Effective Sales Pipeline Management Course

Introduction

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of the sales process, divided into stages. It’s designed to help sales representatives and teams manage the often complex processes that drive deals to close. Sales pipelines have been in use for a long time, but managing them well can be an elusive goal. To make them effective, sales leaders must possess a combination of real-world experience, detailed design, and willingness to change and adapt. Mark Sellers, author of The Funnel Principle.

In this course the participant will learn about what a sales pipeline is, how to choose the right sales stages, best practices to drive leads, how to optimize your sales pipeline, and ways to manage sales team more effectively

Duration

5 Days

Who Should Attend?

This training course is intended for:

• Sales Management Team which include:  Head of Sales and Marketing, Sales and Marketing Directors, Commercial Directors, Business Development Executives, Sales team leaders and managers and all those who carry responsibility for achieving or exceeding sales targets and would like their teams closing ratios to improve.
• This course will also be of benefit to those sales teams that are good at building relationships with clients but don’t have a proper sales process to help maximize effectiveness.  This could include:  Sales People, Sales Operations, Marketing Teams, and Bid Support Teams.
• This course will also benefit those that work in the finance function and want to understand how the sales forecasting process works and how it can be made more accurate.  This could include:  Chief Financial Officers, Financial Accounting Officers, and Financial Forecasting Officers.

Course Objectives

The course will assist participants to:

• Recognize the highly interactive nature of the pipeline management process.
• Identify potential pipeline risks.
• Link the stages of the pipeline to key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.
• Recognize indicators of pipeline “health” and common pipeline problems using KPIs and metrics.
• Establish disciplines and best practices that will support robust pipeline management.
• Anticipate how a change to more robust pipeline management will be perceived by your sales team.
• Develop an approach for communicating the benefits of pipeline and funnel management to your sales team and get their buy-in.
• Practice focusing on a pipeline issue using data, engaging in a productive coaching dialogue, and collaboratively problem solving in order to create an action plan to change the pipeline.

Course Content:

Module 1

• Understanding the role of the sales professional
• Planning for results
• Balancing the need for short-term results with the required longer term investments
• The need to plan
• The sales pipeline as the basis of managing the business of sales
• The customer’s buying process
• Considering the total pipeline as a portfolio of sub-pipelines
• The sales funnel, and why it is rarely shaped like a funnel
• Planning the optimal sales funnel
• The pipeline planning tool
• Building a pipeline plan for short and long term results

Module 2

• Comparing the actual pipeline to the optimal plan
• The planning cycle
• Reviewing the pipeline for quantity
• Understanding pipeline size
• Understanding pipeline shape
• Setting the plan to build and maintain the quantity of sales opportunities across the pipeline

Module 3

• Reviewing the pipeline for quality
• Synchronizing the sales pipeline and selling activities into the customer’s buying process
• Testing to understand where the customer is in their buying process
• Influencing the customer’s buying process in terms of velocity, completion ration, and deal size
• Selling actions to influence the pipeline levers by stage of the buying process

Module 4

• A four step pipeline review process
• Setting selling plans based upon pipeline analysis
• Time management and pipeline planning
• Pipeline management in practice
• Selling accelerators

Module 5

• Managing the business of sales
• Best practices
• Overcoming barriers and hurdles
• Keys to successful implementation
• Forecast accuracy
• Market dynamics
• Developing a personal implementation plan

Training Approach

This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.

Tailor-Made Course

This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: [email protected] Tel: +254 721 331 808 Website: www.upskilldevelopment.com