In her blockbuster book and hit Netflix show, Marie Kondo encourages her audience to keep their belongings focused on either what serves a specific purpose or “sparks joy.” Every object has its place and value, and by maintaining organization, adherents of the “KonMari Method” find more space in their lives for what really matters to them.
While tracking prospects and deals through the sales pipeline takes a different touch than going through a closet, maintaining a clearly organized and actionable sales pipeline report provides similar benefits.
According to Alan McNulty, an enterprise account executive at Lendflow, “A well-managed pipeline report allows us to more easily identify and answer questions like, ‘What’s happening next? Why? What are the probabilities of success?’ Ultimately, you’re answering the question on most people’s minds — what’s the path forward to revenue?”
Investing time each day in pipeline report upkeep frees up account executives to keep their days actionable and prevent any lapses, even when unpredictable circumstances arise.
And McNulty offers a simple metric for what a well-managed pipeline looks like. “Ultimately, the pipeline should pass the CEO ‘sniff test,’ which means that at any point in time, be prepared for your pipeline to pass an ad hoc audit by those highest within the organization,” he said.
The pipeline should pass the CEO ‘sniff test.’”
Built In Austin heard more from McNulty about the magic of keeping a tidy pipeline and his advice for maintaining the pipeline that helps him close sales.
Lendflow provides embedded credit infrastructure for fintechs, lenders and software companies to build, embed and launch credit products.
What’s the single most important best practice you follow when it comes to pipeline management?
There are a few items to think about as pertains to the significance of the next step. Firstly, companies pour tremendous resources into brand awareness and recognition, marketing, events, business development and many other channels and initiatives that allow a potential deal to reach that stage in the pipeline. Companies want to know if there is a process that will confidently lead to winning these accounts, if efforts will be rewarded and where and how impact has been made.
Secondly, it typically takes team effort. Sizable deals are rarely won by a solo sales rep. That said, next steps should be clear to anyone within the organization who wants to understand the pipeline progression, which is a useful context for leadership reporting and board meetings, unplanned sick days, PTO or any unforeseen last-minute scenarios.
What’s one improvement you’ve made to your pipeline processes over time, and what impact has that had on your work?
Making a concerted effort to include call recording snippets using a tool like Chorus or Gong into a field within the opportunity. It helps with communication and transparency in understanding the nature of the conversation, buyer personas, their pain points and use case. This way, nothing is lost in translation.
What’s a best practice you follow for monitoring your sales pipeline over time and keeping it clean and up to date?
A simple practice that’s oh-so-easy to quickly fall away from is dedicating reoccurring time in the morning and before the end of the day to update the pipeline. In a world where many of us scramble from one meeting to the next or do the “back-to-back” all day long, it’s easy to let it fall by the wayside.
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