There’s a liar administering your pipeline!
Okay, “liar” is a bit strong, and the exclamation point was dramatic, but it was an opening hook, forgive me.
And anyway, I wouldn’t have said it if you weren’t being overly-optimistic about the chances of closing those deals.
Please consider and be accountable for your part in the regrettably confrontational start to this email.
Let’s work together to be more realistic and encourage better action by switching from how you currently look at your pipeline to something more meaningful.
The traditional pipeline
Pipelines are built around stages; events that say the deal has moved forward.
Lead. Contacted. Qualified. First meeting. Pitch. Final proposal. Negotiations.
If you are using a weighted pipeline (and you should be), you put a percentage chance against each one. This means we can work out the value of the pipeline adjusted for probability.
Each stage has a probability.
- 5% for a new lead
- 20% once it’s qualified
- 50% when the proposal is out
Our problem is that not everyone in the same stage is equal, and even if we adjust it deal-by-deal we are still anchored to the stage’s baseline.
Same stage, different behaviours
There’s a huge difference between someone chasing you for a proposal and someone you had to suggest sending a proposal to as a way to end the call.
These people are in the same stage. But they’re behaving differently; those behaviours give you a much better picture of how likely they are to become a client.
Take these two leads:
- Someone with your content and replying to emails before the first meeting
- Someone who sent out a one-liner asking how much it costs to redesign their site and hasn’t accepted the meeting invite yet.
Lead 1 is good, Lead 2 is already a 0%.
Their behaviours are far more revealing than the stage they are in.
So why aren’t our stages based on behaviours rather than events?
Rethinking the pipeline
What if instead of “proposal sent,” we had “proposal read”?
What if instead of “meeting planned and agenda sent” we had meeting accepted and agenda confirmed?
Two things would happen.
Firstly, it would be clear which deals to focus your limited resources on.
If they haven’t been responsive during the process then they aren’t going to do anything more with your proposal than flip to the costings.
The time you spent preparing it could have been spent on a prospect that is engaged.
Your pipeline would show you where to spend your time.
Secondly, the pipeline becomes more meaningful.
As people get towards the end, their chances increase that they’re going to convert. Not just because of the default probability that stage gets, but because they’re exhibiting behaviours of a buyer.
Your forecasting becomes more accurate.
You’ll naturally improve
Make this switch and you won’t be able to game the pipeline anymore.
Sending a proposal to a disengaged prospect doesn’t magically make them 50% likely to buy.
We can all put a meeting in someone else’s diary. The proposal got sent, tick. The meeting got booked, tick. The email got sent, tick.
I can be a pretty productive new business executive here. My activity looks good. But is it meaningful or is it just my to-do list?
The important to-do list is your prospect’s. How can you make sure they have replying to your email on there?
This will encourage you and your team to write emails that get replied to, create meetings that people are desperate to attend, and build proposals that get attention.
It’s not your actions that move deals to the next stage, it’s the person you want to buy.
This is the real world your pipeline should represent.
Go forth and implement the behaviour based CRM!