Building a Pipeline for Q1

As you count down the days till the end of 2019, as a sales rep, sales manager or president of the company, naturally you’re already thinking about next year’s planning, budgets, quota and pipeline. Depending on how much you had to deplete from your current sales pipeline and funnel, hopefully you’ve left a sufficient quantity of sales leads to start 2020 on a high note.

Not so sure about that?

Sales Leads Quantity vs Quality.

Sales lead formulas such as lead to revenue ratio, or sales conversion rate and lead value have been around for many years. It’s a way to forecast sales and justify spending in order to acquire new potential customers. Regardless of how management and sales managers try to measure it, there are (some-to-too many) sales leads in the sales funnel that probably should not be in there.

As it seems impossible to add new sales leads at the end of Q4, it’s just as difficult at the beginning of Q1. How can quality sales leads be entered into the sales funnel?

Quality Sales Leads.

It is possible to start entering new sales leads into the sales funnel now for 2020. What if you knew of new projects going on? You do with SalesLeads’ Project Reports. Take a look at the following:

“Specialty food ingredient mfr. is planning to invest $29 million for an expansion and equipment upgrades of their processing facility. They have recently received approval for the project.”

“Lightning protection systems is planning for an expansion of their HQ office. They have recently received approval for the project.” 

These are recent identified projects that we have in the SalesLeads system. Along with the description, you will also know the Facility Use, Project Type, The Stage of the Project and the Value. Once visiting the sales leads’ website (so you know a bit more about them), you can now make a phone call and send an email to the project contact(s) to begin a dialogue. Once complete, you have enough information to place the company into the sales funnel.

If you enter just one identified project per week into the sales funnel between now and mid-January, that’s four new qualified sales leads. Now run the sales formula. You’ll quickly experience how the ratio changes into a more positive direction. Management will also take note of what you’ve been able to accomplish by diligently working for new sales at the end of December and beginning of January. We all know it’s the hardest times to build new business opportunities.

Try.

Try it out, and take a look in the system for yourself. The quality of information is exactly what you need to get new sale cycles started.