Your sales pipeline is a mirror.
If it’s dry, check your discipline. If it’s full but stagnant, check your courage. Sales punishes hesitation. Act. The more, now that we are coming from the longest weekend on the calendar.
If your sales water is not flowing, the problem is not the tap – most probably there’s no water in the tank. You’re struggling, or worse, stuck, because the momentum of the small trickle you had, dried with the Easter holiday. Accept that. Now correct it.
Discipline fills the pipeline; courage keeps it moving
Building your sales pipeline calls for discipline. The discipline to actively work on it. Whether that means ‘camping’ (selling in prospect-rich markets a la a hawker in traffic) or, scheduling specific times in the day to look for prospects, you must have a method, if you are to succeed in selling.
For example, the sales person camping, will simply go to his ‘camp’ after the long weekend, or any holiday really, and his sales beat goes on -he resumes selling like he never stopped.
As for the latter, he will simply attend the appointments he had scheduled post Easter. If there are none (unlikely) he will continue prospecting to fill his sales pipeline in the manner he was before the holiday.
As for you with nothing in the pipeline, you are idle. And you know what they say about an idle mind.
Pipeline management is not optional
You see, managing your sales pipeline is not a nice-to-do; it’s a need-to-do. It is an activity you prioritize. Always. Keeping your sales pipeline full means having an unending stream of prospects – potential buyers. You grow your sales pipeline via continual prospecting and having a live database.
And, yes, I’ll say it again: if you do not prospect, you die.
How big should your sales pipeline be?
How big should your sales pipeline be?Short answer: it’ll never be big enough. Long answer: The question speaks to your discipline and courage. The discipline (or, lack thereof) to continually prospect and the courage (or lack thereof) to qualify prospects and disqualify ghosts.
Courage to ask the hard questions: “Are you buying or browsing?” Courage to set timelines: “When do we proceed?” Courage to walk away from time-wasters masquerading as opportunities. Because every minute spent entertaining a ghost is a minute stolen from a buyer.
Too small a pipeline and you run the risk of becoming desperate.
Your sales pipeline is a mirror: Is yours reflecting desperation?
Such panic statements like, “If they don’t buy, I’ll not meet my targets for five months running now. For sure I’ll be fired,” are borne of desperation. And so, you push the prospect; and feeling the aggressiveness, resists. It’s worse when its not a prospect but a ghost; because, then, he just strings you along. Either way, your die is cast.
Now, if your pipeline was ‘big’ you would have several such potential closes and your manager would instead state, “Give them time. Let’s follow up with the other three I saw in your report last week.”
No anxiety, no pressure, desperation avoided. Just water flowing swimmingly- following effortlessly along its natural path.
From mirror to window: understanding the process of sales
Your sales pipeline is a mirror. A mirror into how your sales performance. “Is it not sales I’ve made?” you ask. Not quite. A sale is a result of a process. And movement, steady and unbroken, is what turns a mirror into a window – through which you watch your results grow, close after close, without desperation.
Sales people that try to circumvent this process don’t last long in the job. You will see them hanging around the service centre hoping to derail walk-in customers. Others conspire with front office staff to redirect call-ins to them.
Such sales people are trying to build a house from the roof. It cannot stand. Yes, the manager will (should) kick you out. Even if he doesn’t, your short-cut will still show from your poor after sales service. Because you never invested in the sale you see it as a bother and so it dies.
Build on solid ground: foundations that sustain performance
Effective sales people sink their foundations deep and on solid rock. That’s the hard work in selling- building your sales pipeline and ensuring it’s always full. That rock is daily prospecting, weekly qualifying, and never letting a holiday or a ghost break your rhythm.
Your sales pipeline is a mirror: how movement turns reflection into results
The mirror never lies. Look into yours. If you see empty space, fill it with action. A full pipeline is not the goal. A healthy pipeline is. One that is moving. One where prospects are not just many, but progressing — from contact, to conversation, to commitment. Discipline builds the pipeline. Courage keeps it moving.
You need both to create flow.
Because in sales, hope is not a strategy. Activity is.
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