to add “oomph”
to your pipeline.

This chapter, and the three that follow, are a short series
that will introduce you to the four levers of pipeline flow.
You’ll learn how to use these levers to get more deals,
bigger deals, increase your conversion rate and do it all in
less time.

In this chapter, we’re going to show you the different ways

to put more new conversations into your pipeline.

Pipeline lever 1

Adding new conversations keeps your sales pipeline

flowing

Like with everything in this ebook, there is no magic

key, secret technique or complicated formula to getting
more deals. It’s simple. All you must do to get more deals
out of the far end of your sales pipeline is to put more
conversations into the front end.

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Three steps to having a healthy
sales pipeline flow:
1. Set a daily or weekly goal for adding new deals. • Ask for referrals from your existing customers as well as
We once set a goal for our sales team to come up with from prospects who did not buy. Every “no” can still help
a list of ten sales opportunities every week. Within two you build your pipeline.
months, we found that this technique was allowing us to
• Go back through your list of contacts. Get in touch with
increase our revenue. The time it will take you depends
people that you haven’t spoken for three to six months,
on the length of your sales cycle, of course.
including those who initially said “no”– a lot can change
2. Make this list building an unbroken habit – “don’t break over time.
the chain.”
• Keep your finger on the pulse of what your contacts are
Constant effort keeps your pipeline full and the money
doing. Often, job changes can be a good excuse to start
flowing. Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful
a short conversation with them. Services like Robuzz
comedians of all time. When asked what the secret to
help to track mentions of your friends and work contacts
his productivity was, he described a simple technique of
in the news.
creating a chain of activities that he never broke.

Make it a habit to find new sales opportunities that

3. Get creative about how you make your weekly list.
continually help you to put new conversations into your
There are some simple and obvious ways to do this.
sales pipeline. This persistent and consistent effort is one
We all know about following up with inbound leads and
of the four levers to ensure that you get the most from your
calling people from a list you bought. Those are good,
pipeline management efforts.
but you have to get a bit more creative to keep that pipe
full. Here are some ideas for your list-building activities:

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 Chapter 5

Bigger deals
Lesson #5

How to get larger deals

In the previous chapter, we touched upon the four ways to
maximize your sales pipeline management efforts: more
deals, bigger deals, higher conversion and less time. Now
that we’ve explored how to get more deals, let’s examine an
even more exciting concept: getting bigger deals!

If you’d like to learn more about sales pipeline

management, take a look at our in-depth article

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Think big and you’ll get big

There is no magic behind landing bigger deals. You don’t This can be a bit daunting, but if you want to land
have to be a huge company to land larger and more the bigger deals, you’d better find ways to get their
profitable deals. It’s a matter of proper sales pipeline attention.
management, focus and the right mindset.
4. Present logical add-ons and bundle multiple products
1. Envision yourself closing bigger deals. and services into a deal.
A big part of sales success is self-belief. Before you can Upselling allows you to increase the size of your sale
attain it, you must see it happening in your mind. If you and serve your customers betteres into a deal.“
imagine closing bigger deals, you’ll soon believe that you
can, and you’ll also start finding new ways to turn your
vision into reality.

2. Learn about how bigger companies purchase. “Would you like fries with that?” is a simple question
Every client is different and it’s tough to know how each that increased annual revenue of a McDonald’s
one works. I used to frequently invite key employees franchise owner by more than $200,000 back in the
from large companies to lunch and chat about the way 1970s. It has made the company hundreds of millions
they do business. It turned out to be very useful to learn in profits since.
who in their company made key decisions and who was
a gatekeeper. What is your $200,000 question?

3. Focus on bigger companies with bigger budgets.

The bigger the customer, the more people they have
knocking on their door and the less time they want to
spend talking to you.

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 Try this:

• Begin by picturing yourself closing a huge deal. What

activities can you imagine doing to make this deal a
reality?

• Based on what you envisioned, set yourself activity

goals to approach several companies with bigger
budgets or offer add-ons with each proposal–or both.

23 Sales pipeline course

 Chapter 6

Plug the leaks

in your pipeline
Lesson #6

Plug the leaks in

your pipeline

As we’ve established, there are four ways you can improve

the effectiveness of your sales pipeline. More deals, bigger
deals, increased conversion rate and getting to a “yes”
faster.

This lesson will focus on the third of these force multipliers:

increasing your conversion rate.

25 Sales pipeline course

Four keys to maximize conversion rates

Remember back in chapter one how we mentioned that 2. Go before you’re invited
your sales pipeline had holes in it? We said that not Many businesses have set up elaborate processes for
everyone you talked to would buy. This is still true, but if buying services and goods: tenders, quote requests,
you carefully study and implement these four key points, etc. The problem with quote requests is that in most
you will see a substantial increase in your close rate: cases, the prospect has already made up their mind by
the time the request goes out.
1. Work with the right people
When dealing with potential customers, there are many It’s much easier and far more effective to spend your
kinds of people you’ll talk to. There are decision makers, time helping customers form an opinion than trying to
influencers and gatekeepers. Influencers are relatively change theirs. Be proactive and go after new customers
easy to get in touch with, but they will take up too much yourself.
of your time and return very little.

On the other hand, decision makers are busy and don’t

have a lot of time to waste. They can give you a yes
or no on their own. If you find that you’re not getting
through to the right people, or unable to get past the
gatekeepers, you might need to work on these skills.

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3. Drop the wrong prospect ASAP
Increasing your conversion rate is more about searching We once worked with a man who could close 50%
for opportunities than trying to persuade someone to of his prospects. What he heard most from his
buy. If you want to be more effective as a salesperson, customers was something to the effect of, “Even
create a good buyer profile and stick with it. If you’re though your prices were a bit higher, we felt that
talking to a prospect who doesn’t fit the profile, move on you really understood what we were looking for and
quickly. offered a solution that showed it”. If you ever want to
make more money in sales, you’re on the right track
4. Get to know the business of your potential customers
if you keep hearing this simple statement from new
better than your competitors do
customers.
It could be said that this is the most important key of all.
People and companies buy because they have a need,
a want or both. If you can understand what those are Next up: increasing the velocity of your pipeline, the last of
and do your best to meet the desires of prospects on the series about the four levers or pipeline flow.
their wavelength, you’ll see a dramatic increase in your
conversion rate.

27 Sales pipeline course

 Chapter 7

Velocity
Lesson #7

Get deals flowing faster

We’ve arrived at the last pipeline lever in our group. You’ve
learned how to get more deals, get bigger deals and
increase your conversion rate by plugging the leaks in your
sales pipeline. Now, it’s time for the final piece to help you
get the revenue flowing.

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Step on the gas

We once asked a junior member of our sales team how 2. Eliminate the common tendency of a prospect to “think
long he thought a prospect should think about their options about it”
before making a decision. Interestingly, his answer was
“One week.” Often, especially for those new to sales, there’s a
reluctance to come across as pushy. As you move
One week? Why not five days or three weeks? The truth forward in your career, however, you will learn that it’s
is that you can’t just leave it up to the prospect to decide OK to press a little. They need time to think, but not that
how long a decision takes. It should be up to both you and much.
the prospect. To help you increase the speed at which you
close deals, here are three ways to step on the accelerator: If one of your prospects gives you the classic line,
“Well… let me think about it and get back to you.”
1. Discover the decision-making process of companies
Respond with, “Great, can you give me an idea of
you want buying from you
what you’d like to think about and maybe I can provide
It’s hard to push a person or a company to go faster
additional information to help in the process?”
than they’re used to, especially when you don’t even
If a prospect says they need to discuss it with someone
know what that speed is. Do you know one of the best
else and that discussion will take place tomorrow,
ways to find out? Ask your prospect! Don’t assume you
respond with, “Terrific, so if I give you a call tomorrow
know how to push each prospect through the stages of
afternoon, you’ll be finished consulting and things will be
your pipeline. At each stage, ask them what is required
much clearer about moving to the next step?”
to move forward to the next step. Do this a few times
and you’ll learn how decisions are made in a particular
company. You’ll probably discover industry-specific
This kind of gentle pressure can move conversations
decision-making patterns as well.
along faster and even trigger an immediate decision.

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3. Know when to walk away
If a prospect has been in your sales pipeline for longer
than your established sales cycle, there’s a good chance
you won’t close them. Generally, when we want to buy
something, we do so quickly. If we’re unsure, we might
hang on for a bit and see if the prospect of buying grows
on us.

If you can’t do anything to move your prospect into the

next stage, it may be time to write them off. This is not
to say you turn your back on them completely – it’s just
that you want to focus on deals that you can close in
a timely manner. Put this one in the “I’ll go back in six
months” category.

Final word on the four levers

With the proper application of these tips and the three

previous levers, you can vastly increase the effectiveness
of your sales pipeline management efforts.

By now, it should be clear that a superstar salesperson

is nothing more than a focused individual with the right
mindset and a clear plan of activity goals.

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 Chapter 8

Pipeline flushing
Lesson #8

Empty the pipeline to keep it flowing

So far, we have been talking about filling your sales pipeline There’s such a thing as “too big”. When it comes to your
and then filling it faster and with bigger prospects. Now, we sales pipeline, you must be careful about not letting it get
want you to empty it. Confused? Don’t be. overstuffed with prospects.

Although emptying your sales pipeline sounds Think of it this way: If your goal is to have 20 deals in your
counterintuitive, it’s a great idea. When we say empty your pipeline at any given time and it turns out you have 50, it
pipeline, what we’re really talking about is being picky about seems like a good thing, doesn’t it? After all, with so many
who you keep in your pipeline and knowing when it’s time to deals in the various stages of your pipeline, you’re ahead of
clean house. the game.

The reality is that this might not always be the case. Too

Bigger isn’t
many deals spread your available resources too thin. When
you’re over-productive in this way, you tend not to pay the
proper amount of attention to all the deals in the pipeline,
so some grow cold and stale.

always better

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We know, it happened to us... How to tell when to flush the pipeline
We once hired a salesman who had really distinguished There are some indicators that a prospect who’s currently in
himself before signing with us. Strangely, it didn’t take long your pipeline is not worth continual attention:
before we realized he was having some challenges. In one
Ask yourself: Would a customer laugh at the idea of being
month, he began with ten great leads. By the end of that
in your pipeline? If they don’t take you seriously, don’t take
month, most of them hadn’t moved along the pipeline.
them seriously.
It took us a while before the both of us concluded that the
Ask your prospects: Will they decide on their next move this
canned “we’re still thinking about it and we should have
month? If the answer is no, it’s time to move on.
a definite decision in a couple of weeks” response wasn’t
good enough. We had heard it too many times. When someone says that they would like your product or
service but not this month or quarter, it may not seem like
When our new star changed his close tactics and asked
a lost cause, but it is. You must consider them for flushing
all prospects if they were ready to place an order that
because there’s nothing you can do to close them within
month, we found out that only one of the leads was going
your sales cycle or even soon.
to make a purchase. It was clear that while the volume
of conversations he was putting into the pipeline was
reasonable, the velocity of those deals was abysmal. His
pipeline, which had seemed healthy, had actually been
“clogged.”

He quickly learned his lesson and became one of the best

closers on the sales team.

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How to keep your pipeline squeaky clean

Exactly how you flush them is up to you, but here are a few Flushing prospects out of your sales pipeline will feel a bit
suggestions to help you formulate a firm plan: strange. It’s hard to put aside a potential customer, even
a lukewarm one. But the whole purpose and thrust of this
1. Go through all the contacts in your sales pipeline once a course is to keep your focus on the strong candidates and
week or every two weeks. If you find a prospect who has to keep them moving along your pipeline.
been sitting in the pipe and clogging it up for longer than
your typical sales cycle and shows no signs of moving to
the next stage any time soon, flush them. Proper focus, good work habits and continuous effort
will create a steady flow of revenue.
2. Don’t get rid of them entirely. Put these flushed
prospects into a future pipeline or a future callback list.
If you’re using sales management software (may we
suggest Pipedrive for this?), schedule a follow-up call or
email.

3. Stay focused on deals that have a strong chance of

closing during your established sales cycle.

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 Chapter 9

Time management
Lesson #9

Get smart about time management

Time management is crucial. We all have the same 24 hours Playing favorites is natural but bad for your pipeline.
in a day. How we spend those hours will directly affect our
There is a common tendency in sales to favor those
sales results.
prospects who are further along in the pipeline to new
Some 90% of salespeople continuously need to put new ones. It’s natural, and there are good psychological reasons
conversations into their sales pipeline. How many depends for this.
on your sales cycle and goals.
First, the further along prospects are in your pipeline, the
more likely they are to be visible in your diary and your to-
do list. You may have a meeting scheduled or a follow-up
call set up.

On the other hand, brand-new prospects are somewhat

more nebulous. Dealing with them doesn’t seem to be
urgent and they may not have a slot in your calendar at all.

37 Sales pipeline course

Don’t get sidetracked: Schedule time for Get in the zone
prospecting
It’s easy to get into the habit of squeezing sales calls in
You will always have to respond to emails, take phone between other activities. The downside is that this breaks
calls or revise and send out proposals. These activities are up your rhythm
necessary, but so is having enough time for prospecting.
You’ll find that you have much better results if you make all
The activity of adding new prospects into the pipeline
your calls at once. You get into the zone by making ten calls
creates the need for all these other activities.
in a row, not by making them randomly throughout the day.

Block the necessary time to make these calls

every week or every day in your calendar Keep up the good work, it’s just a matter
The time you dedicate to adding new prospects should of time
be set in stone and unbreakable. If a client wishes to talk This is a simple and straightforward lesson. When you
during these times, schedule the conversation for another allocate the right amount of time to keeping new prospects
time. flowing into your pipeline, you will see that your pipe is
always full and a steady stream of deals will be flowing
This is the only way to avoid the trap of allowing the myriad
from the other end.
other daily activities to consume critical prospecting time.

38 Sales pipeline course

 Chapter 10

Need vs. like

Lesson #10

Unpleasant things get results

(i.e., do what you need to do, not what you want to do)

Make the simple hard choice

A personal example from Pipedrive’s past:

The secret of success of every man who has ever I got my start in sales in a summer job selling educational
been successful lies in the fact that he formed the books door to door in San Jose, California. It didn’t start out
habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. well for me. As you might expect, I got a lot of rejections.
Often, the prospective customer would slam the door in my
Albert E. N. Gray in “The Common Denominator of face before I even got into my demonstration.
Success”
One thing I noticed early on was that certain families in
the area were much friendlier. They’d at least let me finish
Here’s where the real power of sales pipeline management
my demo before they said “no”. It was easy to see how a
success lies. Up until now, the lessons have been about
lot of time could be wasted on trying to sell to customers
specific tasks. It’s in the wisdom of this lesson that you will
who weren’t buying. Sounds familiar? To succeed, I had to
be able to see if all your hard work is really paying off.
make a difficult choice. I could spend a lot of time talking to
the nice families. I’d feel comfortable while not selling very
much, or I could bite the bullet.

So, I made the hard choice. I avoided the friendly streets

and focused my efforts on the areas where I got more
rejections. But I made more sales and became a better
salesman in the process.

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Sales success is the hard choice Make unpleasantness your routine
If you’re in sales, you must face this choice as well. It’s true in life – and most definitely true in sales pipeline
management – that you must do a lot of things that you
An unavoidable part of sales is rejection and our natural may find unpleasant. What’s worse, you continually have to
tendency to avoid rejection. do them until they become habits.

Our fear of rejection goes back millions of years. If our The more you stick to this, the less unpleasant these things
ancestors made the wrong choice when faced with a fight- become. There will come a time, believe it or not, when the
or-flight situation, it might have been the last choice they fear of rejection will go away or become so mild you don’t
ever made. Our fight or flight instinct is hardwired, but can even notice it anymore.
be used to your advantage.
To quote Albert Gray again:
Learn to overcome your fears
It’s natural for us to form habits that reduce our exposure to
rejection – it’s unnatural for us to do otherwise. If you want
to succeed in sales, you have to do the unnatural until it
becomes natural. Any resolution or decision you make today has to be
made again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next,
You may, for example, find that selling to mid-level and the next, and so on. If you continue the process
managers is less stressful. These folks are easier to reach of making it each morning and keeping it each day,
and more pleasant to deal with. However, you’ll also find you will finally wake up some morning a different man
that they’re not the decision makers. in a different world, and you will wonder what has
happened to you and the world you used to live in.

41 Sales pipeline course

What is your “why?” Try this

One of the best ways to stick to the tough habits is to • Make sure you know how many new conversations you
figure out what your real reason for doing them is. Why are need to add to your pipeline each week and set yourself
you a salesperson in the first place? a goal for this.

Don’t simply use your desired commission, everybody • Keep it going, no matter how you feel. Don’t break the
wants that. Figure out a deeper reason. Perhaps you want chain.
to make a mark on the universe before you leave it. Maybe
• Read “The Common Denominator of Success” by Albert
you want your kids to have a better life. Perhaps you don’t
E. N. Gray.
want to live with the regret of “What if...?” Maybe all of
these and more.

What separates the successful salesperson is that they

crave results. The real trick of sales is that it’s full of
unpleasant activities that lead to pleasant outcomes.

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 Chapter 11

Keeping track
Lesson #11

Measure your pipeline progress

Congratulations! You’ve nearly reached the end of the sales What should you track?
pipeline course.
Remember the four levers we discussed? The number of
Now you know what a sales pipeline is and have been given deals in your pipeline, size of the deals, your success rate
tools and techniques to get more out of it. Before you go and the speed at which deals are closed are the four best
and start landing those deals, there is one more tool we’d things to track.
like to offer you to help you track your efforts.
That said, if you track too many things at once, you’re less
Why tracking your progress is important to likely to get the most from that information, so it’s a good
your success idea to focus. Try deciding on one to three things to track
at any given time.
Certainly, if you’re consistently exceeding your sales goals,
you might not need to set up sales pipeline tracking (or Start tracking the kinds of things that you’ve seen having
maybe it’s time to raise the bar?) the biggest impact on your sales results–bottlenecks, if you
will. For example, if not enough deals are being added into
On the other hand, if you feel that you have room to
the pipeline, tracking the number of deals added per day or
grow, then setting up tracking for your activities will help.
week is a good place to begin.
With proper tracking in place, you can identify what’s not
working, where you have hidden potential and deal with any In many cases, the number of meetings/demos and
issues early on. the number of deals added are important to track at
companies that are growing aggressively. For other types of
businesses, tracking repeat sales or the amount of upselling
being done can be crucial.

44 Sales pipeline course

How to track accurately How to go about tracking your progress
When you’re on your own or in a small team, you can track
When tracking your pipeline, it’s important to be specific. activities however you want. Writing down your activities
You may want to track not only the number of new deals on a spreadsheet or even drawing an “X” for each on a
being added every day or every week but also the number whiteboard will do the trick.
and value of deals in key stages of your pipeline.
As you grow, however, you’ll probably want to use sales
You’ll get more out of your tracking efforts if you begin with pipeline software to help with tracking. It should come with
clear definitions. For example: built-in metrics, reporting and analysis that are vital for
sales management of any serious organization.
• Product demos – are these with new prospects only or
do follow-up meetings qualify too?
No matter the method, continually use it. If you wait
• Does a call that results in a call back for next week count until the end of the week, it’s going to be harder to
as a call? remember exactly how many sales calls were made.

45 Sales pipeline course

Time to put the sales pipeline course to use! Try this

You’ve now come to the end of the course and are well- • Decide which of the four pipeline metrics is most critical
prepared for astounding sales success. to your success and start tracking it.

You’ve learned what a sales pipeline is, how to put deals in, • Set a reminder for 90 days from now to measure
move them along and close them in good time. You know the progress of your tracking efforts. This will help
what to concentrate your efforts on and how to keep track you decide whether to stick with that metric or try
of everything you’re doing. something else.

Thank you for reading this ebook and good luck in your • See the next page for one final lesson – trust me,
journey to better sales results! it’s good.

If you enjoyed reading this ebook, please share it

with a friend. Every sales associate, sales manager
or entrepreneur out there who’s working hard would
appreciate some effective and totally free advice,
right?

46 Sales pipeline course

 Chapter 12

Software matters
One last lesson

The tool for pipeline

management

Having reached the end of the ebook, I hope you have

found the tools and techniques useful.

There’s one more thing I’d like to tell you about. This ebook
grew out of our ten-plus years of work in sales. As sales
managers and trainers, we experienced an increasing
amount of pain with different CRM software over the years.

After we had found that our $50,000 purchase of a big-

name CRM platform had been a waste of money back in
2010, we decided to try to build a better tool.

Pipedrive is a near perfect tool for managing a sales

pipeline. If the sales pipeline course made sense to you,
you’ll love Pipedrive.

Many of the things we’ve covered ​​– like setting activity

goals and being able to see the numbers game of sales –
are firmly built into the software.

48 Sales pipeline course

Here’s the sales pitch for Pipedrive Offer you shouldn’t refuse

Get two months of Pipedrive free.

Curious? Sign up for a free trial!

It gives you a clear overview of your pipeline and helps to
forecast sales.

You can set activity goals and easily measure progress.

It keeps track of the four pipeline levers we discussed: the

number and size of deals, conversion rate and deal velocity.

It’s priced reasonably, and there’s a 14-day free trial.

Plus, the usual things like ease of use, mobile apps and
integrations with other business tools.

49 Sales pipeline course