Pipeline goals and planning

"Pipeline cures all ills."

Developing a sustainable way to generate pipeline is therefore crucial to achieving consistent success.  

In this blog will give you the tools to drive a sustainable pipeline plan covering:

• the importance of setting clear pipeline goals
• the role of leading indicators, and
• how to align your weekly activities with your overall strategy.

After reading this, we hope you'll have understood some actionable insights to enhance your pipeline management and drive better results.

Understanding the importance of pipeline goals

Everything starts with a set of pipeline goals.

Understanding coverage, gap to quota, your territory, how you might campaign, etc etc, all feed into the mindset you need to set clear goals to achieve your revenue targets.

Setting clear pipeline goals helps the day-to-day activity by:

• Prioritising efforts and aligning activities with your overall strategy
• Ensuring effective resource allocation
• Measuring pipeline progress and accountability
• Sustaining momentum and achieving targets
• Enabling the direction of other team members

Whilst we don’t want to inhibit growth or promote inaction and procrastination, regular reviews should enable a surgical approach that ensures creating the right quantity and quality of opportunities.

In these regular reviews, whether you are an individual or sales leader, some thought leadership and hygiene can also go a long way to ensuring "good" is understood and you can qualify out quickly. Before starting your reviews – consider:

• Understanding what "good" looks like in your business by reviewing key pipeline vectors such as total pipeline, coverage to quota, and average deal size
• Understanding "bad" to quickly requalify or, importantly, qualify out

By setting and tracking these goals, you can ensure that you and your extended teams are working on the right opportunities and maintaining a healthy pipeline.

The role of leading indicators

Leading indicators are early signs that can predict future success. Unlike lagging indicators, which measure past performance, leading indicators provide real-time insights into your pipeline's health.

Key leading indicators for pipeline to track include:

• New contacts created: Indicates the expansion and breadth within an account
• New contacts met: Indicates the conversion of ideas to execution and relevance
• Number of meetings set: Indicates the level of engagement with potential customers
• Opportunities created: Gauges the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts
• Deals progressing to the next stage: Monitors the movement of deals through the pipeline to identify potential bottlenecks

These are just a couple of ideas if you'd like more information, you could download our Pipeline Management Starter for 10 guide.

Aligning weekly activities with your overall strategy

Once you have you overall goals – align to your weekly activities so you can execute then review progress. Here are our tips on setting effective activities:

1. Set targets

Setting weekly targets is essential for maintaining momentum. To set targets that meet your long-term goals:

• Divide and conquer: Divide your overall pipeline goals into smaller targets that can be met on a rolling weekly schedule

• Set clear expectations: Ensure you have clearly defined how you will achieve the goals and set yourself up to hit them
• Allow for adjustments: Weekly targets flag any unmet goals early, leaving time to adjust your deadlines and ensuring you’re always on track to meet your goals

2. Regularly review progress

Reviews are crucial to ensure everyone is aware of their progress and can make informed decisions about where to focus their efforts. Here are some tips for conducting effective pipeline reviews:

• Hold regular review meetings: Weekly or monthly meetings with the extended team to discuss the current state of the pipeline will identify any issues and allow you time to develop strategies to address them. If you are not part of a wider team, work with your leader to review progress.
• Assess account/territory/product progress: Take multiple angles to review progress and performance metrics; celebrate successes but be honest about where you are in pipeline development. Are you broad in terms in account, territory or product terms?

3.  Analyse the metrics

To drive continuous improvement, think about what else and garner new ideas from industry peers:

• Identifying trends and patterns: Look for recurring themes in your data. Are there specific times of the month when performance peaks or dips? Are certain products or services consistently outperforming others? By identifying these trends, you can pinpoint what’s working well and what needs adjustment.
• Adjusting strategies: Use the insights gained from your data analysis to refine your strategies. If you notice that certain outreach methods are more effective, allocate more resources to those areas. Conversely, if some approaches are underperforming, consider revising or replacing them.
• Stay goal-oriented: Keep your overall goals in mind and ensure that every activity you undertake is aligned with these objectives. This helps maintain focus and ensures that your efforts are always directed towards achieving your targets.

By incorporating these steps, you can ensure you are consistently improving and effectively working towards your goals.

Conclusion

Defining and structuring your pipeline goals is essential for achieving consistent success. By using key planning tools, tracking leading indicators, and aligning your weekly activities with your overall strategy, you can enhance pipeline management and drive better results.

Ready to take your pipeline generation to the next level? Join our comprehensive Pipeline Generation Planning course and learn how to structure your path to success. Sign up today and start achieving your sales goals!