(888) 893-2165Around 20% of new businesses fail during their first two years, and only 25% make it to 15 years or more. There are several reasons why these endeavors fail, despite having passionate owners, and a broken sales pipeline can be the culprit.
What is a sales pipeline? It’s a way to track potential clients as they go through the customer journey.
As you can see, if it’s broken at any point, then the consumer can’t get to the final step: closing the deal. And as a result, it can hurt your business.
Read on to find out how to fix a broken revenue pipeline so you put your company back on track again.
Identify the Issues
When there’s a leak in your house, you can’t fix it until you find the root cause. The same goes for a broken sales pipeline.
So before you make changes, you need to first identify the issues. More specifically, you should review your processes in both the sales and marketing departments.
You should also take a closer look at lead generation and qualification. There’s a chance you’re targeting the wrong audience, which means you’re getting a large number of low-quality leads through the pipeline.
Remember: quality over quantity. You can send a bunch of leads in the pipeline, but if they’re not relevant people, you won’t have many completing their customer journey with you.
Creating a revenue operations (RevOps) team can help with this. However, it’s not always necessary.
Your sales team can review their lead qualification criteria and revamp them to ensure that only high-quality leads are entering the pipeline. Having a lead scoring system can be a huge help, as your sales team can then focus on prioritizing their lead outreach.
Enhance Sales Communication
Often, consumers have a broken customer journey because there’s no one there to help them when they’re ready to convert.
In this case, your sales team needs to step up their communication skills to be where customers need them and nurture leads accordingly. Figure out which members are the best contacts for each stage of the funnel and what activities are needed to nudge leads and prospects further along.
Plus, ensure that your team’s available to communicate with leads and prospects at every stage of the pipeline. Arm your sales team with the necessary tools and resources to effectively engage and nurture leads.
For instance, you can provide them with visuals, presentations, or product demonstrations. These things can help clarify complex concepts and showcase your product features. That way, consumers can better understand your brand and how you can address their pain points.
And even though there’s a separate marketing team, that doesn’t mean your sales team can’t do a little marketing themselves. Something as simple as a weekly newsletter for prospects and customers can suffice.
Provide Training and Coaching
Part of enhancing sales communication is providing them with training and coaching.
For example, you can create buyer personas, then advise your sales team on how to approach each type. Having a one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t work.
In addition, you can give them training on:
- Message personalization
- Active listening
- Clear and concise messaging
- Effective storytelling
Emphasize the importance of using a systemic follow-up process to stay in touch with both leads and prospects. It’s beneficial to set clear timelines so your team follows through consistently.
Automate Processes
If you’re not already using customer relationship management (CRM) software, you need to get one immediately. You should use other tech, such as sales automation platforms, sales pipeline software, and communications apps that integrate with your CRM so your sales team doesn’t have to do manual data entry anymore.
Not only can these programs help track interactions and manage leads, but they can also automate follow-ups to take the burden off your sales team’s shoulders. They eliminate paperwork too, so your sales team isn’t stuck doing administrative work instead of focusing on leads and prospects.
Break Departmental Silos
All too often, marketing and sales teams are in their own silos. However, your company will really thrive when departmental silos are broken, especially between these two.
Close collaboration between sales and marketing is absolutely necessary. They need to align strategies, messaging, and goals. Only then will you see optimized lead generation and better conversion rates.
Monitor and Measure Progress
Once you’ve fixed your pipeline, it’s important to see if your efforts have paid off. Use sales pipeline metrics and analytics to monitor the progress of your leads through each stage of the pipeline. Use this information to pinpoint areas that need further improvement and to make data-driven decisions.
Leverage this data and regularly review your sales team’s strategies. The pipeline should be dynamic and always evolving, as stagnation is definitely a death knell to your revenue.
Keep your ear to the ground for market changes and emerging trends, and adjust accordingly. You should also take feedback seriously and use it to improve things further.
Fix Your Broken Sales Pipeline
A broken sales pipeline may not be immediately apparent, but it can really hurt profits. Knowing how to pinpoint problem areas and address them with your sales team can mean the difference between being in the red or green.
It’s essential to train your sales team, automate processes, and break silos. In addition, viewing your pipeline as dynamic instead of static can help you adopt a mindset that’s always striving to be better.
If you’d like a professional’s help to grow your business, then Jump Crew’s conversion rate optimization (CRO) tactics can help. Check out our services and get in touch with us if you’re interested!
