Set up a pipeline to build a process
Think of your sales pipeline as a process through which you guide your prospects to become customers.
What are the steps you need to take with them? How does a lead evolve to a won or lost deal?
These steps are the stages in your pipeline. Take a few minutes to write them down.
Visualize to take control
Now set up this pipeline in Salesflare to have a visual overview of who's where in your process.
Head to Settings > Configure pipeline. You can hit the orange button to create stages, hit the pencil icon to edit stages, and drag and drop to reorder them.
This enables you take control of your process. And it will make you feel more in control as well.
Build in qualification to be more efficient
Now think of your pipeline as a funnel. How can you quickly filter in this process and make sure you spend your precious time with the best prospects?
This is where good qualification comes in. You need to proactively decide whether the prospect is a good one. To make an objective decision, use the BANT criteria: you think you'll be able to close the deal because:
they have a budget to spend (Budget)
you're talking to the right person (Authority)
they have a need for your product (Need)
and there's a definite timeline; not "some day". (Timeline)
Define a stage where you say "yay or nay". The earlier you do it the better.
A concrete example
Here's a concrete example of how you can stage it (for e.g. software sales):
Lead: you've found a good prospect, ready to contact
Contacted: you're in contact with the prospect
Interested: the prospect shows interest
Qualified: you've qualified the prospect as a good one (see above)
Trial: the prospect is trying your software
Won/Lost: the prospect becomes a customer... or not
Need help defining the right stages? Hit us up on the chat.