How is it possible in 2018 to still hear reps complaining about the volume and quality of leads that they receive from Marketing or the Bus Dev team? How many deals that are forecast with “over 90% certainty” are lost or delayed in the last week of a quarter? Why do so many sales teams hold weekly forecast and pipeline reviews, taking precious hours of direct selling time, yet still miss their targets?
As much as we see steady improvement in the science of sales leveraging tools like Predictive Analytics, managing the sales funnel of opportunities and accurately forecasting revenue remains incredibly problematic for many organizations. Anyone who has sold a complex solution that takes a significant investment of time and money to implement knows there is not one single root cause of forecast inaccuracy. While working on a rigorous pipeline diagnostic and assessment service offering for my clients I realized there are some interesting paradoxes built into many traditional perspectives on pipeline management and reporting.
First, everyone wants to spend time on good leads and opportunities, but we should recognize the learning opportunity presented by a “bad” lead hitting our inbox. If this occurs with any frequency we need to step back and look at our agreed definition of what a good lead looks like. Are sales, marketing, partners, and lead qualification teams fully aligned, or are we working from different assumptions that result in a lot of friction, cost, and resentment between the teams? Is the problem isolated to one or two sellers who may not understand or agree with the defined standard? Individual coaching and support can be provided if the “bad” leads always seem to go to Sharon and Eddie while the rest of the team prospers. The best thing about a bad lead is you can qualify out early, save time for productive work, and that indeed is good.
Few sellers will say they don’t want more leads, but experience and industry research show that quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to reducing sales cycle length, improving close ratios, raising productivity levels and increasing forecast accuracy. The fundamentals of course must be in place: agreement on ideal prospect and buyer profiles, high quality value messaging and voice of the customer testimonials, quality products and services that address buyer pains. When the machine is properly tuned, the teams fully aligned, roles and responsibilities clearly defined and enforced, less is more. Filter out the garbage coming in, and you will have less of a mess at the end of the sales campaign.
What do we mean by “slow is fast”? There can be a tendency for aggressive, highly motivated sellers to push ahead at warp speed, taking a full-frontal strategy that overwhelms the buyer and leaves the competition in a state of shock and awe. (A scene from the movie Spinal Tap comes to mind, when Nigel is explaining to the band that his new amp goes up to eleven. If ten was the top, eleven is “one louder”, and thus better). This less than subtle approach may work in some circumstances, but in many a more nuanced process will prevent wasted effort, lost deals, or worse, unhappy prospects going viral on social media about the lousy experience they had with you. Slowing down enough to collaborate on thoughtful opportunity reviews, challenging each other and sharing lessons learned can actually accelerate the time to close by properly focusing our conversation and interactions with the buyer. Egos, happy ears, and blinders need to set aside during these strategy sessions. Taking a deep breath and staying open to learning from peers, coaches and mentors increases the odds of success. Though it may feel slow at the time many will find themselves getting to the close much faster than when they are desperately discounting, reacting and pivoting at the eleventh hour only to see their deals slip away.
Managing the pipeline and forecast process is not going to get simpler as technology evolves, though the insights gained from AI and Predictive Analytics will certainly benefit many selling motions. As you work on these challenges for you own team it is important to learn from the bad, focus on quality over volume, and build a best in class process to inspect and manage strategic opportunities in order to improve the accuracy and reliability of your forecast.
Anyone interested in exploring our approach to pipeline diagnostics and identifying priorities to establish more reliable and accurate results in this critical area of performance can learn more here: