What's the Challenge of Forecasting?

In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Chief Revenue Officer for Service Express, Bill Golder, to learn his strategy to build pipelines and close deals. 

Many sellers struggle with building a pipeline.

• A fully built-out pipeline is never a done deal, meaning you constantly have to adapt to determine what works the best.
• There are always new problems to address, and the best companies continuously innovate to meet those needs.

What are effective pipeline strategies?

• They focus on understanding the dynamic between early-stage and late-stage pipelines.
• Many sellers think about a pipeline too holistically, but segmenting the idea of the “pipeline” into different timelines can result in more opportunities.
• To create an accurate forecast, you have to understand how many early-stage prospects will result in a late-stage pipeline.
• The dynamics between an early and a late-stage conversion might look entirely different.

Bill’s guide to implementing new pipeline strategies:

• If salespeople are reluctant to implement or don’t see the value in a new pipeline process, a data-driven approach to identify issues (and how a new strategy can solve them) will be a great tactic.
• Understand the indicators that actually lead to a conversion versus the feeling of a conversion.

Common pipeline building mistakes:

• There’s too much assumption - we assume something is important to them when it might not be.
• Sellers inherently think their product is essential, but the prospect might have other priorities or issues that make our solution much less important at the moment.
• Issues aren’t because we’ve lost; deals keep getting pushed. And that’s primarily rooted in the failure to understand a prospect’s priorities.
• Understand your late-stage prospects' attributes and identify what measures attract them to purchase.

Sales leaders have an integral role to play.

• Everyone has a unique pipeline with unique problems they might need help solving.
• As a sales manager, be well-versed in each seller’s pipeline so you can root coaching and development based on their metrics to lead to more actionable results.
• There’s a danger to generalize and preach the same message to the whole team. Instead, identify what activities best process the seller’s personal goals.

Bill’s final takeaway? Find the balance of quality and quantity in building a pipeline and know the right types of prospects you should identify. Reach out to Bill at bgolder@serviceexpress.com or connect with him on LinkedIn for more great content. 

This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

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This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio.

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This course is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Certified Training Program, designed to help new and struggling sellers master sales fundamentals and close more deals. Help elevate your sales game and sign up now to get the first two modules free! You can visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals or call (561) 570-5077 for more information. We value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey.

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Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com