How to build your B2B Sale Pipeline

Are you struggling with having a smooth & profitable sales pipeline that converts your leads into paying customers? Well, chances are your sales infrastructure has not been carefully created to achieve that.

Having a B2B sale pipeline helps you better understand how deals (more exactly clients) move and execute your end goal, a purchase. Different companies set up their sale pipeline differently, but these are the ones we recommend:

• Contacted

You’ve established contact with people that might be potential clients for your service/product by conducting an outreach campaign, or any other form of marketing communication.

• Prospect

A prospect is someone who has responded or taken action to your marketing campaign and has an interest in your product or service.

• Marketing qualified lead or Sales qualified lead

Have certain characteristics that would define additional sales follow up.

• Deal closed or won

The prospect has become a client or has decided to not further communicate with you.

Depending on their defining characteristics, different types of leads typically have different characteristics and close at different rates. Identifying the type of lead you're working with is a critical first step.

There is no single action sequence that will guarantee a flawless result when creating a B2B sale pipeline. However, there are some simple rules to follow that may help you create a pipeline that works for your business model:

Define your goals

First, lay out the goals you want to achieve with the pipeline’s help. A pipeline is a powerful tool for tracking and analysing your sales team's activities and forecasting revenue. And you need to think about how the sales pipeline will help you answer these questions: ‘how do I want the process to look?’, ‘do I just want to sell or build a relationship with all my clients?’, ‘is the focus on the price of the benefits ?’.

Understand your client persona

You need to also think about who will be buying your service or product. After that, you need to identify the problems they struggle with and find the right way to communicate that you have the right solutions. You need to understand their demographics, what position they have at their current job, what drives them to make a purchase. More importantly, after you’ve identified the right client for your service or product, Social Media Boutique Agency can help you establish first contact & help you move them through the pipeline.

Create clear stages

To have a sale pipeline that runs smoothly, you need to set clear and defined stages. Decide on how many stages you want, and establish exactly what moves them to other stages. And of course, decide on each prospect if they are a marketing qualified lead or a sales lead. The difference between the two is how interested they are in what you’re selling. The more they engage with you, your website, the more likely they will be qualified as a sales lead.

Have a plan to populate the pipeline

First you have to think of a strategy to populate the pipeline. Next, you’d have to think about what you’re going to do with the prospects as soon as they're in the pipeline. You can start thinking about outreach campaigns, to gather prospects. You can have automated email campaigns which will nurture your prospects when they are in the marketing qualified lead stage.

Your marketing & sales departments should be aligned

To better understand the client persona, the marketing department should be doing some research on it. Understand what drives them to make a purchase. And create value for your products or services. The sales team are the ones that will have to persuade the prospects to become clients. So, the information between departments should flow efficiently & effectively to drive more revenue & better determine the decision makers in the clients.

Now, you should be ready to implement a sale pipeline in your business. But, are you ready to populate it and optimise the way you interact with your potential clients? At Social Media Boutique Agency we have some effective tips to help you. Let’s have a call & we’ll help you drive more high quality leads:

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