How to achieve a big pipeline?
In the previous post, I discussed the importance of developing a huge pipeline, four times more your sales target.
Why so much?
The promises made by potential clients often don’t materialize, which is why it’s crucial to secure your position with a broader range of opportunities. For instance, if your annual sales target is £800,000, your pipeline should ideally be £3.2 million, especially if you’re operating in a new market or offering new services. If you’re working in an established market with well-known services, a pipeline three times your target should suffice.
Why such a large pipeline?
The reason is simple: sales statistics show that a significant percentage of deals are ultimately declined. Clients often say “No” more frequently than “Yes.” The reasons vary: lack of budget, management not approving the purchase, a change of heart when a competitor offers something more appealing, or simply the decision to hold off on buying altogether.
In order to be sure that you will hit your quota, you should protect yourself from these refusals by generating more leads.
How to achieve a big pipeline?
- Make sure you are calm and have business owner’s mind set. I teach this at my Sales Academy.
- Do prospecting daily i.e. find new clients and offer them your product daily. Set a target for researching three new potential clients a day, and send them 5 personalised cold emails per each company to the right people with right positions who might be interested in your product. Make notes about every email and every call, and every company in the excel file or your CRM. Otherwise you will forget what you discussed.
- Work for 2 hours and then have a 15 min break to stretch your back and legs and unwind – this will help you to stay focused for longer during a day and will help you to be less stressed out
- Drink water regularly – this will help you to be less stressed because water it’s essential for hydration, supporting various bodily functions. It helps with fluid balance, digestion, and waste removal. Still water also delivers vital minerals that the body needs
- If you feel stressed out by anything related to work or not, have a Stress container exercise where you can write down all your stressors and then decide how to mark them i.e. the ones you can solve – go and solve them, the ones you can’t change – accept them and stop stressing out about them. I teach about the stress container tool at my sales trainings in more details.
- Make follow up calls regularly – not in annoying way, but in a curious and excited to work with you way. Allow one week between the follow up calls to the same person to avoid being annoying and always be friendly and don’t ever point out that the client didn’t reply on the day they were supposed to as this will make them less like you.
You should be able to build a great sales pipeline is you work hard but also take care of yourself. Make loads of meaningful calls to your potential clients for follow up, do loads of cold emails to the right people and stay calm and hydrated, and you will be fine!
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