As we continue with Pipeline Health Check week, we want to address risks in pipelines. If you know your risks, you can reduce the risks or at least manage them more effectively. As you examine your pipeline this week, check for these risks:
- A large percentage of the revenue in your pipeline is from one deal.
- You are not positioned with decision makers in late cycle pipeline opportunities.
- Your pipeline is heavy on early or late sales cycle deals – no balance.
- You have not added new “suspect” opportunities to your pipeline consistently.
- In mid-cycle deals you do not have a crystal clear picture of the decision process and who is involved and in what capacity at each decision point.
- You haven’t discussed money in mid and late cycle opportunities.
- You don’t know the competitive landscape in most of your opportunities.
- Your pipeline does not have at least 3X your sales goal in opportunities.
- You have deals that have stalled out with no progress forward in a few weeks.
- You are guessing at the size of opportunities instead of basing it on real diagnosis.
- You are chasing deals that are not in your company’s sweet spot.
These are just a few of the risks to look for as you examine your pipeline. Know your risks and take steps to minimize them – the smallest steps can make the biggest difference when pursuing sales performance goals.
Sales Team Meeting Idea:
At your next sales team meeting,
- Ask your team to bring their pipelines.
- Go through each of the risks above as a group.
- Add risks to the list that apply to your team.
- Ask each person to honestly assess their pipeline against the final list of risks.
- As a team, set one action item each person can do to minimize their most dangerous pipeline risk.
- Plan to follow up as a team and do this exercise again, setting the next action item as you move toward healthier and healthier pipelines.
Meeting to Win provides in-depth sales team meeting agendas with training exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and ideas to help your sales team sell more. This Friday’s agenda is the Pipeline Health Check and will lead your team through exercises that will lead to more balanced, healthier pipelines. Join us and get your own weekly sales team meeting agendas. Learn more here.
