Tossing and turning? Trying to figure out how to grow your business, and you glance at the clock and see it is 4 am? Creating a robust sales pipeline is one way to feel more confident about the future and sleep easier.
What is a sales pipeline?
The purpose of a customer pipeline is the following:
- Creating brand and product awareness
- Generating solid leads
- Converting the leads to sales
- Maintaining existing customers and keeping them happy
- Upselling and cross-selling
How to create a customer pipeline?
- Identify your target customer and persona – often new businesses skip this step, and spread their net too widely. Extreme focus will land you lasting customers.
- Identify leads that fall into the target customer and persona.
- Categorize the leads that you have identified into short-term, medium-term and long-term.
- Create communication tailored for the different categories you have created.
- Execute on the communications and re-categorize leads if needed.
- Tweak and edit communications, positioning, and offering if needed.
- Convert leads into customers and continue process.
As we created a customer pipeline, we noticed the leads closed more quickly and seamlessly. Also, when we lost a lead, it didn’t matter as all our eggs weren’t in one basket. Also, as word spreads, leads beget more leads, and soon your business is thriving.
Tell us more about your customer pipeline in the comments below. How did you create it, and how long did it take you to create it?
This comic was originally created for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.