The ultimate guide to pipeline management

A sales pipeline is a series of stages that a business sets up to acquire, nurture, and ultimately convert leads. It's overseen by a sales manager in collaboration with Sales and Marketing teams, and has several benefits including increased conversion rates, improved overall conversion efficiency, and the ability to forecast future sales projections. A well-oiled sales pipeline can be scaled and replicated, and is essential for any business that relies on sales as its primary source of revenue. The stages of a sales pipeline typically include lead generation, lead qualification, lead interaction, value proposition, negotiation, conversion, customer follow-up, and sales funnel vs. sales pipeline management. To manage a sales pipeline effectively, businesses should focus on sales-qualified leads, de-prioritize dead leads, always follow up, define pipeline metrics, analyze pipeline metrics, have a standardized sales process, provide prospects with additional value, utilize a CRM, take advantage of automation, dig deeper into lead sources and customer journeys, don't complicate the sales process, leverage AI, and audit their pipeline process.