Do you agree that attracting leads and actually closing a sales deal is much easier said than done? We, for one, do. And anyone who understands what a sales pipeline is will likely also have the same opinion. Getting people to buy your products - without coercion - is hard work. However, with the right knowledge of sales pipeline stages and the how-tos of their implementation, one has a greater chance of meeting good prospects and guiding them all the way to making their first purchase. 

The 7 Stages of a Sales Pipeline and how to implement them

Prospecting: 

The prospecting stage is where a business begins searching for its to-be customers. We have to say that making progress in this stage is simply a game of numbers. Typically, only a fraction of the people you contact will end up as customers so in order to gain a good number of leads who actually convert, you will need to reach a wider number of people.  

Implementing the prospecting stage of a sales pipeline

Implementing the prospecting stage in your sales pipeline will involve:

• listing out all possible sales and marketing mediums:

Whether you’re planning to reach clients through TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or through cold outreach calls; here’s the point where you begin to make that decision. You should start by listing out all available outreach tools and platforms. For example, ads, social media platforms, emails, and phone calls. 

• analysing the potential of each sales and marketing medium:

Is your chosen sales platform suitable for your type of business? Can you get the desired result from using them? What are the requirements and limitations of these marketing mediums? These are all the questions you need to ask yourself. Once you have the answers, you’re already on your way to a solid start. 

• setting up preferred mediums for use:

It is expected that you’ve identified your preferred outreach medium at this point so the next step will be all about having it up and running. 

• analysing and tracking responses from these mediums:

Analytics tools are the thing here. Similar web, for example, shows you a list of websites that are identical to the one you search for. The tool also goes further to provide statistics about the bounce rate, …, and the visitor count for a particular website. 

Lead qualification:

It is extremely frustrating to take a prospect all the way through your pipeline online to find out they weren’t really prospects. This is why business sales teams perform lead qualification as it puts their leads under the microscope and checks to see if they are promising or not. 

Implementing the lead qualification stage 

Lead qualification is a very critical stage in any sales pipeline. The reason is quite simple. Failing to qualify the right people will create a huge waste of time and resources since the business will be welcoming people who do not intend to purchase or use their product down their pipeline. 

As a way of implementing lead qualification in your sales pipeline, you need to outline your qualification criteria. Doing this helps you carry out assessment and make a sound judgement on who is a qualified lead, that is, who will most likely become a customer. 

A good option for use here is the BANT or “budget, authority, needs, and timeline” method. This method considers what the lead’s budget is, whether they have the authority to make a purchase themselves or not, whether the product fulfils their immediate or future needs, and whether it is an appropriate time for the lead to purchase the product. 

Let’s explain each of these points:

Budget: 

No matter how much your customers need your product, you probably won’t give it to them except they have the money for it. At the most, all you can do is to offer a price discount. Properly sizing your lead’s budget, therefore, ensures that you don’t have to slash prices just to get your products off the shelf. It produces customers that are ready to purchase your product at the tagged price. 

Authority:

Authority here questions if your lead is the major decision maker on their own end. Are they looking to buy the product for themselves or for someone else? Do they have the final say on whether to make the purchase or are they working with directives from a third party? In the first instance, getting the product for someone else might mean that such a person can hinder the purchase.

Similarly, leads who have to receive a directive before making a purchase will not close a deal unless they are asked to. Both of these create a shaky prospect for the company. As a result, leads who are purchasing the product for themselves, and those who are not waiting for any directives or decision input from a third party become your priority. 

These sets of people typically end up closing a deal once they have a solid interest in the sale. 

Needs: 

Buyers naturally purchase products for two reasons. One is that they have a need for those products and the other is that they want to derive a feeling or attain a social status that comes with having those products. Products that satisfy a need are always sought after. They can also be renewed automatically using a subscription-based service. On the other hand, however, customers easily let go of a product that pertains to their social status. 

Knowing this, is it critical to ask if your product fulfils the needs of your leads? If the answer is yes, you can then move on to the next set of questions which is whether these needs are met directly or indirectly, and whether they are immediate or pending/future needs. 

Meeting or Demo:

In the business world, there’s a need to ensure that your prospective customers know what they will be getting. Topmost among these reasons are to understand the customer’s expectations and to properly describe your product or service, and you can achieve these via well planned and accurately delivered meetings and demos.  

Implementing meeting and demo in your sales pipeline

To implement meetings and demos, there are four things to consider:

What the meeting is about

There is this common perception that you already have a meeting plan in your mind or that you can come up with one within the shortest possible time. This alone is the cause of many failed and embarrassing contact with leads. It is, therefore, highly advisable that you take the time to think about the purpose of your meeting or demo and even write them out on a piece of paper to guide you. 

Outlining all your resources

What will you need to run a meeting or a demo? Who is going to host these meetings? How will the meeting agenda be realised? All these are necessary questions to put you on the right track. 

Making sure that leads understand the purpose of the meeting

During the meeting or demo sessions with leads, you want to make sure that they are all clear on the purpose of the event. A simple way to do this is to inform them of the benefits of the meetings. For example, how they can be among the first set of people to test the product, and how they can benefit through connections with people of interest.  

Highlighting the next steps

Here, you should ask yourself what the audience should expect following the meetings or demos. An interesting way this could turn out is by having a meeting and then informing leads that there will be a demo session up next. This will significant pull more interest and participation towards your sales activities

Proposal:

A proposal is simply a documentation of the major aspects of your product and sales process. 

Implementing a proposal in your sales pipeline

This implementation stage will require a lot of brainstorming. Basically, you will be putting everything you’ve learnt about your lead from the previous stages together, with the aim of proposing an action or a project that will be appealing to them. But before you begin, you should know that a proposal includes the details of your solution or how you intend to address pain points, clear information on your billing, a timeframe within which you will deliver your services or products, and finally, the terms and conditions of the engagement. 

A solid proposal will have a focus on three key points. These include:

Lead personalization: 

Remember we said that you can group your leads in terms of how much they are willing to spend? This should give you an idea of personalisation. The thing here is to tailor your proposal to cover each lead's questions and to tell them all they want to know. One lead might need one of your solutions or products whereas another might need two or more of them and so understanding who needs what, and applying that in your proposal will help you attain to each person’s unique challenges or interest.

Product or Service Benefits to Customers:

First thing to note is that you can very well outline the benefits of your products or services without sounding or appearing salesy. Also, you shouldn’t shy away from saying exactly how your products or services can help the customer -  and from saying all of it too. 

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Some leads would have approached your sales team with a couple of questions at an earlier stage in the pipeline. Compile all of these, or at least the regular ones, and create an FAQ section by listing and answering them. 

Negotiation:

The negotiation process involves both parties trying to reach an agreement or arrive at an understanding around the product. It could concern anything from the production, delivery, use, or return of a product or service, to the payable price or the obligation of customers or businesses.. 

Implementing negotiation in your sales pipeline

This is a dicy stage in your sales pipeline. It is when the purchase decision is made by the buyer and also when the purchasing price and other terms or conditions are deliberated on. As a business sales team or representative, you must bear in mind the need to be well composed and maintain clear and respectable communication no matter what happens at this stage. Also it is important that you:

Keep an open mind:

Keeping an open mind means understanding that the lead might negotiate poor terms and, subsequently, preparing yourself to calmly and politely address such occurrences. Even if your services clearly outweigh your product’s price, it is possible to encounter prospects who will still try to beat down the price. In a worse case scenario, some prospects may even sound rude and attempt to downplay the benefits of your product or service. You must master the art of collecting yourself and acting rational and intelligent all through it. 

Make the negotiation process easy:

There’s no need for a hectic or an overstretched negotiation. Most times, doing this will only steal time which you could have used to attend to other prospective leads. You can keep things simple for both yourself and the lead by setting out specific negotiation questions which will help you come to an agreement on all the proposal items. Also, you can employ digital signing platforms to allow easy access and signatory. 

Deal Outcome:

Of course, your sales pipeline outcome only matters when you’re able to close a deal. The quality and thoughtfulness put into each of the previous stages in your pipeline will partly determine if you get a close. On the same note, however, prospective leads can decide to walk away from a deal at the very last moment and for no good reason. 

Implementing retention in a sales pipeline

Scoring a closed deal brings a rewarding feeling but it is not exactly the end of the journey. In fact, a business sales team will have a long term responsibility to the new customer. This includes seamlessly onboarding them, guiding them on using a product or service, checking in to know if they are experiencing any challenges with the product or service, and requesting their feedback at intervals or at the end of their patronage. 

Conclusion

By reading this article, you may realise that the process that leads up to a closed sales deal is not an easy feat. However, it is also not an impossible feat. The details we have provided will help you understand the entire process and equally guide you on the actual implementation.

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