5 Ways to Develop a Smokin’ Pipeline in 2017

Right now, 2017 is opening up all sorts of opportunities for many of our clients here at Natural.  Clients who are attacking the year and developing strong pipeline are going to be the winners this year.

Right now, you probably need to be engaged in activities that will build your pipeline. A big, beautiful, well qualified pipeline that is bulging with opportunities will give you that record-breaking sales year.

If you want a pipeline that smokes with hot opportunity in 2017, here are 5 great ways to get there right now:

• DEVELOP MASSIVE OUTBOUND ACTIVITY: Encourage some strong outbound selling behaviours.  Use this opportunity to get a jump on your competitors and develop new outbound connections via the phone and LinkedIn.  Your team needs to be talking to strangers!  To help you do this, put in place activity incentives that stretch your team out of their comfort zones.

• WHO ARE THEY? Define exactly who you want to speak to and find more of them.  Who are your ideal clients, the ones which will really love what you do? Profile them, and get your team truly in sync with their culture, natural personality, language, the size of their businesses, their typical needs, their goals and how you can help them meet them. How many of them are on your database and how can you locate and target the rest?

• HOW QUICKLY IS YOUR TEAM PULSING? Get some structure around team huddles.  Huddles are short, regular, focussed meetings which flush out plans and activities effectively and efficiently. In these crucial first days of 2017 huddles should focus attention, drive and motivate without dragging your team through lengthy meetings which divert attention from sales generation work.

• MANAGEMENT PRESENCE: Attention Sales Managers:  your presence, drive and motivation can be infectious and create a huge boost to your teams’ performance. Getting a jump on your competitors in 2017 is the responsibility of your entire sales team but it’s you who will lead them to success. And make sure that you are surrounded by resource such as sales training and coaching which can help you execute on your plans.

• DRIVE PIPELINE EFFICIENCY: Is your pipe smokin’ with opportunity, or is it a leaky or bloated pipe?  Focus your team on the highest priority targets and those companies which you have defined (see point 1) as your ideal new clients.  Redefine the ‘maybes’ – they are either in, or they are out, based on your qualification criteria.  Here are the Natural Training pipeline qualification criteria – shortened to NATRL:

1. Need – do they have a genuine training need that Natural can address, and is it in our ‘sweet spot’ of success? In other words, if we are not best in the world at delivering it, we shouldn’t be offering it to clients.
2. Authority – Are we talking to a decision maker?
3. Timescale – Is there a defined time period for the training initiative? If there isn’t, it shouldn’t be in your pipe!
4. ROI: Can we offer a demonstrable return on investment to our clients?
5. Likelihood: Once the first four are in hand, this last one is a little more subjective.  It includes competitors in the frame, case studies to prove our expertise, and most of all how alert and engaged the customer is with Natural’s sales training brand and mission to change the training world.  If we are there to simply make up the numbers, then we politely decline!

Each year, here at Natural Training, our sales training programmes help some of the UK’s leading businesses develop successful pipelines and generate outstanding sales results.  We can consult to you on what excellent pipeline generation looks like, and we can kick start your team’s success with our superb Natural Live training where we make loads of real calls during the training using our winning natural techniques.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help you do the same, call us today for a free, no obligation, consultation with one of our Pipeline Generation experts on the number shown at the top of this page or request a call using our quick and simple enquiry form here.