by Dr Greg Chapman
Does your Sales Pipeline leak? Hopefully your answer to that question is “Yes, but just in the places it’s supposed to.” Every business’ Sales Pipeline leaks to some extent. The question is: Have you done everything you can to ensure that it does not leak excessively? Do you even know what your Sales Pipeline looks like?
Very simply, a Sales Pipeline starts with an initial enquiry and ends with a sale. While the Sales Pipeline looks different in each business, there are still some similarities between them. In all businesses, there is a need to generate enquiries. This can be done through advertising, cold calling, public relations or word of mouth. This enquiry may be a phone call in response to an ad. Or, in retail, a customer may walk in your front door attracted by your shopfront marketing. This is the first step of the Sales Pipeline for any business. However, there are usually a number of steps from receiving an enquiry to generating a sale.