When it’s the fourth quarter, there are two things on every sales leader’s mind:
- Finishing the year strong to meet or exceed revenue goals.
- Building a sales pipeline so their team is on track for next year.
In the race to wrap up the year, top-of-the-funnel activity often gets put on the back burner, while sales professionals focus on the immediate task at hand: hitting this year’s number. But if the team doesn’t add new deals to the funnel by prospecting and qualifying opportunities, the sales pipeline will have slowed to a trickle when the new year starts.
Ending the quarter successfully while managing a pipeline for next year requires focus and effort. If left to chance, your sales professionals might miss this window of opportunity. The good news is that helping your team balance closing deals while building a sales pipeline is something you can control.
You don’t need to have a huge number of new opportunities in play—just enough so the team doesn’t have to start the year with an empty plate. Coach your team to use bite-sized actions during the end-of-year sprint to fill the sales funnel. This will make a significant difference without stressing out your sellers.
It’s worth the planning. If your sales team defaults to an “all hands on deck” effort at the end of the quarter and takes their eye off next year’s quota, it may sabotage your success in the new year.
How to Build a Sales Pipeline: 4 Tips
Here are four things you can do to ensure next year’s pipeline doesn’t take a hit.
1. Set Your Sales Target
Set a “new opportunity” target and track it each week to gauge progress or lack thereof.
Hold your team accountable to themselves, each other, and the business by sharing a new opportunity update into each week that shows actual compared to target.
This can be shared via email, in a team meeting, or one on one. Creating this regular cadence will help maintain focus and execution. Be sure to acknowledge wins (large and small) and issue alerts for weeks when no new opportunities are brewing.
2. Identify High-Value Activities
We have all experienced it. During the most intense weeks of our sales year, it becomes difficult to find the time for prospecting. Help your team stay on track by identifying tasks they can accomplish between calls and meetings without a big-time commitment.
One effective prospecting technique is for sellers to prepare quick and easy touchpoints at the beginning of the week and take five minutes between meetings to make a call or send an email. Executing against small targets that can be accomplished quickly and without a lot of effort will optimize time between meetings and stimulate new opportunities.
For example, you can introduce a “five alive” concept. Have your sales professionals send a personal email, to five high-level stakeholders, with industry research, an article, a company ebook, or a link to relevant insight.
Being in the habit of continuous prospecting will not only build sales pipeline; it will help reduce any anxiety your team has toward the end of the year and keep them moving forward at a steady pace.
3. Ask for Referrals
Sales referrals are one of the most powerful ways to generate high-quality leads. Getting a customer referral helps sales professionals over the first hurdle of the deal: establishing trust.
Most customers are glad to give a referral for a product or service they’re happy with; it’s just a matter of making “the ask” a part of your sales team’s follow-up. Having your sales team ask for sales referrals at the end of the year is another low-effort, high-value activity that will help build the pipeline.
4. Fish for Extra Budget
Company executives occasionally find themselves with unused budget they will lose at the end of the year if they haven’t invoiced against it. The best way to find out which of your clients have dollars they need to “use or lose” is, quite simply, to ask. This outreach strategy can uncover both end-of-year dollars and new opportunities for next year.
This action can become part of your “five alive” push, with sellers making a few “fishing” calls each day in between meetings. Consider making this goal a leading indicator and tracking it in Q3 and Q4.
It’s easy for sellers to commit to having two or three proactive conversations around unused budget per week. It’s a great example of a small activity that can yield big results. Three conversations times eight sales professionals over six weeks equals 144 customer touchpoints.
Finishing the Year Strong
As you tie up the fourth quarter and begin filling next year’s pipeline, make sure your professionals have a solid plan to hit their numbers. Keep your direction simple.
Encourage your sales professionals to balance closing business and building pipeline in a way that scales during the busiest weeks of the year. This ability differentiates low- and top-performing teams and will keep your sellers on track to have a great new year.
Learn how The Brooks Group’s Sales Pipeline Management program can help you optimize your sales process, keep deals moving through the sales funnel, and improve sales results with proven pipeline techniques.
