Culling the Sales Pipeline

What I can also tell you is that in order for the pipeline to produce sales, you need to pro- actively keep it flowing through a process of culling. To do this you must constantly monitor your progress on accounts to determine whether or not to keep them in the pipeline. If you hang on to accounts too long, the pipeline can get clogged which will not allow any accounts to turn into sales. This almost sounds like actual plumbing on the job, and in reality, that is exactly what it is!

The age old question is how long should you work on an account before you either put it on the back burner or essentially give up on the notion of turning it into a client. That is a hard question to answer. It comes down to your ability to use your intuition, as well as enough real knowledge about the account to make the intelligent choice.

My suggestion is to slowly put an account on the back burner. Instead of calling every couple of days for an appointment, maybe call once a week, then every other week, followed by once a month and once a quarter. This will allow the flow of accounts more desirable to actually become active. It will also allow for new potential accounts to be put into the pipeline. If an account is meant to be, it will be. As long as you've carefully provided recommendations against the client’s needs, they will either understand the value of your product or service, or not.

What are your challenges when it comes to keeping the sales pipeline flowing? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time…